I have written this review about 5 times in the last 24 hours as I have really struggled to keep myself from waxing lyrical about why this game, however tantalising the prospect, shouldn’t exist. So, I’ll say this now: The whole point of Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park was that you shouldn’t play god. It is, to a point, a retelling of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Ian Malcolm was right. Don’t play god and don’t bring back the dead, as you have no idea what extraneous factors could arise.

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With thanks to Klayton Fioriti

Rant over, let’s talk about Jurassic World, the games, and the game that came on to game pass three days ago: Jurassic World Evolution. Jurassic World is a sequel trilogy to the highly successful and profitable Jurassic Park franchise, which is based on two books written by Michael Crichton. There have been multiple games made from this, from the sadly now unavailable TellTale Games sequel to the first film, to Trespasser and Operation Genesis. Truth be told, there’s been a great raft of games to joy set in this world, but for the last few years, there’s been a dearth of them.

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This brings us nicely onto Jurassic World Evolution. JWE is a game that flies into the face of Michael Crichton’s message and lets people do what they’ve wanted to do since 1993: make a successful Jurassic Park. Does it do that successfully? Does it match up to my (and other people’s) expectations? Will I get to do a video playthrough with Jeff Goldblum? Well, at least 2 of those questions will be answered. On with the review…

Spared No Expense…

Jurassic World Evolution, simply put, is a park builder. In this game, your mission is to build successful Jurassic World theme park across the canonical Las Cinco Muertes (as featured in both the books and the films). To do this, you’ll have to build the parks one by one, and breed/hatch as many dinosaurs as possible. Hordes of animals, both herbivorous and carnivorous must be brought into life from extinction in order to raise as many funds as possible.

There are 6 locations in Jurassic World Evolution, one of them is available at the beginning: Isla Matanceros - Unlocking new islands in Jurassic World Evolution - Park management - Jurassic World Evolution Game Guide
Anyone fancy a holiday?

Get the right star rating by working with three differing divisions, and you get to unlock the next island. Work hard and get the maximum star rating, and you’ll have the next island easier (but more on that later). To help you, there’s help from various characters. From Dr Ian Malcolm (voiced by the inimitable Jeff Goldblum) to Henry Wu, Claire Dearing and Owen Grady, all the characters are there. There are even some new ones, and a really nice nod to Richard Attenborough.

Life Finds A Way…

This is where I talk to you about the difficulty of the game, and dear lord, it can get difficult. Between accounting for rapidly increasing and decreasing finances and balancing the rivalry between three different divisions, this game can and will have you ranting and raving at the TV and turning the air blue. Each Island has their own difficulty starting with the easiest, but throwing you into the deep end with the second island, which I found a little misguided. If anything made me want to throw my controller at my TV, it was the difficulty of Isla Muerte. This is by far the most difficult island, and it’s incredibly frustrating. From differing divisions sabotaging your park’s infrastructure to the frankly-too-frequent storms, you find yourself spending too much time fixing things and not enough on bringing back the dinosaurs. Words cannot express how angry I kept getting at this point. However, stick with it, because once you pass Isla Tacanos, things get really fun.

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That’s no dinosaur… that’s a monster!

Isla Sorna and Isla Nublar both appear in this game, and you won’t be disappointed. Sorna is the ultimate challenge, but it’s by far the most fun to do. This island has plenty of space, with half of the infrastructure pre-built for you, and the storms really are something else to behold graphically speaking.

Nublar isn’t the cinder you’d expect to find if you’ve seen the last film in the Jurassic World franchise. Instead, you have a sandbox mode where you get to create your own Jurassic World, with the challenge of making it as close to the one featured in the first film of the sequel trilogy. Manage this, and you’ve completed the main story of the game, and then you can move on to the DLC.

Clever Girl…

The DLC is a joy to behold, as there’s easter eggs and knowledge of what’s happened between each films galore. From updates of different dinosaurs to the Return To Jurassic Park update, where you get to make your own Jurassic Park (1993 era), there’s lots to enjoy in the DLC. The base game takes about 70 hours to blast through, but the DLC packs in total take about 100 hours to get through it in entirety.

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Yes… they went there.

There’s nice nods to older members of the cast in the franchise, and a great many call-backs to Jurassic Park canon of days gone by. This game’s DLC help call back a lot of the Jurassic Park fans back to the franchise, particularly for the vocal minority of fans who feel the Jurassic World franchise has ignored or shat on Crichton’s legacy.

Chaos Theory

There are a whole lot of downsides to this game however. As much as this game is filled with load of Jurassic Park/World canon, this is very simply a bad Theme Park Tycoon imitation with a Jurassic World skin placed roughshod on top. There’s a wealth of dinosaurs to bring back from fossils, and yes, the challenge is making sure everything is sheltered from the elements and kept in power, but if truth be told, that’s about it. The problem with this game is the same problem as there is with conventional theme parks- there’s far too much impetus on making money and not enough on the base mechanics on running your own park.

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Jurassic World meets Disneyland?

There’s no day and night cycle, which means that the only natural enemy you have in the game is the weather. It’s real shame, as the real-life hurricane that hit the production of the first Jurassic Park film would have been lovely to see put in the game. I really wish that Frontier Developments had flexed their muscles here, as we’ve seen them doing similar in previous games.

Final thoughts

JWE is a superb game for Jurassic Park/World fans, with plenty of lore and great voice acting, but to be fair, this game is incredibly flawed in key areas that make it frustrating to anybody who isn’t a fan. To put this into context for you, I put my trusty Xbox controller in my mother’s hands and let her have a go. My mother’s a PC gamer who plays old Rollercoaster Tycoon games. She agreed with me on it, as she just couldn’t find herself enjoying the game well enough.

Very simply put, you’re going to enjoy this game if you enjoy the world of Jurassic Park/World, but otherwise, you’ll find yourself alienated and frustrated.

It’s available on Microsoft’s Game Pass to play on PC and Xbox, and I sunk just under 170 hours to 100% the game with all the DLC.

Yours for the Gamerhub,

Davey