Jurassic World Evolution

One of the best games i have ever played even after playing the sequal i still have a special spot in my heart for this game

Being honest this is basically Dinosaur Zoo Tycoon, but with way more teeth and Jeff Goldblum judging your life choices. You’re in charge of building a park full of genetically engineered dinosaurs, and somehow you're also expected to keep guests alive. No pressure. In short: run a dino park, play with science, and pretend you’re smarter than the people in the movies. (You’re not.) But it’s fun to try.

Great for the steam deck.. play with big deadly chickens ingame while cuddling lil deadly kittens on the couch.

Jurassic world evolution is a nice lesson which teaches you that your beloved pet dilophosaurus named "Spit on that thang" will eventually die of old age.

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☑ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS
---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't
---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf
---{ Audience }---
☑ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☑ Grandma
---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☑ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☑ Old Fashioned
☐ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 15% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data
---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☑ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls
---{ Grind }---
☑ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding
---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☑ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life
---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☑ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond
---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☐ Worth the price
☑ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money
---{ Bugs }---
☐ Never heard of
☑ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs
---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☑ 7
☐ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10

Not worth the price in any world. It is fun, but get the second one because it has better dinos and it goes on sale for 2.00

It's been a hot minute since I spent any time with a city building game, so I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed Jurassic World Evolution. I have purchased and played the base game, no DLC, and although I have enjoyed myself, there are a few shortcomings that are worth mentioning here. With that said, JWE is different enough, and offers some gameplay similar SimCity 2000, which makes it a unique and fun title in this genre worth coming back to.

One of the first things that brought a smile to my face was hearing Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcom with his doomsaying, sarcastic wit. He's there to remind the player about the ever present dangers of trifling with science, etc (and you'll hear a lot from him as you continue to play). In fact, it sounds like almost all of the main actors have reprised their JW roles for voice acting in this title, and it's very welcome.

JWE presents itself to the player in a way that invites playing via campaigns and challenges vs. pure open sandbox. Each level / challenge is presented as an island on which the JW staff will be expanding operations. The first island is largely about learning the key mechanics of this title: setting up enclosures, hatching dinosaurs, taking care of them, etc. As challenges are overcome, new islands will be available with new challenges, like storms, sabotage, limited building space, catering to guests and building an entertainment empire.

That's what's interesting here, is that in each island there are three streams of influence to satisfy: entertainment, science, and security. Each division offers challenges that are unique to its area of influence (science wants you to create specific dinosaurs, security wants security, entertainment wants guest approval) and each will reward the player with opening up a science to research or a new area to excavate.

Because that's the thing, while you're building your dino park, you are also overseeing the gathering of dino DNA from around the world. To help you, you'll have access to international maps with dig sites that you can send excavation teams to (no gameplay here, just a ticker), those teams bring back fossils (for researching dino DNA) or valuables (to sell), and those fossils can lead to new dinos to breed and hatch for the entertainment of your guests (like Rome, if Rome had dinosaurs).

I mentioned above that there were some SimCity 2000 moments here: you can find those in the first-person / control method with security jeeps and helicopters. The player is able to send those minions off to do chores as needed (like fix things, heal dinos, etc) but their speed is slow, so if you're up for it you can take control and drive around the park you've created just to see how awful the terrain grading is after you placed all of your buildings.

My beefs are largely around a few technical issues and onboarding. From an onboarding sense, the game made it clear to me that I needed to achieve 3 stars per island to move to the next, and it was also made clear that I needed to appeal to all three areas of influence and not leave anything behind, but it was not made clear to me that each area of influence had a specific mission on each island that needed completing if you want to access higher tier buildings. So I made it all of the way to the final island using only entry-level buildings - I even made the last island 5 stars - only to find out that I needed to go back to the first island to start the missions all over again. On the one hand it gives me reason to go back, on the other hand it's a bit frustrating to have these higher tiered buildings locked behind missions.

Because some of these missions are just not fun, and I have to do them to get the better buildings. I'm at that point of the game now, which has driven me to review.

Technically, the biggest issue I've had are audio issues. I've had to restart the game due to spoken word audio tracks playing twice and at times turning in to a cacophony of noise. Graphically I've had no issues but then I think this game is safe for most rigs built in the past 7-8 years.

There are DLC available for this game but none of it truly appeals to me. I'm enjoying my time with this title and I'll likely continue to play the base game for a while, provided these missions don't continue to stifle my enjoyment of the game. So far so good, with at least 80% of the missions being enjoyable.. but it does feel odd when I'm going back to island one after 5-starring island 5 and hearing the entertainment guys trying to come to terms with making our first dinosaur...

So yes, I do recommend this game if you have an enjoyment of city-builders, dinosaurs, and most importantly Jeff Goldblum. You can't avoid him here, he just .. finds a way.