4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
A good Jurassic Park game?! Oh Yes!
Date of Review: Mar 29, 2003
The Bottom Line: A gorgeous game that will keep you coming back for more. Building your own Jurassic Park is great fun and this game in an unexpected treat!
The Jurassic Park license has been used to produce horrid games for many genres. We had a bad fighting, action, and even a park building game. It just seems like developers can't fight the right formula to use the lucrative Jurassic Park franchise for.
However, we now have something to call a great game made off of the JP theme. Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis (which is the correct title) is a wonderful and addicting game for the PC. The premise of the game is so basic I can't believe it took developers this long to develop a great game off of it. You build your own Jurassic Park. That sentence alone could produce profits like none other. However, it must be done in a fashion that merits John Hammond's original dream in the film series.
That is what JP:OG does. It makes you feel like John Hammond. You are given an empty tropical island as your canvas and Dinosaurs, Shops, and other things of that nature are your pallet. Your job is too create a fully functional Jurassic Park with live dinosaurs as your attractions. This is just as fun as it sounds. In order to get your Dinos you must first send out fossil hunting teams to retrieve *guess what* fossils! Then once you have extracted enough Dino DNA from these fossils..you can create living Dinosaurs! Then the task begins of managing your park with Dinos and visitors inside. Now, here is where things kick into gear.
Dinosaurs and humans don't mix. If you don't build fences for your Dinos and just let them run a muck..you'll soon find that out. (Although the result is tons of fun to watch!) The point of the game is too keep everything running smoothly and build a 5 star park. That requires you to keep your visitors and dinos happy and that is task within itself. The basic park building elements are here and you'll find yourself building a simple park within an hour. However, just when you think it's time to put that extra T-Rex out there for people to see..the game throws unexpected events at you. Twisters, Dino-Rampages, Diseases, and alot of other things will keep your playing and also keep you on your toes.
Dinosaurs are of course the main draw here and they look great. The animations are solid and realistic and the textures are wonderfully done. Thus, the graphics in this game are great and you won't be disappointed with the visuals in this game.
With that said, you won't be disappointed with the sound either. You may know that a Raptor made a snack out of your janitor just by the sound of the Raptor's growl off screen. The trademark sounds are here and the music has the JP feel as. It should because John Williams (Composer of the film's music) made some new tunes just for this game.
There are also nifty side games within the park building game itself. You can control your own helicopter, pilot a safari cruise, or even take photos to sell to magazines. These add a nice little punch to the overall game experceince.
Overall, you'll find yourself coming back for more and more Dino action. This is the type of game where you could lose track of time quickly and not even care. If you ever wanted to build your own Jurassic Park..then I suggest going out and picking up Jurassic Park: Opertation Genesis right away.
