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Jurassic World: Evolution - Review Thread

Jawmuncher

Jawmuncher

Crisis Dino
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Oct 25, 2017
38,394
Ibis Island
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OpenCritic - 80
Metacritic - NA

IGN - 4.8
Besides the fact that there's absolutely no evolution involved in it, Jurassic World: Evolution is a bad game because it's just a bore of a park sim. Sure, the dinosaurs look nice enough, but the process of unlocking new species is beyond tedious and actually running the business is shallow and quickly gets stale. It beats getting mauled by raptors, but after careful consideration, I've decided not to endorse this park.
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PCGamer - 71
Initially stunning but lacking the depth and variety to support mammoth playtimes.
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Gamesradar - 4/5
Despite some opaque game mechanics and missing tutorials, turns out running a dinosaur park is brilliant fun and the best time sink you can play.
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Polygon - Positive
Jurassic World Evolution asks you to fail as a dinosaur keeper, but it lets you return to the task without consequence. You'll be John Hammond the first few times through, watching control slip through your fingers as "life finds a way" to reclaim all you've worked so hard to build. But with practice and patience, you can build and maintain the park that the movies show in the first hour.
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PCGamesN - 8
If anything I took on the role of a benevolent eccentric, building a park and bringing long-dead creatures back to life for my own pleasure and fascination, not to gouge the wallets of the people drawn to the creatures I was so captured by. Basically, what I'm getting at is that Jurassic World Evolution made me into John Hammond.
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These were all the reviews I could find. Overall it seems mostly positive outside the IGN review.
Will be interesting to see the other reviews and updated OC and MC rankings later on.
 
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Hella

Hella

Member
Oct 27, 2017
23,396
Rock, Paper, Shotgun - No Score
Jurassic World Evolution is the most boring of all possible outcomes for a dinosaur theme park sim. There's no outlet for creativity and, aside from the prehistoric pals you might make, managing the parks just isn't a lot of fun. By the time I'd unlocked enough to make the sandbox mode live up to its name, I realised I had nothing left to build.

It's a greater disappointment because it falls so short of Planet Coaster. Frontier has already made the game that shows Evolution where it went wrong. It's not that Evolution couldn't have forged its own path, but it throws away lots of proven systems, often without substituting them for anything else. I don't want to bad-mouth cool dinosaurs, but cool dinosaurs can only carry a game so far.
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They're quite negative overall.

They also note that the sandbox mode isn't available right away, and further, that you can only use up to the tech level you've achieved in the campaign... both of which is super baffling to me, personally.
 
texhnolyze

texhnolyze

Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,153
Indonesia
What I want to know is how is it compared to Operation Genesis. Or at least, I'd like to know which reviewers who have also played it before reviewing this game.
 
TheDinoman

TheDinoman

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Oct 25, 2017
17,092
Should be noted that Operation Genesis wasn't exactly lavished with praise when it first came out. IGN actually gave it a 5.9/10.
 
Ryuelli

Ryuelli

Member
Oct 26, 2017
15,209
My tastes usually align with Polygon, so it's good to hear that they enjoyed it.

I'll wait until this is cheaper and pick it up though, even if it ends up not being good I feel like there's a lack of decent Maxis-esque sim games these days and would love to see a renaissance of them.
 
Hektor

Hektor

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Oct 25, 2017
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I preordered this game for the full 60 bucks on steam which i usually never do.
Don't make me refund this

texhnolyze said:
What I want to know is how is it compared to Operation Genesis. Or at least, I'd like to know which reviewers who have also played it before reviewing this game.
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I vey much second this, since this is Operation Genesis 2 in all but name, all i need to know is how it's by comparison.

Though the reviews we have thus far don't make me too optimistic right now.
 
OP
OP
Jawmuncher

Jawmuncher

Crisis Dino
Moderator
Oct 25, 2017
38,394
Ibis Island
Hella said:
Rock, Paper, Shotgun - No Score

They're quite negative overall.

They also note that the sandbox mode isn't available right away, and further, that you can only use up to the tech level you've achieved in the campaign... both of which is super baffling to me, personally.
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This needs to be patched ASAP.
The kids that will play this want that infinite money and to make whatever they want. Hopefully they listen to the feedback.
 
Mifec

Mifec

Member
Oct 25, 2017
17,731
Karma for using Denuvo and for their implementation of it in Planet Coaster :^)
 
SJRB

SJRB

The Fallen
Oct 28, 2017
4,861
That IGN review, holy shit.

I totally expected this to score nothing but 9's. Wow.
 
Strafer

Strafer

The Flagpole is Wider
Member
Oct 25, 2017
29,357
Sweden
I don't trust IGN.

They gave Alien Isolation a 5.9 and it's one of the best horror games I have ever played.

I will get this game.
 
Kodama4

Kodama4

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,933
noooooooooooo I wanted this to be good! now I'm super depressed. Why cant they just get it right the first time
 
Aangster

Aangster

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,616
Those reviews are pretty scathing, especially in regards to creative park management and progression. Saw a couple of pre-release plays by YouTubers that looked positive, but I take it that in some respects that it's ultimately a shallow management sim.
 
X1 Two

X1 Two

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
3,023
SJRB said:
That IGN review, holy shit.

I totally expected this to score nothing but 9's. Wow.
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May I ask why? Their recent games have shown the same signs, repetitiveness and boredom. Zoo Tycoon especially, but also Screamride. And now with a game that had to be finished in time for the movie ...
 
Mengy

Mengy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,374
Patitoloco said:
Scores all over the place, weird.
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It's about what I expected.

I've been playing Frontier's Elite Dangerous for four years now, and their largest problem is a lack of engaging game mechanics. The studio has a habit of creating shallow boring grinds in place of fun gameplay. They excel at graphic and sound assets, honestly their artists are some of the best in the industry, but Frontier does not have a good track record with developing interesting game mechanics.

Which is about what all of those reviews tend to allude to.

Basically, if you value graphics and presentation over good game mechanics then you'll probably love it, but if you value interesting gameplay over all else then you might be disappointed. Just like Elite Dangerous for the past four years, which coincidentally was also headed up by the same Michael Brookes at the start, same as JWE.

Just my two cents for anyone who might find that useful.
 
bshock

bshock

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I'm completely gutted.

Sounds similar to Zoo Tycoon, which looked great, but was as deep as a bucket of water.
 
CloseTalker

CloseTalker

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Oct 25, 2017
30,547
Hella said:
Rock, Paper, Shotgun - No Score

They're quite negative overall.

They also note that the sandbox mode isn't available right away, and further, that you can only use up to the tech level you've achieved in the campaign... both of which is super baffling to me, personally.
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Yup, that's baffling.

Well this is disappointing, I was very much looking forward to this. It at least seems mechanically sound, so I'll probably grab it on sale
 
Solaris

Solaris

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Oct 27, 2017
5,282
There's a lot of good reviews? actually more good than bad, so why is there so much doom and gloom in here?
 
bshock

bshock

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I can't refund my pre order on Xbox because it's already preloaded. Oh well, at least it's pretty and they'll probably add content to flesh it out some more later on.
 

Deleted member 19996

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Oct 28, 2017
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Just got my review code last night, so not going to have a review ready. I'm not going to read the reviews until mine is written, but these comments have me guessing if I'm playing the same game? Boring? My first carnivore just broke out of his containment area, and started rampaging through my park, eating guests. Of course, I failed to build the team needed to tranquilize it, so the Dinosaurs win round one.
 
SPRidley

SPRidley

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Oct 25, 2017
8,231
TheDinoman said:
Should be noted that Operation Genesis wasn't exactly lavished with praise when it first came out. IGN actually gave it a 5.9/10.
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This is true.
In fact, from all the videos it seems like a carbon copy of Operation Genesis.
Seems a game that if you enjoyed, you will probably also like evolution
 
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