Jurassic World Evolution 2 Like its predecessor, is a very likely adaptation of cinema’s most beloved dinosaur series. From its music, to the quotes scattered across its loading screen, to the wonderfully engaging swamp voiced by Jeff Goldblum, it’s a solid case study of how a studio can capture worth your money from an expensive license. And its centerpiece, of course, is an enclosure of spectacular dinosaurs.
Using lessons learned from Planet Zoothe development of, more or less filled with time since 2016 Evolution of the Jurassic World, Frontier is back with the most beautiful, real dinosaurs ever shuffling and bouncing across the screen. That’s right John Hammond, things that don’t cost money, sunglasses. This makes it all the more disappointing to realize that once again, they are trapped in a serious management game.
The first time I wrote that sentence, it said “garbage management game”. Because honestly, having just exited the game disappointingly for the sixth of the six sessions I’ve played, that’s deeply impressive to me. But it’s not fair: in fact, there are some great designs flourishing in JWE’s basic construction park. It’s clear how much work has been put into overhauling JWE’s moving parts and some really inspired tweaks.
For example, the “territory” mechanic – in which the dinosaurs could decide a bit about which enclosure they preferred, leaving room to co-exist with another species with wildly different topography – is a bit of a puzzle. It’s smart and does something I’ve never seen before in the genre. Also, consider redesigning franchise locations and amenities, ditching the traditional “drop in store at regular vagaries” approach for something much more crafty involved. to focus on and exploit different customer demographics. It’s a real dark marketing ploy that fits perfectly with the Jurassic series’ intermittently hostile approach to corporate thinking, and I love it.
But for every little detail of JWE2’s gene-related management genius, it seems like a wonderful strand of rancid frog DNA has been captured elsewhere. I think it’s worth mentioning that I came to this game as an enthusiast of the management/construction genre. However, I suspect that JWE2 is aimed at a slightly broader and less fussy demographic than “dinosaurs”. So if you’re interested in this primarily as a Jurassic game, rather than as a strategy game with dinosaurs, you’re less likely to see majesty tarnished by mechanical design. . However, for my fellow scum admin, here’s a grumblin’.
I have a feeling that a lot of the missteps are deliberate attempts to address criticisms of the first game, for being too strategically simplistic. And in a way, they got there. JWE2 is a more complex game, in that it demonstrates more elements that must be involved in order to run a successful park.
“For every little detail of JWE2’s genetic management genius, it seems that a wonderful strand of rancid frog DNA has been stolen elsewhere.”
The takeaway is that a good strategy doesn’t come from the amount of interactions you have with the systems you’re in charge of, but from the degree of dilemma and consideration of each interaction need. In Crusader Kings 3, for example, you don’t actually have to interact with the game. It will do its own bleak medieval thing, and it’s up to you to decide where and how to interact, if you want to increase your influence over the simulation. Those decisions tend to be really interesting. On the other end of the scale, look at something like the layout of a fire station in an old-fashioned city building – nothing interesting happens if you do that, but if you don’t Do that, your city will burn. It’s a binary mitigation of a failing state, with little challenge except the ability to maintain your to-do list.
Jurassic World Evolution 2 is full of these. Ranger stations need to be periodically pressed to refuel their vehicles; Scientists need to be pressed to rest, so they don’t go Full Nedry. Dinosaurs will suddenly have the flu, need a medical truck to press a button to their location for treatment. None of these things support the decision; you would never think “wait a second, what if I don’t give the T-Rex a pill?”, or consider the strategic potential of a “no jeep fuel” policy. You just have to stop what you are doing and click a button, otherwise the game will punish you.
The general feeling is that you’re trying to eat a hotdog, but there’s a clown banging it out of your hand with each bite, forcing you to pick it up off the floor. I find myself constantly losing focus, then forgetting what I was doing before. And that’s a big shame, with the way forward planning and the incremental work towards big projects are huge parts of the fun found in city/state building games. pellets.
The other effect of all this is that, because all clicks are required to incur some financial cost, you will immediately suffer if you run into financial trouble. Sure, you could argue that this is a reasonable model of system collapse. However, it’s annoying when a random disaster sends you into a lightning-fast spiral of failure, taking your park from the edge of whatever milestone you’re trying to get to the top, in 15 minutes is not half. entertainment-when-you-run-location carnage.
Alongside micromanagement, JWE2 uses a massive dose of forced value scaling to drive players past what the game claims is the “correct” way to progress through the game. park construction stages. Everything from research to dinosaurs is split into multiple tiers, with acquisition costs skyrocketing at each hurdle. A supposedly open play environment is fed into a linear this-and-this-this-like process, with a T-Rex hanging over your head to aim.
I mean, there’s no point in establishing why a tyrannosaur is more expensive than anything to create an example than a struthiomimus, so why not let the player experiment with instant big? It’s not that there aren’t many reasons – or potential lines from Ian Malcolm – to discourage such overbearing, without the arbitrary cost barrier tying it up.
I also got a deeper understanding of the progression in the game. There are four main game modes: a five-mission campaign set up after Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, which is essentially a lengthy tutorial, five hyperbolic “chaos theory” missions in which you build the park related to each of the five movies, five complete missions -unlock challenge missions and sandbox mode. Consider it: the sandbox is concluded to be the most interesting… that is, if you have a full set of dinosaurs, buildings and the like at your disposal. And needless to say, unlocking all of these toys involves crushing every other mode first.
This doesn’t mean the other game modes are crap. The Chaos Theory missions in particular are great experiences in nostalgia (I’m particularly fond of Lost World, as it helps you build San Diego Jurassic Park, and – in a flash of brilliant – dumped a T-Rex in your lap, five minutes into the script). But the imperative to progressing through the game modes is that, no matter how much fun they themselves may be, they will be turned into a mountain of overcooked vegetables, which must be shoveled through before you are allowed to make pudding.
JWE2 is impressive, both visually and visually, simulating great dead birds, in a way that any gameplay footage would show far more effectively than I could possibly write. . Like his man John Hammond, Frontier set out to sell fear and wonder at living dinosaurs — and they absolutely smashed it on that front. The truth is, this could be a much worse management game, and still worth it just for the fun of implementing photo mode on an already built park.
But I guess this is where JWE2, incidentally, an adaptation of the Jurassic series is even more perfect than Frontier intended. Because, at the end of the day, no one can beat the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park. They are also good. The park is still going strong, though, as plans for everything but actual cattle appear to have been scrawled behind one of Samuel L Jackson’s cowboy killers.
And just like fictional company InGen, who opened Jurassic World after Jurassic Park was fully operational, Frontier is back with a sequel that – albeit with a few tweaks and a mosasaur – repeats the effort. their first on a larger scale. With even more incredible dinosaurs, JWE2 is the Indominus Rex compared to its predecessor’s T-Rex: a monster stronger in every way, but with only a fragile infrastructure to support it.
The important thing, however, is that, like one hundred percent I go to Jurassic Park in the real world despite almost certainly being superpowered in a portal, I will one hundred percent continue Search for the amazing dinosaurs of this game, until the point where my attention span is chewed to bits by raptor micromanaging.
