Jurassic World: Evolution feels like a copy paste of Operation Genesis
So I picked up Jurassic World: Evolution recently because I loved Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis as a kid and have a "dinosaur park sim"-shaped hole in my heart. I'm enjoying it for what it's worth. I think 60 bucks is a little steep for what it's offering, so I can't recommend you pick it up right now unless you REALLY want a Jurassic Park sim game with potential for future growth.
Anyways, that being said, I am 99% convinced this game is just a reskin of the old one. Everything from the dinosaur animations, to the mission types, to the vehicle controls, to how the general flow of gameplay goes feels almost identical to Operation Genesis. I get that there's only so much you can do when you're making what is essentially the same game with from the same property, but take this from a man who put an ungodly amount of time into OG as a child: it feels 100% the same. Like I think all they did was take OG and give the dinosaurs a very nice new paint job and then give everything else a half-hearted coat of paint.
I don't mind all that much since I can't play OG anymore, but I still found it odd how shockingly similar this games feels to OG. Anyone else notice this? Or am I just crazy/supplanting my memories of the old game onto the new one?
I agree that in its current state it's not really worth the $60 price tag unless you have the money to burn and really want to play right away. I hope they continue developing the game since at its core I think it can be really fun. Main gripes are the fact that you can't speed up time at all and the contracts are really grindy. Larger maps would be a great inclusion as well, or at least make varied map sizes for sandbox mode.
It has a LOT of potential for future development, and I really hope they do more things aside from add more dinosaurs. Not that I'd turn my nose up at more dinosaurs. It definitely feels like it was kind of tossed out the door once it just good enough, most likely to generate hype for the new movie.
I haven’t played either so can’t really speak to whether or not it’s a reskin. However, given the original game is on PS2, you could probably get it running on PC using PCSX2 if you wanted to do a direct comparison.
I also loved operation genesis. Is there really no new things to accomplish in the game at all? Thanks for taking the time to write this. It's refreshing to see a person who is genuinely a fan of the game to write this out of kindness and wariness than another angry critic.
There are a few new things I like. It has some genetic manipulation things that allow you to change the color pattern of the dinosaurs, and some of their traits. However, aside from the different physical appearance of color, there really isn't much else those traits do. The best ones are increased lifespan and disease resistance. You can make them have more health, defense, attack, health regen, etc, but honestly why? It's not like you have to make dinosaurs to fight attacking enemy dinosaurs (unless that's part of the end game or something).
I mean, I could use it to make a raptor possibly win a fight with a Rex, but it's not like the fight animations are all that cool to watch.
I'm still enjoying it, again because I liked Operation Genesis a lot and this is basically nicer looking Operation Genesis. But even OG had some more features than this game does. For one you can't follow individual park members and see what their likes and such are. There's also no hot air balloons as far as I've seen.
There are a bunch of new dinosaurs, but also some that are absent from the last game that I would have liked to see come back.
Again, I think it's fair to say that this game overall is a 6.5-7 outta ten. It's shallow and has flaws, but it is still fun if you like this style of game. More-so if you liked OG.