Xbox Series X Review Code Provided by Frontier Developments
Admittedly, it has been a while since I have played a park management game of any kind. My favorites were always the Rollercoaster Tycoon series. Being able to see little virtual people fill up your park, eat, ride, and sometimes puke was very satisfying. It felt as though I had a direct and substantial impact on how successful my park was. Enter Jurassic World Evolution 2 from developer and publisher Frontier Developments. While this is not the most robust park management game out there, the element of unlocking and managing various dinosaurs offers moments you won’t get from other games in the genre.
Story
The story of Jurassic World Evolution 2 follows the events of the most recent movie, Fallen Kingdom. You are tasked with growing a park, rescuing, and caring for dinosaurs, making sure your park guests are happy, and ultimately turning a profit. You will be advised by classic characters from the film franchise such as Jeff Goldblum and Bryce Dallas Howard. The story will take you to different western states with diverse biomes to experiment with. In each chapter of the game, you must solve several issues and build a functioning park in the given location. There’s not much to the campaign story but the chaos mode offers various scenarios from the movie franchise which I think fans will really love!
Gameplay
There is a diverse set of tools at the player’s disposal for achieving a profitable and customized park for the virtual park goers. Buildings require power which in turn requires fuel which costs money. Dinosaurs need to be fed and their enclosures need to be suited to their unique environmental needs. On top of that, park guests need to be able to see dinosaurs, so you must consider the park visitor experience.
The campaign is straight forward but it does have a good amount of variety. Most of the time you will be hovering high above your park in classic park management game view. Other times you will take control of a helicopter and tranquilize dinosaurs and then have transport choppers pick them up and return them to your base. Players can ride along from the view of their ranger’s jeep to check on dinosaurs and mitigate potential disasters like an escape. The campaign can be a bit slow at times, but it sets the stage for chaos mode which more than makes up for it.
Chaos mode puts the player into different scenarios from the movie franchise and has them mitigate disaster or stop it from happening altogether. This will also lead to unlocking new sandbox maps and more dinosaurs. The game offers a little over 70 species of dinosaurs so there are tons of unlockables and reasons to keep playing.
Cloning and breeding are also big factors in the gameplay. You will need to genetically modify these dinosaurs’ creations to avoid potential pitfalls in their life cycle. Some dinosaurs can have genetic problems that will lead to them being too aggressive or dying quicker than other similar dinosaurs. You will make tough decisions about what dinosaurs to keep and which to send on their way. Some can’t be grouped with others, but isolation can lead to a dinosaur being less satisfied. As I said, there are a lot of systems at play here and a lot of variety of gameplay. The variety is one of the best aspects of this game. It keeps it fresh and encourages the player to experiment.
Audio and Visuals
Frontier Developments did a fantastic job designing the dinosaurs. They all look very realistic and will roar with sounds. All the classic dinosaur roars you remember from the film franchise are all here. The game overall is visually appealing. I played through this on Xbox Series X and while it does have the label indicating there are some next-gen upgrades, I’m unsure what they are. To me, this looks like a polished last-gen game but there isn’t any indication that this is running at 60 fps and 4k resolution. The weather effects ranging from wind, rain, and snow are all top-notch. As are the foliage and environmental objects that litter each landscape. Overall the audio shines when it comes to dinosaur sounds. The music and park sounds add a good amount of ambiance as well. They all work in concert to re-create a lively amusement park sound experience.
Replayability
There is a good amount of replayability to be had in this game. The sandbox mode offers an endless variety of ways to build out and manage your park. There are plenty of reasons to go back through chaos mode and try to score higher on the challenges and unlock more dinosaurs and park options. I would say it has more replayability than most park management because of the large number of unlockable dinosaurs, cloning and breeding options as well as the many ways you can interact with your dinosaurs.
What it Could Have Done Better
Some of the classic, yet possibly burdensome, micromanaging aspects of regular park sims are not present in this game. I know that was probably done to streamline some of the systems in the game. It would have been nice to adjust ticket prices, click on individual parkgoers or rangers and see what they needed or their thoughts. Those features aren’t in this game. While it doesn’t take away from the experience overall, it would have been nice to have those basic features in the game. There were also some collision detection bugs during certain ranger/dinosaur interactions that looked a little funny. Hopefully, this will be addressed in future patches.
Verdict
Jurassic World Evolution 2 is a great game and there is a lot of fun to be had here. Fans of the film franchise will probably enjoy this more than those who didn’t watch the movies, but this game has a little of something for everyone. I’m anxious to see how Frontier Developments improves the game moving forward. There are a few bugs here and there and some streamlined improvements could be made for some of the park management aspects. I’d also like to see if they add any more next-gen features or clear up the confusion over the differences between Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S versions. Regardless of all that, Jurassic World Evolution 2 is well worth your gaming time.
