Managing your dinosaurs can best be described as nuisance management. As
you're playing the game you'll get messages popping up telling you that one
dinosaur or another is sick or distressed forcing you to send a ranger chopper
out to resuscitate or inoculate the problem dinosaur. You'll also need to
move dinosaurs that wander too far from your viewing areas, but this is a slow
process of sending out a ranger chopper to sedate the dinosaur, waiting for the
dinosaur to fall unconscious, and then dispatching another helicopter to airlift
the beast. There is no way to jump to another point on the map while
airlifting the dinosaur, so you'll have to scroll around until you find the drop
off point.
To provide for your visitors you need to use the standard sim method of building
support structures connected by paths so that they can be reached by visitors.
Jurassic Park differs from most other sims in that there are surprisingly few
structures available. For example, the only support structure you'll need
to build besides the ranger station is a cleaners' station that houses employees
who's sole duty is to keep the paths from looking muddy. There is only one
type of eatery and although you can specify that it serve one of four different
entrées, the structure always has a giant burger on the roof. You can also
build restrooms and a souvenir stand, but that's it. No hotels, fancy
restaurants, ice cream parlors, or what have you. This leaves your parks
looking generic and virtually identical every time that you play. It also
makes park building dull, as there is no way to put your personal touch or add
character to the parks you build.
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| You can take control of your safari vehicles. |
There's not a lot you can do with the attractions, either. There are three
types of viewing platforms, and only two rides. The two rides, safari car
and hot air balloon, let you jump into the vehicle and take control in the case
of the car. You can enjoy looking at your dinosaurs from close up, and
even go into camera mode to snap "photographs" of your dinosaurs that are graded
on composition. Unless you really like looking at computer dinosaurs,
though, it won't hold your interest for too long.
The game is also light in the reports and graphs department. There
aren't any financial reports outside of a simple profit and loss graph, and the
other reports are sorely lacking in really useful information. For
example, you can see a list of the dinosaurs in your park, but there is no way
to use the list to determine the status of your dinosaurs or jump to their
location in the park. Instead of giving you useful summary information,
the graphs force you to go out and check every dinosaur, building, and visitor
individually to get their status.
Graphically, the game is a mix of good and not so good. The graphics
engine is fully 3D giving you full camera freedom, but it won't let you pull
back far enough to get a good wide view on things. The structures are only
minimally animated and not that interesting to watch. For example, when a
visitor buys a meal he simply walks next to a food kiosk, a dollar value appears
above his head, and then he turns and walks way. There is no feeling that
your visitors are actually interacting with your park's features. The
dinosaurs look good even when fully zoomed, but the structure and environmental
textures are not very detailed. In fact, the game has the look of a
console port in which the graphic detail was left at videogame levels.
If you enjoy theme park management sims, then you will probably be
disappointed by the lack of depth in Jurassic Park. If not for the
dinosaurs and Jurassic Park setting, it would be a below average sim instead of
on the low end of average. The game is probably best for younger gamers
with an interest in dinosaurs. The management aspects of the game are
simple enough that they can spend time watching their dinosaurs once their park
is up and running.
In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated:
66%. Jurassic Park is theme park simming light, and best left to those
who can't get enough of dinosaurs.
System Requirements: Pentium III 400; 128 MB RAM; 16 MB
Video RAM; 700 MB Hard Drive
Space; Mouse.
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