Customer Reviews

Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis is first and foremost a god-game, the kind of game where you control everything from a commanding perspective. Yet this game has so much to offer and a heap load of things to accomplish and do it never gets old. First the graphics are very solid. Great textures, great enviormental effects and very, VERY realistic dinosaurs. This is one of the best aspects of the game because it feels and looks so realistic you can't help but take it seriously. They are by no means perfet however. Little glitches such as dinosaurs walking through one another and sometimes blocky shapes do frequently occur but aren't serious enough to effect the overall greatness of the game. There are many modes to the game, including Operation Genesis which is the main chunk of the game. This is where you research, build and maintain the park which is never a problem and always fresh and exciting. Despite this modes endless replay value, it also comes (as well as the entire game comes)with a very versitle camera system. It allows you to see what the visitors see, what the helicopters see as well as mostly anything else you could ever want to see from any angle and perspective. Another great mode is Missions Mode. Here you can have some serious fun, from taking money making pictures of dinos and herding large qauntities of them to sniping and taking them out, they are all fun. Depending on how skilled a gamer you are, theese may take you quite a while to complete or a short amount of time, but they are fun diversions from the park mode. (Park mode also can have some intense dinosaur sequences if you don't build the park well enough.) Tutorials, Dinopedia and Site B are other modes that really increase the longivety and pleasing effect to the game. All in all, JPOG is an incredible game that can appeal to anyone-from thrill seekers, world builders and even a combination of both. There is simply so much to do and learn and master and create that it really has no bounds to what you can do. 5 out of 5 stars all the way!

Okay, I'm 12 years old, and I received this game for my birthday a few days ago. I was so excited because ever since I saw Jurassic Park when I was about 3 years old, I've been a dino fan. Since the first movie, all of the Jurassic Park games released where action-based. I can't beleive that it took the wit of a foreign videogame company to finally come up with the idea of a Jurassic Park game that allows players to actually build their very own Jurassic Park. About 2 years before this release, Nintendo came out with Jurassic Park: Park Builder. The thing that made me so mad was that it was released on GameBoy!!! I mean, why the heck would Nintendo do this for GameBoy?! Seriously! Anyway, the game itself was entertaining. There are 4 types of gameplay: Operation Genesis, the main type of play similar to a sandbox scenario on a Command & Conquer. Excersise, which starts off with a few tutorials. After that, it turns into "advanced" mode, where you build a park with a specific goal, such as exhibiting a Tyrannosaurus. There is mission mode, where you can retire [kill] all the rampaging carnivores or take photos for a Jurassic Park calendar. Last but not least there is Site B, where the player creates dinosaurs with no fences or people. You get to sit back and watch the dinosaurs interact with one another. You can only play Site B by completing all of the missions. I think that the game has a lack of buildings, only around 15, including fences. I think that the game's variety of dinosaurs is great-25 species to be exact. The only dissapointing thing is that you can only have access to 3 digsites per game [out of 9]. This means that you can only have like 9 species of dinosaurs at a time. Overall I think the game is great for you hardcore dino fans.

I have this game.I even got some cheats!CAUTION!:THESE CHEATS ARE ONLY FOR THE PS2!To get $ 250,000,R1,RIGHT,RIGHT,L1,R1,DOWN. NO TWISTERS,HOLD L1 and R1 and enter LEFT,RIGHT now let go of L1 and R1 and press L1 and R1 again.DINOSAURS WON'T GET SICK,UP,UP,R1,L1,DOWN,UP,DOWN.NO MORE RAMPAGES,L1,LEFT,UP,LEFT,UP,LEFT,L1.NO STORMS,R1,R1,RIGHTLEFT,UP,RIGHT.EVERYTHING UNLOCKED,R1,RIGHT,RIGHT,RIGHT,RIGHT,R1.MR.DNA R1,UP,R1,RIGHT,L1,DOWN.ISLA MUERETE,R1,R1,R1,L1,RIGHT.NOCOST WHEN TOURISTS DIE,L1,R1,LEFT,DOWN,DOWN,DOWN,DOWN.CHOOSE 3 DIG SITES WITH NO STARS NEEDED,LEFT,DOWN,RIGHT,L1,R1,L1,R1.EARN ONE STAR,RIGHT,L1,UP,L1,L1,DOWN.RAMPAGE TIME,L1,L1,L1,LEFT,LEFT,LEFT.CALL A TWISTER,LEFT,UP,RIGHT,DOWN,L1,R1.
ALL RESEARCH,DOWN,DOWN,DOWN,LEFT,RIGHT,L1,DOWN,UP.
HOPE YOU ENJOY THE CHEATS!

When Jurassic Park 3 came out, I went on a Jurassic Park fan site and saw that Vivendi Universal was making a Jurassic Park SIM game. Being the BIGGEST Jurassic Park fan in the world, I was in awe. Anyway, this game is based on a SIM version of Jurassic Park. You build John Hammond's dream theme park/zoo and make it the best theme park in the world. You have many things to do such as create JP, trainings, and missions. By completing everything (with the exception of Operation: Genesis) you unlock Site B: An island with dinosaurs to just enjoy and watch. When you build JP, you make fences and dinosaurs (duh!) plus kiosks, attractions and security things. The only problem is that you have a limit of things(like dig sites, dinosaurs etc.) and when you research things, they take a while and our obvious things (weather guard, ATM, gift shops, safari's, vaccines, etc.)but it is such a small complaint compared to all the other great things. This is the greatest game I have ever played and I hope they make an Operation: Genesis 2. Thanks for reading.

This game is pretty cool if you enjoy The Sims but compared to The Sims it can't hold a candle stick. I enjoyed this game but there isn't much to do.

You can create your own island, which is nice but you only get to choose the size, mountains and rivers. You can only 'dig' for fossils in 3 areas (of 9 areas) of your choice giving you a solid 9 dinosaurs ONLY for your park. You only get at best 15 buildings (3 are fences, some cameras, etc.), worse is you can have so many of one type of building making a large park barron because you can only have so few buildings (then the tourists get pissed cos there's not enough toilets), and it takes ages to research anything. Even the souvenier stand has 3 items to buy, same as the food stand -alot of variety eh?-

Personally I thought it was a great game but lacking in alot of areas, it'd be better if you could get lots more buildings and attractions and more dinosaurs.

Its a game to get if you wanna sit back and watch your park play out, but if you don't like Sims games, don't go near this.

This game is really awesome. First you get to make your own "sim" park. Second There is a good varity of dino's but I kinda wished that you could make a bird cage and put flying dino's in it. Third You get to drive your own jeep and ride in a ballon and take pictures, And drive your own copter and shoot the dino's to either help them or kill them. And lastly fifth, You have a few missons that you can do to get a "secret" island where there are no visitors, and every thing is free.

I would extreamly recomend this game for any who likes being a manager, Or just likes dinosaurs or the jurassic park films.

this is the best jurassic park game I have ever played. there a re all kinds of dinosaurs to choose from. you can build safari and balloon tours. in the safari tour, you take visitors INSIDE
the cages to meet the dinos up close. this is a game that I will never get bored of.