Oh boy have I been waiting to this review this game. Years ago a young dinosaur obsessed child dedicated years of his life to a video game in which you actively got to create your own version of Jurassic Park. That child was me, and to this day that game known as Operation Genesis is one I still treasure fondly. Just imagine my excitement when out of nowhere, many years later, it was announced there was to be a spiritual successor to this iconic title. Over the years I just grew to accept that a remake wasn't going to happen, and surely even now in this surreal moment there's not a chance this spiritual successor could ever attempt to fill the void of the legendary Operation Genesis. I hate to admit this, but times have changed, and so has my childhood ambition to build a Jurassic Park of my own. Nowadays I sneer at dodgy paleontology, and even grumble over some of the limited technical aspects that held back Operation Genesis. Evolution then, like it's audience, needs to have aptly evolved to suite a new breed of gamers rather than drawing prestige off of previous triumphs.
To understand what makes a Jurassic Park style park builder so awesome to play we need to take a brief look back at Operation Genesis. It's certainly not a game without its flaws, but nobody who ever played that masterpiece would ever admit so. This is because playing that game for hours was a fucking brilliant experience, and no matter whether you wanted a serious challenge from some missions, or just to build a park to lure visitors into being eaten by a newly released Spinosaurus, it was a game where hours went flying by. This is a mantra that those shitty Jurassic Park mobile games could never hope to achieve, so you can see the importance of what this new release means to dinosaur lovers like myself. Frontier were the guys tasked with making this hugely important title, and whilst I wasn't particularly amazed by their previous game Planet Coaster, I still have an infinite amount of respect for the developers behind Roller Coaster Tycoon, which is another childhood favorite. These guys know how to make park building feel epic, so all the ingredients behind a great game are in place.
Just like in the film series Evolution promises to be bigger and flashier than its predecessors. Mirroring the evolution of the fictional Jurassic Park this game will see you start from humble beginnings nursing harmless dinosaurs to creating Frankenstein like monsters to please your accountancy team. Your task is quite simple really. Build a park on five separate islands, each with their own challenges, whilst building your reputation and unlocking new content along the way. I don't actually like this progression system very much, and would rather there be a choice between a sandbox mode and following the missions. In my opinion this current system just stifles creativity, and instead of being allowed the keys to these five islands you're only allowed a sandbox scenario on one, which happens to be Isla Nublar from the original film. This one island is quite underwhelming in terms of the land available, but also there's no finances or progression system on this island, so the strategy element is almost non existent. It's in this respect that Evolution feels majorly restrictive at times, and an island customisation feature like in Operation Genesis is sorely needed if I'm to donate whole chunks of my life towards this game. Unfortunately the settings and challenges just feel samey at the moment, but this is a small issue that could easily be fixed within due course.
That small area pictured is all the space you have to fulfill your childhood dreams. Space is really the only thing stopping you, as there's fuck all strategy to succeeding on this island.
The focal point of Evolution is thankfully the dinosaurs, and my fucking God have they nailed that aspect. There's nothing quite like the feeling of releasing your very first dinosaur in this game. It's an experience that almost mirrors Dr. Grant's shock in the original Jurassic Park. Even if your first released dinosaur is some shitty ostrich like thing, it still feels fucking amazing. Here you have a dinosaur created in stunning detail that you yourself have just released. It's a fucking glorious feeling. This feeling is then amplified by a million times when you end up releasing huge beasts like the Brachiosaurus and T-Rex. I don't mean to sound over the top, but these brief interactions are up their with the greatest moments I've ever experienced in gaming. You know shit's about to go down when you release a new T-Rex. You hear the thud, there's opera singers creating a foreboding atmosphere instantly, followed by that bloodcurdling roar, and then Jeff Goldblum appears and calls you an idiot. Just. Fucking. Brilliant. What's equally amazing is how these dinosaurs are animated. Large carnivores appear just as vicious as they look, and they will fucking murder anything you put in their way with the impressive fighting sequences. There's a whole range of dinosaurs to unlock from all over the planet. You also have the ability to roughly genetically modify as well, allowing you to create their own personalities as well as making them look nicer. There's no doubt in my mind that this game portrays dinosaurs in a different league to any other game in history, and even rivals the films with just how epic they all appear.
Releasing a T-Rex is a particular moment that I don't think will ever get tiring.
Dinosaurs are great and all, but there needs to be a decent strategy game under the surface. We've already covered the disappointing sandbox island, but the mission based islands also suffer from big flaws. Evolution adopts a style that's designed to be fundamentally calm and peaceful, but when things go wrong it's genuinely stressful. And things definitely do go wrong all the time, especially if you stupidly decide to house dinosaurs that are really needy, like those wankers commonly known as Stegosaurus. Aside from these assholes I was largely disappointed by the forgiveness displayed in Evolution. In Operation Genesis the Ingen board would go ape shit if there was a mere hint that any casualties might occur, and your star rating and income would plummet if any large scale destruction did occur. However in Evolution a large massacre might hurt your star rating a bit, but that can easily be forgotten about in a few minutes. In this respect this new game feels less like a genuine simulation, and you can casually leave that rabid Spinosaurus you created in relative peace of mind that he won't unexpectedly act like a complete dick. Meanwhile in Operation Genesis a light bit of drizzle would end up sending all your large carnivores fucking crazy. That game felt like a real challenge to master, whereas in Evolution the strategy elements take a very noticeable backseat. In truth Evolution is painfully simplistic. You incubate and release some dinosaurs, and then you'll make some money. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. Maybe this simplicity was on purpose, and it's certainly a very accessible game, but there's only so much gawking at dinosaurs you can do before you start wishing for more.
Your T-Rex might be crashing through enclosures and murdering everything in sight, but strangely nobody seems to give a shit.
This brings me on to the biggest disappointment in Evolution. At one stage of this game, and this may be after about half an hour or about twenty hours, you get the sudden crushing realisation that the whole game is a bit limited. At the end of the day every event in the game is alarmingly predictable, from simplistic dinosaur behaviour to the mindless zombies that are presented as guests. Don't get me wrong, I love creating elaborate enclosures for my dinosaurs on a scale I could only imagine in my wildest dreams as a kid, but endlessly repeating this action actually gets quite tiresome after a while. Furthermore the missions are too basic and rarely give you a chance to flex your creativity. In Operation Genesis the missions and challenges were so diverse and varied, always keeping you on your toes, and giving you a real sense that you're managing your own troublesome dinosaur park. In Evolution there's not much variation, and the same strategy will often reap the same rewards. The only diversity in missions comes from the contracts, where you try and please key members of staff. However these small tasks are spontaneous and just flat out unnecessary, adding nothing to the experience apart from a cheap method of progression. Other features, such as being forced to repetitively refill feeders, are not particularly fun either, and just irritating quite frankly. In fact there's a whole level of unnecessary faff involved in just the basic tasks, so when something does go horribly wrong, and it will, you suddenly have the stressful task of opening about five different sub-menus at once to complete a single action. Half of Evolution feels like it could have done with a lot of refining, whereas the other half feels as though it requires much more detail. It's a strange mix, and yet somehow the game almost manages to pull it off.
The critical point is that Jurassic World Evolution is a ton of fun, and certainly lives up to the huge expectations of this mammoth franchise. I do think Operation Genesis is a better rounded and more ambitious title than Evolution, but this newer game has plenty of charms itself to keep you entertained. In truth this game could have gone horribly wrong, and if you're picky about strategy games and revel in relentlessly micromanaging every aspect of the park then you may feel it has. I don't however. Evolution may well be more style over substance, but it's a really enjoyable game to sink hours into, with a basis on lovingly staring at dinosaurs rather than spreadsheets. You could say this is a biased review, and you may be right, because I fucking love dinosaurs, so I'm always going to enjoy myself in a game of this style. If for some stupid reason you find dinosaurs to be anything but exciting then this definitely won't be a game you'll end up enjoying. However no matter what your opinion on dinosaurs there's no denying that the original Operation Genesis was the better game, but don't let that fool you into thinking this new Jurassic Park title can't stand on its own two feet.
Final Score: 8/10
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