Many attempts have been made to create a game based on the Jurassic Park series, and while some have been successful, there aren’t many instances of such games in recent times. Jurassic World Evolution by Frontier Developments seemed like a breath of fresh air for Jurassic Park enthusiasts since it enabled them to live out their dream of controlling a genuine park with the numerous Dinosaurs living inside it.
Frontier Developments has used the knowledge gained from making the first Jurassic World Evolution to create this sequel. Jurassic World Evolution 2 provides park management and simulation experience while also attempting to toy with our nostalgia with a nod to the old Jurassic Park films. There is a standard campaign mode that may suit newcomers, but once you’ve mastered the controls, you can take the experience to the next level with Chaos Theory. This allows you to dive into a set of short campaigns centered on the events surrounding the five different films, from Jurassic Park to Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.
We had to pay special attention to the controller support because we were evaluating the game on a PS5. The controls in this regard feel a little complex and difficult to understand at first, but this is why there is a campaign mode that allows you to sit through the game’s ropes. You will learn how to deal with the various issues of park administration. This will need not just cautious use of your resources, but also consideration of the nature and behaviour of the many Dinosaur species. The majority of the campaign also relates to the events of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. You must figure out how to keep Dinosaurs and humans in peace, which is not as exciting as it sounds.
The park administration aspects have been streamlined once again. You should not anticipate a greater level of planning in the management of your park. All you need to know is the sort of guests who visit the park and create appropriate enclosures for them to maintain your park appealing for their visit. You must also manage the resources surrounding the Dinosaurs that are dispersed across the park. The AI of the Dinosaurs has been improved so you no longer need to keep a fence between the different species.
The diversity of Dinosaurs in this sequel is its selling feature. Frontier has delivered over 70 distinct Dinosaur species, ranging from terrestrial kinds to aquatics to winged birds. You will not be able to acquire them immediately away. To obtain these Dinosaurs in your park, you’ll need to spend in new species research and development, as well as carefully choose and match different DNA types to carve a certain behaviour for your Dinosaur. You’ll need to build a team of scientists who are always up to the task of generating a new species, which means recruiting the best for your research and firing the ones who can’t work.
The majority of your time is spent ensuring that your park is working well, which necessitates inspecting park workers, tourists, and even the Dinosaurs. The capacity to fast forward through time is a huge improvement in quality of life that makes this less of a challenge. It takes time for everything to open up and work out in the park, and with the fast forward option, you can now just zip through it without having to suffer through the monotonous animations over and over.
In terms of replay value, this sequel is pretty good. While the main campaign will take you just a couple of hours, it should please those who have seen the movies. It works as a sequel to the upcoming Jurassic World finale that gives us a glimpse at what happens after the events of Fallen Kingdom. Bryce Dallas Howard returns to voice her character, Claire Dearing, for the written dialogue, but don’t expect to see much here. It also features a diverse set of landscapes from snowy mountains to deserts, but these are just background visuals and don’t make an impact on how you breed and handle these Dinosaurs.
The realism of the dinosaurs is one of the most enhanced features in this sequel. They can genuinely function organically in a habitat, finding a position amid the enclosures, presenting their characteristics like aggressiveness, and have improved significantly in terms of realism over their predecessor. They look quite excellent in action and have some beautiful textures to back them up. Their animations are fluid and play out in context. Not everything in the game is visually appealing, and the personalization feels a little limited because you can’t fully design every interior and exterior, but who has time for that when you have such a beautiful collection of Dinos to manage in the game?
Chaos Theory mode consists of a series of brief missions that allow you to unlock a new set of Dinosaur species. They function as a sort of alternate timeline to the movies, giving you an original scenario that builds on the events in the movies. Again, if you’ve completed the campaign, this one won’t take long to complete, but there’s a lot more to explore here. The campaign will teach you the majority of the essentials, but it will also limit your freedom, which is where the Sandbox mode comes in.
This mode will be a huge time sink especially if you enjoy unlocking species and experimenting with them in various habitats. I took some time to go through the campaign and Chaos Theory mode before starting the Sandbox mode so it was a nice surprise to see full freedom. There are no limitations so you can create your Dream park as you want, but unlocking the different dinosaurs and species will require a lot of time.
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