Despite its nature as a disaster flick, people seem to keep asking “Well, what if Hammond’s park worked?” Jurassic World itself dabbled with this theme, and we have received countless spin-offs which have experimented with this theme. Evolution is the latest attempt to bring this to life, but with far more fanfare and a budget behind it. Much like its inspiration however, what looks like a solid system only takes a slight push to start falling to pieces.
To cite its obvious benefits first (aside from the presence of Jeff Goldblum’s narration), the contract system offers a definite hook prior releases have lacked. With shifting objectives, decisions and new opportunities, it’s a random element to prevent players ever becoming too comfortable with ongoing events. These can range from testing a park’s security by releasing a dinosaur from its pen, to funding hunts for new fossils or enhancing cloning facilities. It makes the game unpredictable and – even with a few problems with the procedural generation by occasionally confusing departments – it’s easily one of its best ideas.
The addition of possible industrial sabotage, the capacity to genetically modify the dinosaurs and the variety of ancient lizards you can resurrect all have their own mechanical systems. These can affect you in any number of ways, from how many customers are drawn in, to gradually unlocking new elements within the game. Buildings are a big one, especially if you end up with an especially crowd-pleasing creature.
Unfortunately, everything else within Evolution is decidedly ropey or downright unfinished in places. This is evident from a glance, as the animations and interactions are repeated over and over again. If you have two dinosaurs fight, nine times out of ten they will simply repeat the same sequence of attacks. Even without this, anything of the same general body type tends to share the same basic animations, from walking to feeding. It’s the sort of error most companies stopped repeating in the late-’90s, when they realised it delved deeply into uncanny valley territory.
Still, the visuals would be one thing, but then you have the AI. Someone must have mixed up the carnivore AI with that of Jason Voorhees, as these things don’t hunt so much as slaughter everything in sight. If they see something and it is alive, they will attack it, or continually hunt for anything which might bleed. Frustratingly, this does not vary from one to the next, as you will have dinosaurs known for acting in wolf packs hunting alone or refusing to team up with others. Even herd animals refuse to do this, despite the inclusion of this as a mechanic, which ends up with dinosaurs becoming depressed and going on the rampage if the enclosure is simply slightly too big.
Even the visitors themselves have no personality, without preferences, personal choices or baseline differing opinions. If a building assists with something, that’s good enough for them. This is only made worse by the fact that the park itself has little in the way of true customisation options. Oh, you can choose where to set things up, but in terms of colours, designs and unique visual elements, you’re all out of luck.
All this is even assuming that the park works as intended. There are a multitude of bugs which can quickly lead you into bankruptcy if you’re not too careful. Release a dinosaur to test security? Sometimes the guards will end up stuck in an animation loop, refuse to respond, and the game will lock you out of being able to answer the threat personally. As such, your blossoming attraction becomes a bloodbath and you quickly get shut down.
After careful consideration, this writer has decided not to endorse this park. Perhaps with time, updates or mod support this can evolve in to a worthwhile game, but as it stands it simply has a good framework for a potentially great experience. If you’re a die-hard fan of Jurassic Park give it a look, but otherwise, wait for a definite price drop.
JURASSIC WORLD EVOLUTION / DEVELOPER & PUBLISHER: FRONTIER DEVELOPMENTS / PLATFORM: PLAYSTATION 4, XBOX ONE, PC / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
