Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis

by Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis" interactive game © 2002 Universal Interactive, Inc.

Product Features

• Life-like 3D dinosaurs that hunt, fight, feed, and flock in realistic fashion
• 12 unique, action-packed and sometimes death-defying missions
• 25 dinosaur species including Tyrannosaurus Rex, Velociraptor and Triceratops,

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000086JYK
• Item Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: March 25, 2003
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,829 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
  • #99 in Video Games > PlayStation 2 > Sports

Product Description

Platform: PlayStation2

As the first ever fully 3D action-sim, Operation Genesis gives players two games in one. Either build the ultimate dinosaur theme park or engage in 12 action-packed missions that will truly test your gaming skills. Dream it. Build it. Survive it. This truly is Jurassic Park... your way!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great little theme park manager, fantastic Dinosaur life sim, March 19, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis (Video Game)

Okay, here's the gameplay:

First you have to deal with basic park-building: Build an entrance, burger stall, toilets next to it, some viewing/photo platforms and fences. Lots of fences. (You'll later research more buildings: Visitor shelters, balloon rides, jeep safaris, souvenir shops, plus many upgrades for dino handling facilities.

Once you've hatched a few dinos and got the park running, you can basically do as you please! It's great fun to watch the Dinosaurs: The artificial intelligence is BRILLIANT! The dino behavior patterns were taken from palaeontology researchers/teachers (Jurassic Park Institute), so you have herds of plant-eaters (some aggressive and playful, others shy, some a bit boring but impressive (Brachiosaurus!). Some of the early Carnivores (hunters) are rather dumb, spending most of their time in show-off combat for territory and eating cows (out of the park's food dispensers). But the small Velociraptors hunt in packs and can bring down any enemy in record time... and they don't eat cow or goat either. Actually, the only thing a Velociraptor loves more than hunting and eating dinosaurs is hunting and eating humans...

... which brings us to the action missions: Dino hunt (control a helicopter and the sniper rifle... sometimes to shoot vaccine, sometomes bullets) Photo safari (cruise around in a jeep, make good dinosaur photos, sell them), Rescue (a visiting VIP crash-landed in the Carnivore Cage....) and so on. You can even set the dinosaurs loose on visitors - just make sure your Velociraptors are starving, and then delete the right fences and security turrets :)

Overall, I would have preferred a more complex park economics simulation, but that would have distracted from the main attraction of the game: Beautifully animated dinosaurs with lifelike behaviour AI.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Walk In The Park, April 14, 2003

By 

Matt Spencer (Columbus, OH United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis (Video Game)

Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis isn't really a unique game. It follows a formula that's actually pretty old. Simulation games have covered everything from building cities and theme parks, to every day living at home. However, Operation Genesis is a little different, and those differences prevent the game from being bland.

Basically, you're running a zoo. A zoo where the animals range from the size of a small cat to the size of a blue whale. But instead of just buying animals and attractions and setting them up in your park, you have to research them first. You have to put money in to dig up fossils, then once you have the fossils you have to give them to the genetics lab and have them extract the DNA. But here's the kicker: you have to have at least 50% of the dinosaur's genome in order to clone one. Also, the higher percentage of the genome you have, the longer your dinosaur will live. At low percentages, the dinos live for a few months, at higher percentages they last up to four or five years. If they're going to be around that long, you have to keep them somwhere - electric fences. You have to build the fences, build attractions so that visitors can see into the enclosures, and build security devices to keep those nasty carnivores from making lunch out of tourists.

The central gameplay is keeping your tourists happy, your dinos healthy, and your wallet full. But there are complications. There are different types of tourists with different needs and expectations. Dinosaurs often get sick and you have to research vaccines or quarantine sick dinos to stop an outbreak. And to add to your aggrevation, natural disasters often damage your park, forcing you to rebuild fences, find dinosaurs, bring them back to their enclosures, and keep tourists alive. As it was said in the first movie "every theme park has its problems", but as Ian Malcom then pointed out that in Disney Land "When the Pirates of the Carribean broke down, the pirates didn't eat the tourists." You'll be expected to check buildings and fences once in a while to keep up with maintenance

The game is divided into several sections. There's "Operation Genesis" which is the main theme park part of the game, "Missions" which allows you to go on safari tours of a park to complete an objective, and "Site B" which is a lot like the Site B from the movie in that there's no theme park, just dinosaurs running amuck and interacting with each other.

For all the ups in the game, there are a few downs. I don't know about the other platforms, but on PS2 there were times when the game would freeze (mostly from hitting buttons too fast). You can only unlock 3 digsites to find fossils - meaning you'll never be able to get every species of dinosaur in a single game. And most annoying of all - emails. People working in your park constantly email you to update you on things. Here's an example: say your T-Rex is giving you trouble and you want to get rid of it. What do you do? Well, you could kill it with a park ranger helicopter. But the second the Rex is dead, you get an email from your dino expert telling you that the T-Rex died. What's worse, say you created seven brachiosaurus at once. When their time comes and they've lasted four years or however long they're expected to live, you get seven individual emails telling you your dinosaurs have died. Another annoyance factor is dinosaur illness. At one point in the game, I literally had twenty dinosaurs (different species) that either died or went into a coma, all within five minutes of gameplay. The game picks the worst time to spring disasters on you.

Taking all of that into account, it's still a great game. If you like simulation games and dinosaurs (or either one), this is a good game for you. But as with most games, I recommend that you try it before you buy it. Rent the game or borrow it from a friend first, because it may not be for everyone.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fresh Start, May 7, 2003

By 

"tspcr" (Miami, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis (Video Game)

Finally a JP game that is good and what should have been an expected game format since the release of the first film.

This game is a great world builder for everyone (some hard core world builders may find it a bit easy). The interface is easy once you understand it (doing the tutorials are a must) and you'll be kicking dinos out of the hatchery in no time.

The graphics are great but the music and "message from" voice get a little annoying (thankfully you can turn them off). The dinosaurs are well rendered and interact with each other just like you would expect in a real Jurassic Park. The rampages that happen, especially after a twister takes down a section of one of your enclousers are FANTASTIC. I laughed my butt off!

A few short comings kept me from giving 5 stars:

First, you have no control over game speed. Although the game moves at a good pace, it would have been better to have had the ability to slow or speed things up.

Second, there is a serious lack of buildings. Some of the buildings you would expect for this type of theme park are here, but the game could have up'd the challenge a bit by adding more support buildings (other than the cleaning buildings). Like maybe having to build a research lab rather than taking for granted those facilities just exist, or maintenance facilities needed to take care of safari vehicles and helos. A park pre-opening period would have been helpful and good for getting these types of buildings constructed.

Third, was not being able to build an unlimited number, or at least a high number of buildings. You are severly and annoyingly limited in the number of certain buildings you can construct (bathrooms)!

Fourth, the number and varity of dinosaurs you can make. The dinosaur populations maxed out at 60 (not really that bad). But, I did not like not being able to unlock more than three dig sites, which are needed to get fossils for DNA extraction, giving you better varity. It was my biggest dissapointment because some of my parks ended up being all Cretaceous era parks. They could at least allow you to change the name from "Jurassic Park" to "Cretaceous Park". It is however part of the game challenge because you have to satisfy a varity of park visitors taste, but it's still annoying.

Finally, the research portion was kind of dissapointing. You must conduct research before using or building certain things. Some of them are what you would expect to research and where usefull to game play like dinosaur vaccines. However there was some really dumb stuff, like cash machines and souvenir stands. HELLO, the game year starts in 2000, and I think man had evolved well beyond the point of having to research cash machines and gift shops before being able to build them (call Chevy Chase Bank which if you ever lived in the DC area you would know what I'm talking about).

Back on the bright side, this game has great replayability. There was so much more to do than just build a park. The tutorials (again a must) cut to the chase and were not just an annoying task to complete. You can do the tutorials and avoid having to refer to the game manual at all. There are tons of side missions also. Completing one, unlocks the next. Then there is the ultimate goal of getting site B unlocked. A chunk of land and the ability to breed dinosaurs that you cut loose to roam free.

There is promise for a franchise game here. If they decide to release expansion packs that make some improvements listed above, I would also buy the PC version.

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