Jurassic World Evolution 2 | Xbox Review

It started with a novel, written as a cautionary tale about genetic engineering within an amusement park setting. It later became the basis for a blockbuster film. With the help of groundbreaking visual effects, it made audiences believe that dinosaurs could come back to life. Jurassic Park would become the highest grossing film of its release year, spawning a vast multimedia franchise that includes five feature films with a sixth on the way, theme park attractions, merchandise, and tie-in video games.

Jurassic World Evolution 2 by Frontier Developments, the same studio behind the Rollercoaster Tycoon series, is a park management and construction simulator. It builds upon the foundations made by its 2018 predecessor and does what any good sequel should do; make some clever tweaks to the gameplay, add some quality of life improvements, and include a wealth of new features and content. However, these new implementations can bring their own sets of frustrations and issues. 

Hold Onto Your Butts

Right away upon starting the game, you have a variety of game modes to choose along with sandbox mode. The main story campaign takes place immediately after the events of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. Instead of working for InGen, you work for the Department of Fish and Wildlife, and you’re tasked with creating safe habitats for loose dinosaurs roaming around the continental US. It’s a surprisingly short campaign mode and can easily be beaten in under four hours. Bryce Dallas Howard and BD Wong return to lend their voices, reprising their roles from the films.

But what the game may lack in a proper campaign, it more than makes up for it with Chaos Theory mode. These are a collection of different missions serving as ‘what if’ scenarios, with each one based on the five films, and it’s up to you to avoid the mistakes made by the characters on screen. Each scenario begins with an opening cinematic featuring narration from Ian Malcolm, voiced by none other than Mr. Jeff “uh-uh” Goldblum himself. This is where you’ll mostly be spending a majority of your time in this game, and where most of the frustrations lie.

Life…Uhh…Finds a Way

The main goal of Jurassic World Evolution 2 is to build a thriving, dinosaur-centric, zoological theme park. Veteran players of the first game will feel at home as the core mechanics remain largely unchanged, though the new additions bring a fresh level of gameplay not seen the first time around. For one thing, they added time controls. You can now speed up, slow down, or pause your game, something that was oddly absent in the first game. This meant you had lots of down time, waiting for certain goals or tasks to finish, or when waiting for a specific amount of money to roll in to progress further. Seems kind of silly not to have something that’s a staple mechanic of this genre. But it’s here now, thank goodness.

Another major addition is you’re required to recruit scientists to your team in order to perform tasks. Each new hire brings a certain predetermined skill stats and one unique skill, such as faster research or perhaps a specialty in genetics or logistics. But be careful not to overwork a scientist and give them rest breaks. If your scientist gets overworked, they’ll become disgruntled and could willfully sabotage your park. It’s an interesting new addition and adds another layer in park management. You can now also assign your park rangers on a patrol schedule that will periodically check on your dinosaur’s welfare and restock their food supply automatically. Restocking the food supplies was something you had to do manually in the first game, which got tedious and annoying so it’s a welcome addition.

Spared No Expense

Managing your park can be broken down into three primary categories: Science, Security, and Entertainment. The science category deals with dinosaur incubation, DNA extraction from fossils, along with R&D to unlock upgrades and new assets. Security deals with creating enclosures for your dinos, and having the appropriate staff like park rangers and medical teams to ensure their welfare. Making a comfortable environment within the enclosures is essential and each species will have different habitat demands.

If you don’t meet the needs of your dinos, they eventually get agitated, they break out of their enclosures and wreak havoc through your park. The entertainment category deals with your park guests. You’ll have a selection of amenities for eating, drinking, and shopping. Attractions are how guests get to view your dinosaurs. Viewing galleries are for the guests who want to see dinos from a safe distance, and park tours are for those guests who’d rather get up close and personal in either those iconic Ford Explorers from the first film, or the gyrospheres from Jurassic World. Oh yea, and don’t forget to build restrooms and emergency shelters!

Ay, Ay, Ay! Why Didn’t I Build in Orlando? 

Chaos Theory is also where the objectives get complex and frustrating. Since most objectives have to be met simultaneously, it can be a grind to achieve, as most objectives require crossing a numeric threshold. Because those numbers can fluctuate depending on your decisions, meeting those numbers at the same time can be harder than it sounds. It’s also quite easy to lose everything at the whim of a random storm or disaster. 

Sometimes your park will get hit by a tropical storm which can knock out your park’s power supply. So now your fences aren’t electrified, dinos can easily break out of their enclosures, so you must get people to your emergency shelters. This means guests aren’t spending money at the park, so your income dries up and your finances will get in the red. Then suddenly your park rating takes a nosedive and it becomes impossible to recover from, and it’s pretty much game over. That’s an extreme example, but it just shows how easily things can spiral out of control.

First It’s “Oooh’s” and “Aaah’s,” Then It’s Running n’ Screaming

Jurassic World Evolution 2 looks great in terms of dinosaur variety and map biomes. Breaking away from tropical islands, the series now offers new environment types set within the contiguous United States. You have desert landscapes of the Southwest, alpine forests of the Pacific Northwest, and temperate forests of the Appalachians, all of which present their own unique challenges in creating a comfortable environment. 

There are now over 75 different dinosaur species featured in Jurassic World Evolution 2, now featuring aquatic and avian species, which again were absent the last time. As such, new types of enclosures are available, such as aviaries and lagoons, adding more dimension and biodiversity to your park. The dinosaurs themselves look fantastic, and having the ability to get to ground level to watch your dinos in action is rife with opportunities to capture glory shots with the in-game capture mode. It’s also quite a treat that you can choose which different trilogy aesthetic you want to build your park. The nostalgia geek in me truly appreciates getting to build my own Jurassic Park as seen in the 90s.

Final Thoughts

Overall, Jurassic World Evolution 2 is a very enjoyable game, and a big step up from the previous installment, which I also enjoyed quite immensely. However, that’s not to say this game is free of frustration either. Though it makes great improvements over issues raised in the first game, some of the new mechanics introduced here present their own sets of drawbacks, which can cause things to spiral out-of-control when disaster strikes. Lastly, if you wish to enjoy the game’s Sandbox Mode to the fullest, you have to unlock everything from within the other game modes. It’s the same exact gripe I had with the first game. This is by no means the fault of the game, it’s just personal preference when playing games of this genre. I like to be able to let my creativity flow free without restrictions. I’m the kind of guy who plays Minecraft exclusively in Creative Mode.

If you’re a fan of the Jurassic Park franchise, or if you enjoy park management games that especially have the word “tycoon” in the title, then I believe you would enjoy Jurassic World Evolution 2. It’s another worthy addition to the business management genre. So I’ll end by saying “Welcome to Jurassic Park!”

 

This review is based on a purchased copy of Jurassic World Evolution 2 for Xbox. It is also available on PlayStation and PC via Steam and Epic Games Store.