Recent reviews by THADJARVIS

Jurassic World Evolution is the newest game from Frontier, who have created games such as Roller Coaster Tycoon 3, Elite: Dangerous and Planet Coaster. Very much a spiritual successor to Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis. While there are a couple similarities, there is a lot to consider before picking this game up for yourself.

Like OG, the goal is to create a park to house previously extinct dinosaurs, and keep everyone happy, safe, and not dead. While OG embraced the idea of simulating an ideal Jurassic Park, Evolution simulates a more realistic Jurassic Park; things will get out of control, and probably will. Dinosaurs will escape, either by themselves or by sabotage, and the aftermath falls on you to clean up the mess. Rather than being a park simulator, it'd be better to call this a chaos simulator instead.

Let's start with what's done well; dinosaurs look amazing, for the most part. They're mostly well animated, the sound effects they make are awesome, and certain dinosaurs make you excited to embrace the challenge of keeping the happy and contained. There are some sour points with them; any fights between dinosaurs are 1v1, and the animations could be better for them (though kill animations are usually pretty good). Carnivores are also more like dinosaur serial killers rather than creatures that hunt when hungry, which fits well into the chaos theme that I keep bringing up. For the most part though, the dinosaurs are all well animated, pretty to look at, and resemble how you would imagine they'd act in the movies.

The process of discovering these dinosaurs is also cool, if static. You send expedition teams to specific locations to bring back fossils, which you extract DNA from to eventually unlock specific dinosaurs. All of this costs money, but you have the option of selling fossils you don't need, or getting rare materials that can only be sold, getting you some potential profit back. As a result, it never feels bad to send expedition teams out, as what they bring back is almost always useful, if random.

As with any park sim, there's research to, well, research. This can vary from building upgrades, new buildings, medication/DNA genes for modifying dinosaurs, and so on. There's not much in the way of innovation, but it's simple to use and clearly shows what you're unlocking.

There are a fair number of building types, both for maintaining the park and keeping guests happy and safe. Park maintenance falls on the rangers, who use both jeeps and helicopters. The jeep will go to Medicare sick dinosaurs, refill their feeders, repair buildings and other tasks. The chopper will go tranquilize escaped dinosaurs to put them back in their cage, or to move them to another enclosure. You also have the ability to pilot or drive both these vehicles, as well as shoot the darts at the dinosaurs or take pictures. Guest services have buildings you'd expect from other park games, such as food and gift shops, but some provide safety, like emergency shelters to hide from a T-Rex rampage.

Playing through Evolution is actually pretty unique. There are 5 maps that you work on in order. Each map has a different mechanic that makes your park building more difficult, such as frequent tropical storms. Once you hit 3 stars park rating on your current park, you unlock the next one. What's different is that you can swap between parks at any time, and your progress is saved on that park. For example, you can unlock Velociraptors in the second park, then go back to the first park and place them if you wish. Going back to old parks won't help you progress, but it can allow you to experiment with dinosaurs or buildings you didn't have before. There is also a sandbox map as well, but you need to unlock dinosaurs and items in the campaign before you can use them.

During the course of these maps, you'll get contracts from 3 different groups, the Scient, Entetainment and Security divisions. They're often at odds with each other, and they're all vying for your attention. Completing their missions will give you money, upgrades and perks you can use. Ignore them, and they could sabotage your park in different ways. They help to give you focus, and are necessary for fully completing the level, but I found I could progress the first couple maps while largely ignoring all three of them.

There are some issues though. Guests are okay, but very disappointing compared to Planet Coaster. The actual park sim portion of the game isn't great either. Employees (jeep and helicopter) aren't automated, so you constantly need to be giving them tasks. There also aren't any janitors, bathrooms, trash cans, or anything like that. Dinosaurs don't poop or dirty their enclosure, so no need to worry about that. They also don't attack the jeep workers, no matter what dinosaur it is. Money isn't earned in the usual "theme park way." They basically calculate it based on a profit per minute, and provide money that way, rather than the Planet Coaster or Roller Coaster Tycoon way. Like I mentioned before, the contracts and missions are okay but can be ignored.

Overall, this is a fun, if flawed game. If you like the IP, you'll likely enjoy this game, especially if you like Jurassic World. If you're looking for a deep park sim involving dinosaurs this will likely either be a pass or a deep sale option for you.

PROS:

Dinosaurs look great and are mostly well animated.

Graphics in general are pretty good, especially the dinosaurs and foilage.

Unlocking dinosaurs is pretty cool, and they have a fair amount t of customization you can do with them.

The moments when chaos hits are thrilling, and feel like an authentic Jurassic "whoopsie."

NEUTRAL:

The game can catch you unaware, but it isn't overly difficult.

Guests are okay.

The moments when chaos hits can sometimes be annoying.

CON:

Park management sim, this is not. Buildings are largely place and forget and there's not a lot, if any, management level decisions you need to make.

The gameplay loop can start to feel stale 4 or 5 hours in.

Honestly, all of your attention is basically focused on the exhibits rather than the park. Guests don't dirty paths, or anything outside of food and drink, and a hotel. I hinted at it in my first con point, but it needed to be said again.

No decorations to place, nor is it necessary to. It doesn't need to be Planet Coaster levels of decorating, but some peaceable objects would have been nice.

Overall, I recommend the game but understand this is for a very niche group of people. If you're a Jurassic Park fan, you'll likely enjoy the game at full price or slight discount. For anyone else, I'd recommend a wait for a 20 dollar sale. The game has some great moments, but its flaws will be jarring for anyone who isn't a diehard Jurassic Park fan.

Disclaimer: I preordered No Man's Sky. I saw the E3 demo and was intrigued, and afterwards just kept a casual eye on game progress until close to launch. As such, I didn't get behind the outrage at launch, and didn't regret my purchase when I played at launch, though the game was lacking in content for sure.


No Man's Sky is a space exploration game that has you stranded on a random planet next to a crashed starship. Your immediate task is to gather materials found on the planet and use them to repair said spaceship. What you do next is up to you, but basic gameplay loops have you visiting other planets and other solar systems to find more resources, find or purchase better ships, all while upgrading you suit and mining tool/weapon. There are multiple difficulty levels based on what your interests, from Creative (easiest, basically a walking simulator) to Permadeath (as implied, if your character dies, you have to start completely over with a new character). Most people will pick Normal (default setting) or Survival (harder game mode, but not Permadeath).

The loop stays the same through the game, but there are many avenues you can take during the course of your game. You can build a base on certain planets in every solar system. Seemingly out of place in an exploration game, the base mechanic is fairly well done; you're able to customize everything about the base, and earn and complete sidequests by hiring technicians that oversee certain aspects of your base. The ability to teleport back to your base from any solar system ensures that you'll always have a safe place to go to, no matter where you are in the galaxy.

Ships come in three different types, are upgradable, and are fairly varied. Over the course of the game, you'll find yourself seeking out different ship styles depending on your favorites, and upgrading them to fit whatever role you want them to have. Freighters were also added as a purchasable asset, which allows to build a portable base, as well as store up to 6 ships, as well as an area to store additional resources. Ground vehicles also make an appearance in game. While they aren't as varied as ships, they have their uses on planets and give you another way to explore planets.

Planets are procedurally generated, so they will typically be assigned a theme and be randomly generated based on assets that would normally be found on those planets. Typical biomes you'd find are hot, cold, radioactive, toxic, lush, etc. These planets also impact your life support strain, and on harder difficulties can certainly kill you pretty quickly. Creatures follow the same generation logic, leading to a mix of animals that will look strange, cool, awkward, and everything in between. Over a period of time, you'll start to see familiar generation types in planets/creatures (for example, seeing a plant that appears to be almost the same as another plant on another planet). Over time, they've tried to update the generation protocols through patches, but I believe that they're trying to do what they can without taxing systems that might not be able to handle the additional generated content.

Exploring planets boils down to scanning your immediate area and following icons to discover buildings/waypoints/ancient shrines/etc. You'll also spend your time documenting flora and fauna, or you may just land on a planet to grab some resources you need, and go to the next one. Each person plays differently, and the game is pretty open with what you want to do. Some animals will attack you, and sentinels (basically the robot police of NMS) may be hostile towards you and attack you. You're able to fend for yourself using a multitool, being able to both mine resources and fight off danger with it. The combat, both in space and on planets, isn't going to draw anyone in like other FPS games, but it's simple and controls well; I can't say it would push people away from the game unless they were looking for a CoD/Halo clone.

With recent updates, the game now has a main quest, as well as side quests you can pick up. You can also pick up short missions from space stations; usually simple tasks like delivering a package to a planet, or destroying a ship with a bounty. The main story isn't anything to write home about, but it's intriguing enough that it'll keep you occupied if you're interested in the game. Some of the writing, particularly in regards to your character, is pretty good though (the game has no voice acting apart from alien noises, and no story cutscenes or anything either).

In addition to all the core content, there's a pretty active modding community as well. Mods are EXTREMELY easy to install and uninstall, probably the easiest I've seen out of any game, and vary immensely in function. This gives some replayablility in between patches, as it can be pretty fun to check out different mods to see how it changes from the core experience.

As someone who has put 100 hours into this game at the time of leaving this review, I can't say that I recommend it to EVERYONE. However, people who enjoy this type of game; exploration, resource gathering, space, sci-fi, survival, etc. will likely enjoy it. Despite the negative reviews (which I feel are probably left over from the disasterous launch) it's a good, if niche, game. I can't recommend it at full price, but if you see it at 50% off minimum and like the genre, I'd give it a try.

People will have strong feelings about what was hyped/said about the game before and at launch. This was very much on Hello Games. Rather than give up, the studio buckled down and released 3 massive updates for free, with no attempt to monetize any other portion of the game. To me, that deserves some commendation. If you're even a slight believer in second chances, this group of folks are about as deserving as anyone I can think of in the gaming community. If you fancy a trip into space, why not give this a try?

PROS:

• Exploring planets and space is fun
  
• Game gives plenty of opportunity to customize
  
• Base building is easy to learn, and allows creativity if one wishes
  
• Controls in all aspects of the game are great
  
• Soundtrack fits the theme of the game, and is very good.
  
• No lootboxes, no necessary DLC, all content updates have been completely free
  
• Game has something for casual players, hardcore players, and everyone in between
  
• Game alt tabs like a champ
  
• Plenty of opportunity to discover new planets/life, and uploading them to the NMS database is pretty neat

NEUTRAL:

• Combat is certainly adequete and controls fine, but won't win any awards
  
• Aliens are interactable, but only to a certain extent. They are always stationary, and aren't always super varied in what they say. It may not bother some people, so I'll leave this as a neutral comment
  
• Story/lore is okay, but like combat, won't earn any awards.

CONS:

• Despite the attempts to make everything unique and randomized, you'll start to see similarities in planets and life. This in turn will affect your willingness to explore planets. This can be fixed to a certain extent with mods, but I want to leave this as a criticism of the core experience
  
• This is a game where you make your own itinerary. If you're bad at finding things for yourself to do, you may not enjoy the game
  
• No true multiplayer. This COULD get addressed in a future patch, but at this point you won't be able to explore with friends unless you just play and voice chat at the same time.
  
• Endgame can be grindy. Getting the best ships and freighters are expensive, and while people have created the means to make a LOT of money in the game, I'll leave this as a criticism if you're wary of grindy-games. Despite leaving this as a con, it is NOT as bad as Elite: Dangerous. Endgame is more cosmetic in NMS, apart from trying to get more inventory slots for your ships/items.