Jurassic World Evolution review

My boyhood wonder was heightened by the first moments of Jurassic World Evolution. I saw my first dinosaur creation in action through glasses of pure nostalgia. Although it was only a Struthiomimus moment, it was a wonderful moment as the gates opened. Life truly had found its way. It was a long-lasting feeling to hear the Jurassic Park theme as you started the game.

Jurassic World Evolution can be described as a typical building sim. You will need to build buildings like the Hammond creation laboratory, which you'll use to incubate your dinosaurs, before releasing them into an enclosure. With a wide range of fencing options, viewing areas, and landscaping options, you can design your enclosures however you like. There are many building options available, but you have a limited amount of them. This can lead to gameplay becoming stale as you move around an island. After you have built all you need, you can focus on fixing fences and returning any escaped dinos to your park, so that it doesn't follow Dr Hammond's path.

There are many islands that you can build parks. Once you reach a certain rank, you will be able to move on to the next island. Each island presents its own challenges, such as being subject to frequent storms that drive your guests away and destroy buildings, or taking over an existing park that is suffering financial losses. The themes of each island keep the game interesting, as well as the research and expedition system. You can invest in research to discover cures for the various diseases that infect your dinos. Also, you can improve your ranger team's capabilities and upgrade buildings. Similar to the expedition team, you can send out teams across the globe in order to find fossils. This increases the number of dinosaurs that can be raised and the likelihood of their survival.

It is true that Dr Ian Malcolm, the director of Jurassic Park, said in the original Jurassic Park film: Life finds a way. There's a way to escape your confinements no matter how careful. When you release more dangerous dinos, this can be frustrating. You'll lose your reputation if you fail to have shelters or don't open them.

You can incubate a huge number of dinosaurs. There are 40 species and many different patterns. It's a joy to watch your creation emerge from the incubator lab proudly. It's also distractingly fun just to see them interact with other dinosaurs and explore their paddock.

Each dinosaur's visual and auditory aspects have been meticulously studied and analyzed. Their movements, down to the smallest movement of their heads at intriguing sounds, seem incredibly real. You can see Struthiomimus exploring his paddock. It's obvious how similar they look to an ostrich, as their name means "ostrich mimic". Each dinosaur's unique sounds and cries are instantly recognisable. The sound of a Velociraptor catching his prey from the live feeder will instantly remind players of the scene in the kitchen from Jurassic Park.

Jurassic World Evolution park view

This attention to detail is what keeps Jurassic World Evolution fascinating. The division system is also interesting. You will receive various missions throughout the game, each from one of three divisions: entertainment, science, or security. Your respect for each division will increase as you complete more missions, while your respect for others will decrease. This can give you more research options in your preferred division but could also lead to sabotage by the other.

There are many missions that can be performed. They could involve two dinosaurs fighting one another or no civilian deaths for a certain period. Sabotages are somewhat strange when they occur. They chose to destroy my power plants, which reduced their output to the whole park, instead of ignoring the security division. They can't do this for their own ends, surely?

It could use some speed improvements. It feels slow to start a new island. You earn money slowly and wait for more money to build your park. It's chaotic but lots of fun midway through an island campaign. There's always something going on. You can find dinosaurs to hunt, manage your shelters, research expeditions, and calm rogue dinos. When you reach the end of an island and are trying to achieve the five star ranking your park will take care of itself. Escapees won't be able to escape, so money is no longer an issue.

Jurassic World Evolution

Jurassic World Evolution is the best-looking building sim that I have ever played. You can zoom in on the islands to see the whole landscape, or zoom in on the people visiting your park. You can see every detail in the dinosaurs, including wrinkles and sharp claws and teeth. Every island you can build on has its own unique landscape and flora.

You can take a new look at your park by being able to drive or pilot the helicopters. You can also photograph dinosaurs and then sell them. Although the controls are difficult to use with a keyboard and mouse, you can still play the game using a controller. Both have their strengths: the controller allows for better camera manipulation, while the UI is much easier to navigate using a mouse.

Although there are some issues with the pacing and the division system that isn't very convincingly implemented, Jurassic World Evolution has been the game dinosaur lovers have been looking forward to since childhood.