Jurassic World Evolution by Frontier Developments

Man they did go a little crazy with this DLC.

I have no willpower - aka, I bought the Deluxe version. Seems like it’ll be a fun, reasonably low-stress builder. And I can live with that.

Get it :). Just remember the sequencing and some aspects do have a countdown meter so that part of the game requires a little patience, but I think it fits well.

Is any of the dlc must have as a new player?

I consider all of it must have, but if you had to skip something you could trim a Dino pack or skin pack. The Dino pack you could trim is the small planteaters, but they’re so cute I’d miss them. In the grand scheme of things they’re not necessary. Claire’s sanctuary and Dr. Wu are critical to the game’s progression so absolutely don’t skip those. Honestly outside of the skin pack I’m not sure you’d want to miss out on some of the cool dinosaurs the extra packs add, but look through them to see what you could live without.

I hope you all enjoy the game as much as I have. I’ll feel like a total tool if you don’t.

I played a little last night after I installed it and I don’t absolutely hate it so you’re safe @jpinard … For now!

So I don’t hate this game, but I am not really in love with it. I get the appeal though. They made each of the dinosaurs nice to look at but it feels like… that’s it. I kind of knew that though going in, which is why they got my 10 dollars and not the 30. It does make me wonder why they couldn’t combine the marvelous visuals with Planet Coaster mechanics, clean it up a bit and do more with Planet Zoo than they appear to do.

The part I do hate in this game though is the ranger mechanics… how about they just go out there and do the maintenance stuff and bother me when something interesting happens, not like when some food bin needs a refill.

This… this is what I’ve been waiting for (small part of patch notes) :)

1.12 Free Update Content

  • Ranger Danger
    • Aggressive or dangerous dinosaurs can try to attack ranger teams
    • Certain dinosaurs will react aggressively if a ranger vehicle is driven too quickly or noisily when near them
    • Ranger vehicles can take damage if attacked by a dinosaur - too much damage will result in the destruction of the vehicle
    • Tolerance to ranger teams is determined per species
    • Honking will now reduce the tolerance of any dinosaurs in range
    • Added a calamity warning when ranger teams are being attacked
    • Flares can be used to distract dinosaurs that would normally attack the ranger vehicles
      • Can be fired manually
      • Can be deployed as a task
    • Added a sandbox toggle
    • Added passenger reactions to collisions

Someone’s screenshot after a short amount of time in the DLC. SOOOO cool.

Picked up the Premium Edition last night. You guys better not have steered me wrong.

Stop and smell the roses along the way.

Thanks for this, it (unfortunately) confirms what I suspected based on streams and reviews. I think I’d have to be more of a Jurassic Park fan to really find this one engaging.

Or you really, really like looking at Dinosaurs. The models are excellent, but the game / simulation, including the Dinosaurs, meh.

Yeah, I think Zoo Tycoon, even with the same limitations, would be more my speed.

Me too. I am not going to be turned off from Planet Zoo due to this game, and I loved Zoo Tycoon 1 years ago. I’ll just let them bake that one a bit more and start churning out their endless DLC. The weird thing is, which I think @jpinard mentioned earlier is this game looks… gorgeous. I mean it really is stunning the kind of detail they put into those models so how come Planet Zoo which doesn’t have the license cost… looks so simple and inferior after they did this game?

I sunk in about 90 minutes before I had enough. It’s a strange game that seems to be missing something that would make it fun for me. Dino’s sure are nice to look at. And Frontier knows how to make games that run well for me on my PC, but they aren’t very fun. And I seem to be bad at making my own fun in their games. I might revisit it next year if I get the itch to revisit was I experienced. Until then I asked Steam for a refund. :P

I’ve bounced off Elite Dangerous, Planet Coaster and now this game. Weird.

Still the best JP game imho:
1562892115

It sort of feels to me that JPE is sort of a game where you plop down buildings and play with dinos - with perhaps a sort of quest/puzzle aspect - whereas Planet Zoo is a game where you really control every single little aspect of creating and maintaining a zoo.

Not to derail but what do you think looks inferior in Planet Zoo? I’ve seen plenty of people playing who have zoomed into the models used for the animals (which I assume you’re referring to) and they look great! They move realistically, the textures look fine, I don’t see any issues.

I will grant you that maybe the dinos look a touch better but perhaps part of that is because we can’t compare them to their contemporary counterparts.

Well when I look at something like this:

and this:

It just looks so much more inferior to this:

image

The details just look different to me.

Now I haven’t played Planet Zoo so it could be the screenshots are not doing it justice, but I have now played JWE, and the textures, even the rolls of skin on the body are there.

We discussed this very thing on the podcast. For me, it’s the fur tech they use in Zoo. I just don’t think it looks good up close. The dinos in JW don’t have that issue for obvious reasons.

Yeah. That’s probably a lot of it. It’s like it’s painted on or something. There is no muscle texture or skin rolls. I mean those big cats, like domestic cats, they have like masses of hanging skin that kind of sways when they move and stuff. I didn’t expect that sort of thing from like Zoo Tycoon decades ago but today… we have these animals to see and review right now. They can do so much better, and we know they can because they put so much time and effort into the dinosaurs. I mean it’s not just color like hard bone and beak and claws… heck even the claws look better than on those cats.

I mean half that game looks just like Planet Coaster, had the same bugs form what I’ve seen… they should have put more into those animals.

The problem with Zoo Tycoon creatures is they made animated stuffed animals instead of… animals.