Amazon.com: Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis: PC: Video Games

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66 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fun game, but maybe a little too easy, March 15, 2003

By	Derek G (Redneck, South Carolina) - See all my reviews

Operation Genesis is an economic sim where you create your own dinosaur park, but a few real-time elements breathe some new life into the genre. Think of it as a game of Theme Park, where the main attractions can kill you.

You start off the game on your own custom island, researching DNA, building exhibits, and of course constructing huge fences to keep the dinosaurs contained. As your research progresses, you are able to create bigger and badder dinosaurs that generate additional customer interest. Of course this raises the danger level as well. To provide research material, you hire teams of archaeologists to dig up bones and amber. As more material is collected and researched, the DNA of each dinosaur becomes more complete and the dinosaurs live longer as a result.

I think the developers struck a nice balance of keeping the money management focused mainly on dinosaur research and less on the park itself so it doesn't turn into yet another economic sim. You do have to monitor some areas like food and park cleanliness, but that's about it. The majority of money is spent developing dinosaurs and their needs. For instance, the dinosaurs need to be vaccinated to prevent a number of diseases that can afflict the animals. Once the vaccines are developed, you need to build a helicopter station so they can be shot with the vaccine (or shot period if they go nuts and start attacking everything.) You can't spend the entire time focused only on the dinosaurs, though. You also need to spend time researching new and better exhibits, such as balloon rides, viewing towers, and the ever-popular jungle safari tours in the woefully inadequate Nissan pickups, so the customers can see the dinosaurs better and improve your park rating.

As the research improves and new technologies are developed, you get an email telling you everything, and I mean everything that happens. This starts to get a little annoying after a while as many of the "common sense" decisions could be delegated. It would have been nice to be able to adjust the settings so certain decisions, like reviving a sick dinosaur or selling fully researched DNA material, could be made automatically. Every so often, a little real-time gameplay comes into action. For instance, a dinosaur might trash one of the pickups, leaving the survivors stranded and it's up to you to fly a helicopter overhead and rescue them before they get trampled on or eaten. Or, if you like, you can jump on one of the balloons or pickups to take some pictures of the dinosaurs. If your photography skills are good enough, they might get published and you'll make a little extra cash as a result.

One of the best features of the game is simply watching the behavior of the dinosaurs as they interact with one another. Certain dinosaurs tend to get along, others don't. As you introduce new and different dinosaurs, the dynamics of the park change. When my park started off with all herbivores, they would wander all over the place. Once I introduced some carnivores, especially my bad-boy T-Rex, they tended to become much more territorial. Plus my normally docile triceritops would start freaking out and trash any nearby pickups, much to the chagrin of the customers. Other dinosaurs would get so stressed, they'd simply keel over and die. Some of the behaviors are a little buggy, they like pushing each other around while they're sleeping, for instance. But for the most part they do seem to have individual personality and it adds a lot to the game.

There are some minor gripes, such as being forced to used certain functions with a keyboard even though the entire game could have been mouse driven. My main gripe, though, is that it's a little too easy. I'm no expert in these types of games, but even in my first game, I easily created a money making machine with every exhibit and every dinosaur researched in spite of numerous mistakes that I wouldn't make my second time around. There's really not much involved in keeping the park maintained or the customers happy. It didn't seem like it made much difference to the customers whether I had a few or a lot of dinosaurs. In fact, it seems like the less dinosaurs you have, the easier it is to play. Having said that, I was feeling pretty smug about my park when a huge twister ripped through destroying everything in its path. I was having so much fun watching the devastation that I forgot to declare a state of emergency. Let's just say that the few customers that lived probably won't return anytime soon.

So should you buy it? If you're looking for a complex economic sim, you'll probably be happier with Sim City 4. It's also graphics-intensive, so it'll struggle on standard video cards, but anyone with a Geforce or Radeon will be able to play it. Aside from that, you really do get the "virtual" thrill of building and managing your very own dinosaur park. Hope the review helped.

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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You Run Jurassic Park!, October 28, 2004

By	Delphinidae "Delph" (Ohio) - See all my reviews

Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars

Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis is great! And I found it very pleasing to be watching the dinosaurs.

First off... the dinosaurs. The way they moved was incredible. They're motion gave the reality that they are actually there.They're behavior also created a dynamic form that they were all different, and not the same dinosaur in another's costume. Some seem to like to hunt a lot, While others played and fought in territorial fights. Some examples of aggresion include spinosaurus. Spinosaurus will fight for territory many times, while others such as tyrannosaurus will flee before challengers after it loses just one territory fight, meaning that spinosaurus always has confidance while tyrannosaurus gives up. Allosaurus doesn't fight at all, though they are incredibly stupid and keep on going after the same dangerous prey even though it is seriously damaged. Allosaurus run from other large carnivores, but the other large carnivores don't eat them.

The fact that many dinosaurs played a lot is very annoying. Because they will practically starve themselves to death or play to the point of dying of dehydration. They're too stupid to even survive. Plus they constantly run in circles around the predator, meaning that the predator could easily get them.

Herbivores tend to have a very different behavior than carnivores. Corythosaurus tend to run long distances and separate from their herd. But Camarasaurus does sort of have the same behavior, except they do it to join other herds of camarasaurus or brachiosarus. Hadrosaurs like the edmontosaurus and ouranosaurus like to make another hadrosaur into their leader. If the dinosaur has a particular species for it's friend then they will make that different species their leader or simply follow them around a lot for protection against predators.

Now I'll talk about the machines and stuff that you can ride. First is the helicopter. The controls for the helicopter were very easy and I had very little trouble with them. It's a great way to cure dinosaurs and get their health back. Or if you get angry you can simply kill them all. You can also herd them or lure them. Now the jeep. I have serious issues with it because when you try to turn left it will go right first, then left. This was very annoying because I kept on running into things. Plus when you let go of the button it will keep on running for a couple of seconds and then stop. Finally the balloon. The only thing you could do with the balloon is use it as a last resort to take good pictures of dinosaurs. But the balloon moved around so much that I couldn't get it centered or get the shot of the dinosaurs that I wanted. This results in messy pictures and that is why I say to use it only if there is no other way. And by the way, large carnivores will attack the jeep. That's another reason why you should use the balloon.

Now the guests. I loved how the guests liked different things. And I liked how they had names and showed where they came from. They even talk to each other. But they are more stupid than some of the dinosaurs. They will walk back and forth in one area or walk around in circles saying stuff like ''Where's the bathroom? Why didn't they put in a bathroom?'' This made me think of shooting the guest with the rifle. Sadly you can't do this. Otherwise it would be rated M.

The missions are very fun. They include herding dinosaurs through mazes of fences, killing rogue dinosaurs and saving a president, shooting the hatchery power boxes to stop them from creating more, rescueing John Hammond using the jeep, and taking great pictures of dinosaurs for a calender. There are other missions though. And if you can beat them all you can unlock Site B.

Now I have had serious problems with this. Some of the worst things I'll tell. One of the bad things is that my dinosaurs go in the water and can't get out. I try to put land around it but it won't let me because it says that there is something in the way. So my dinosaur died because of this. Here's another one that sort of made me sad. Why can't the dinosaurs breed? In the movie and book they're all female, but the game could have at least tilted it a little bit. Plus you can't name the dinosaurs like in Zoo Tycoon. That makes it impossible to track them down unless they're the leader or there's only one.

I thought that the game was totally awesome. I would reccomend this to anyone. Thanks for reading!

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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dream it, Build it, Survive it., February 22, 2003

By	"dano_watkins" (Paoli, Indiana) - See all my reviews

Though I have only played the demo, I feel that this is truly a game that fans of Jurassic Park, dinosaurs, and even that "Tycoon" series alike should at least look into. Dinosaur models, sounds, activities, and how realistic the activities are preformed are extremly accurate. (Such as herbivorious dinosaurs will make herds, and carnivores will become stressed if they don't have running space or are denied the ability to hunt, and carnivores will fight over territory.)

You go to dig sites and fossil markets to extract dinosaur D.N.A. from items such as amber and fossilized bones, though you may only get 5-15% of a certain dinosaur's D.N.A. at a time from the bones, yet from a piece of amber, you may get up to 65% of a dinosuar's full D.N.A. After you get 100% of any given dinosaur's D.N.A., you can then clone your dinosaurs into a living, breathing dinosaur body. The process is done by removing an alligator's D.N.A. from an egg, and inserting the D.N.A. of the dinosaur.
Due to a 'scientific process', the dinosaur grows to adult size in 4 days, then is released into the confined area you have made for her. (All dinosaurs are females to protect against uncontrolled breeding.)So, the good thing is: you don't have to wait for the dinosaur to grow up. The bad thing is: you don't get to watch the dinosaur grow up. (To same this is a good thing.)

In compliance with the realism, the dinosaurs can also get sick. The main diseases they may get include: Gastric Poisioning, Bumblefoot, Tick Infestation, Rabies, Dinosaur Flu, and Dino Belly. If you do not vaccinate the infected dinosaur(s) then a major outbreak will occur throughout the park. Luckly for us though, there is a "Cure All" button, so now we won't have to cure each individual one. You also have to set up research facilities so you can discover more vaccicnes, because all of them are not handed over to you. >:)

After you have established a good park, visitors will come see if the so called "real dinosaurs" ad in the paper was a big joke. Well, after they discover that they are not, they'll go and tell their friends. Though the InGen Corperation has put a limit on how many visitors you may have at one time, you can allow more as you prove to InGen that you can keep the dinosaurs from breaking out of the confiments and eating your visitors. >:] (You also loose a lot of money when this happens.) You can also take ballon rides over the park, photo rides THROUGH the park, and helicopter rides around it.

Now the bad, if you purchase the PC version of this game, I hope you have a strong video card. If not, prepare for slow frame rates, jagged models, and in some cases the game won't even start. It runs on the Direct 3D system. On my computer, all it shows is all white with gray squares because my computer doesn't support Direct 3D. :(

Overall, I really think you guys should look into this game, as it seems to have a lot of potential. Where else can you get a Jurassic Park game that looks this good anyway?

(Did I mention that there are over 25 species of dinosaurs in this game?)