I may not put much thought into Christmas l?ists today, but back when I was a kid they were practically an art form. From the presentatio??n to the content itself, I pulled out all the stops to draw attention to whatever it was I coveted at the time.

Thanks to the magic of Never Throwing Anything Away, we can now take a trip back to 1994 to se?e how well my wants, needs, and frothing demands stack up today.

When I first found this relic, I was instantly transported to more carefree days. While it may indeed be "just another Christmas list," there's a certain element of time travel involved when you're staring down the barrel of crumpled yellow legal paper full of must-own games, consoles, and action figures. Ever the savvy child, my '94 list is ordered by priority, with the first page practically screaming Castlevania: Bloodlines at a visual volume my parents would never be able? to ignore.

Bloodlines is a great example of a game I'd still be asking for today if I didn't already own it. With that logo so boldly emblazoned on the page, there's no way my folks could mistake it for anything else, but I'm willing to admit a prominent Belmont, skeleton, or Dracula himself could have made my plan even more foolproof. The rest of the first page is a mixed bag. The visual aids for the other two solid picks â€?Splatterhouse 3 and Shinobi III â€?have long since lost the battle with time. Rounding out the Sega Genesis page are X-Men and Aladdin, the latter of which earned an asterisk from, most likely??, my mom. 

I could live without X-Men, but Aladdin was pretty great on Genesis. Splatterhouse 3 is my least played of the trilogy, bu??t it was at least interesting and very grody. ?The rest of this page earns it a solid score overall.

PAGE ONE RATING: 8/10

Best Pick: Castlevania: Bloodlines
Worst Pick: X-Men

We bought a T-Rex

The Super Nintendo page is about as bare-bones as can be, with two very disparate outings front and center. Judging by my own memory, the asterisk, the "K-Mart" note, and the checkmark at the bottom, I can deduce that my parents went with Super Empire Strikes Back, which was not pictured. 

As for Ocean-published entry, it was 1994, one year after Jurassic Park hit cinemas, so you can't blame me for wanting to live that harrowing adventure for myself. As you'll see over the following pages, though, my greed knew no bounds. I didn't just want a single slice, I wanted the whole Jurassic Park video game pie for Christmas. 

Also, all the folks out there who've been complaining about 60 dollar games for the past decade can take that Mario All-Stars price point straight to the bank. 

PAGE TWO RATING: 6/10

Best Pick: Super Mario All-Stars
Worst Pick: Jurassic Park

That is one big pile of list

Here's a prime example of "one of these things is not like the other." On one end of the spectrum we have Jurassic Park and Mortal Kombat on Game Boy, both of which are not worth playing or owning for different reasons. On the other we have The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, one of the best Game Boy games of all time. The games might not all be ??created equal, but that on-page ranking speaks for itself.

Link, it would seem, found a way.

PAGE THREE RATING: 5/10

Best Pick: The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
Worst Pick: TIE - Jurassic Park / Mortal Kombat

Man creates batteries. Game Gear destroys batteries. 

If I were to tell you this is the last Jurassic Park related item on this list, would you believe me? I guess I didn't actually have a Game Gear just yet, but I sure wanted one. I also wanted Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six, Strider Returns, Sonic Chaos, and, yes, Jurassic Park. ?What, exactly, was I going to do with all this time spent on Isla Nublar? If we're taking asterisks as canon for this Christmas list, I was a real spoiled brat in 19??94. 

PAGE FOUR RATING: 3/10

Best Pick: Game Gear? I probably put a bunch of Energizer employeesâ€?children through college with this. 
Worst Pick: Jurassic Park? At this point I don't ??remember ??how bad this one was. 

God help us, we're in the hands of engineers.

"Finally," you shriek, "video game accessories!" Buddy, I'm just as excited as you are looking back at all this primo plasti??c from a time long-forgotten. Consider this the first of two bonus rounds, as we weigh the relative wisdom behind asking for some truly essential accoutrement. Looking back, SNES Advantage is absolutely not a controller that would have gotten much use in my household. The Game Boy Carry-All is certainly practical, as are the Game Gear Battery Pack, Game Boy Power Pak, and, no longer pictured, the six-button Genesis controller. 

The all-powerful asterisk tells the tale of a rotten little cheater, however. A game-breaking goober who absolutely, positively deserves to find rubbish like the X-Men: Project X Tiger LCD game in his stocking. 

PAGE FIVE RATING: 3/10

Best Pick: Game Gear Battery Pack
Worst Pick: Literally any Tiger LCD game

We spared no expense.

At this point, I'm just laying my obsession with Steven Spielberg's 1993 classic American film Jurassic Park â€?based on the hit novel by Michael Crichton â€?bare for all to witness. The "Toys and Boardgames" section is truly a depraved last effort to add to an embarrassment of indulgences. Just look at those Jurassic Park figures on order! Stegosaurus, Triceratops, Tim Murphy, and Ellie Sattler. TIM MURPHY? In my world, apparently you had to catch 'em a??ll? before that was even a thing. 

Beyond that we have a trio of X-Men figures, the Jurassic Park Compound Center, Jurassic Park Survival Chase slot car set, Lego Fire-Breathing Fortress, and The Omega Virus. I had to look up what The Omega Virus even is, and I think I own it. Apparently it's a board game. Wasn't there some Jurassic Park board game I could have swapped in its place to stay on theme? The box copy screams, "It talks! It taunts! It must be ter?minated!" If ever there was a time to sell me on a talking electronic board game, it was the early '90s. 

PAGE SIX RATING: 4/10

Best Pick: Ellie Sattler
Worst Pick: Tim Murphy

When the dust settles after blowing it off these ancient yuletide yearnings, it doesn't really matter what I think about them. I leave this overly ambitious list to the judgment of others, so that I, too, may be judged in turn. It might seem as if a key takeaway should be that I'm the biggest mark ever for the Jurassic Park Classic Games Collection, but that couldn't be further from the truth. I was a ??big dummy; those?? games stink!

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Limited Run Games has announced that 1993’s Jurassic Park and 1994’s Rampage Edition are being added to the Jurassic Park Classic Games Collection.

Many were disappointed when the included titles were revealed for the Classic Games Collection, and they excluded the Genesis titles. Instead, the announced titles are the Game Boy, NES, and SNES versions, as well as the SNES and Game Boy versions of Jurassic Park Part 2. Considering most of those titles are not very good, it’s kind of ??understandable.

The Genesis versions of the games were a lot more popular. Can you guess why? It’s because you could play as a velociraptor. If you were a child in the �0s, there was absolutely nothing cooler than that. You could also play as Alan Grant, who has the unfortunate distinction of being neither a velociraptor nor Jeff Goldblum. The games were developed by BlueSky software, who later went on to make the Vectorman games.

Unfortunately, the Genesis Jurassic Park games aren’t that great either. Once you get over the admittedly awesome ability to control a raptor, you’re left with a rather clumsy action platformer with aggravating level design. Nonetheless, I think every game should be available on modern platforms. The ??addition of these two titles will add some? appreciable value to the collection overall. Moreover, people who were fans of the Genesis titles and felt that the omission was a dealbreaker will probably be pleased.

Jurassic Park Classic Games Collection is coming to Xbox Series X|S, PS4, PS5, and Switch. Preorders are open for the physical versions, but no release date has been? announced.

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And now you're selling it, you want to sell it

Limited Run Games teased the Jurassic Park Classic Games Collection back in April, but now they’ve confirmed the titles that will be included in that collection. Hold onto your butts, because it’s the NES, SNES, and Gameboy versions of Jurassic Park and the SNES and Gameboy versions of Jurassic Park Part 2: The Chaos Continues.

No, I’m sorry, it will not include Bluesky’s Mega Drive/Genesis Jurassic Park titles.

I have to be honest with you, none of these games are really great. Not horrible either, but not great. However, I’ve written multiple times about the 1993 SNES version of Jurassic Park. While it has its problems, it’s also a unique and interesting title for the platform. The first-person perspective for indoor environments, awesome soundtrack, and various programming flourishes give it v?alue beyond its license.

As for the other games: meh. I?? personally believe all games are worthy of p?reservation, so I applaud Limited Run Games for taking on the endeavor.

[caption id="attachment_391393" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Limited Run Games[/caption]

The color of amber

As is common for Limited Run Games, we’re getting a variety of editions of Jurassic Park Classic Games Collection. There is, of course, the option to just get the game. However, there’s also the “Classic Edition�that comes with a Steelbook and a slipcover inspired by the VHS version of the movie. Finally, the Prehistoric Edition comes with all of the above, ?plus a replica Alan Grant I.D. tag, soundtrack CD, mini replica cartridges in a custom frame, and packaging the emulates the classic look of the Kenner toys.

You can also get “Retro Edition�reproduction cartridges of any?? of the versions included. These come in translucent amber-colored cartridges, which, ugh, I get the intended imagery, but amber is just piss-colored. You can upgrade to the “Collector’s Edition�which makes the ca??rtridges also light up.

If you’re not up for VHS cases or piss cartridges, then it sounds like there will also be a digital version of the Jurassic Park Classic Games Collection available. It will be coming to Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, and PS5. Preorders st??art September 1st and close on October 15th.

The post Limited Run Games confirms what’s coming on the Jurassic Park Classic Games Collection appeared first on Destructoid.

That is one big pile of... games

Did you know the 30th anniversary of the Jurassic Park film is coming up? Holy gosh, I am so old! Limited Run Games seems willing to sacrifice this horrible entropy by bringing us a collection of “classic�Jurassic Park titles. They've teased us with The Jurassic Park 30th Anniversary Retro Collection, but we'll have to wait until ??June to get more info.

The bad news is that only the titles developed by Ocean are teased. The good news i??s they’re not all bad, and th??e SNES version is among them.

//tw??itter.com/LimitedRunG??ames/status/1650961515405537288?s=20

I’ve spent more time than I ever imagined talking about the 1993 SNES version of Jurassic Park. It isn’t great and has many problems, but you can tell the developers had serious passion for the project. It uses ray-casting to create first-person indoor environments the same year Doom came out, and there are ?several small touches that giv??e it life.

I can’t really speak for the rest of the games. The NES and Game Boy versions of the first title are extremely similar. Jurassic Park Part 2: The Chaos Continues is different on SNES and Game Boy. They’re side-scrollers, and despite the title, they’re not really sequels ?in terms of style or mechanics. I own the SNES version but haven’t played it for m??ore than a few minutes. It’s very difficult to get over the disappointment of it not being a continuation of the previous SNES title.

Beyond the tease and the promise that they’ll announce more in June, Limited Run is being tight-lipped on what they intend to do with these titles. They say it will be The Jurassic Park 30th Anniversary Retro Collection, but wil??l it be reproductions of these titles or a? release on current consoles? They say we’ll see it later this year.

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Dr. Grant!

The 1993 film Jurassic Park is fun for the whole famil?y! It has dismemberment. It has people getting a face full of raptor. There’s Jeff Goldblum! There are kids in it, allowing the little buggers to have some escapism in a horrific world of science gone wrong.

It’s definitely not the most audience-confused license out there. Robocop had plenty of dick-shooting and melty-men, and everyone on the schoolyard talked about it. At least Robocop had a plot that lent itself well to video games. Jurassic Park was too suspenseful to be a side-scroller, but that didn’t mean c?ompanies weren’t going to try.

Most of them were bad. The ones that people say were p??retty good? Those were ba??d, too. The SNES version? It’s not great. But someone on the development team obviously had a lot of fun with it, and that alone is kind of infectious.

Karate chop action

Jurassic Park is the story of how Newman from Seinfeld ruined a perfectly good business venture. By combining the j??uices of mosquitos and amphibians, dinosaurs are brought back from extinction, and after millions of years of extinction, they’re hungry. Meanwhile, we’re supposed to root for the worst people in existence: tourists. They want to go home.

The plot of the SNES version follows Dr. Alan Grant as he tries to? re-extinct the dinosaurs. Actually, the mai??n objective is the same as the movie: go home. However, Newman made things really difficult, and Dr. Grant first has to reactivate all the park’s systems in order to call his mother to pick him up. He also really hates raptors, so maybe kill them, too.

I’m deliberately trying to make it sound ridiculous, of course, but marketing already does a good job o?f it on its own. When I was a kid, I had a Jeff Goldblum ?action figure. He came with a rocket launcher. That’s hilarious, considering all he does in the movie is get hurt and lay around sexily.

Check for the JP mark

The basic gameplay of Jurassic Park is a lot like Metal Gear. You roam around the world and try to find stuff that lets you go to other parts of the world. That’s fine. However, whenever yo??u go into a building, you get some first-person dungeon crawling. In 1993 on the SNES, this was amazing. Wolfenstein 3D came out the year before, and it required an IBM PC-Compatible with a VGA graphics card. This was pure, unadulterated first-person shooter gameplay on your ho??me console.

Okay, it was kind of adulterated. For resolution reasons, your view of amazing walls is contained within the frame of scuba goggles. There are also exactly two enemies in this view of reality, the dilophosaur that has its roots planted and spits and the raptor that actually moves. It’s about as basic as you can really get, but I don’t want to undersell it. This was a licensed movie game, and someone thought it would be rad if part of it played like Wolfenstein 3D. Of course, they were right.

What the first-person sections lack in action, they make up for in creepy atmosphere. The fact that the hallway?s and caves of Isla Nublar aren’t crammed with enemies just makes it seem kind of eerie. This seems intentional because the music in these areas reflects the mood. Then the elevators play elevator music, which is a nice touch.

It’s also amusing because the soundtrack is amazing everywhere else. It’s like, “we couldn’t get John Williams, but here’s something the kids can dance to.�I suppose when you can??’t get the rights to use the actual movie soundtrack, the next best thing is Jonathan Dunn.

That kid is a jerk

While impressive from a technical soundtrack, and probably way more effort than such a licensed game required, actually playing Jurassic Park isn’t as exciting. Anyone who experienced the game will likely point out the same problem: there is no saving. There’s no battery backup or password system, and finishing it will take at least 5 hours. That’s if you manage to survive, which isn’t as easy as it sounds since Jurassic Park loves to insta-kill you out of nowhere. Tyrannosaurs an?d triceratops burst from the trees with little warning, leaving ?you unable to react.

One kid in school told me it was p?ossible to kill the T-rex. That k?id is a jerk.

The other major problem with Jurassic Park is the efficiency in its world. There is a tremendous amount of backtrack??ing. A lot of this is because there are locked doors in buildings that require you to first obtain keys found in other areas. It’s not so obtuse that you’re going to need to start keeping notes, but it does mean that you might be traipsing back and forth between buildings quite a bit.

There’s also the added bit of collecting raptor eggs that are scat?tered around the overworld. I’m not even sure if they’re necessary to complete the game, but? I did it anyway. I feel rather accomplished. Maybe that’s the benefit of having no save feature.

That is one big pile of okay

Really, though, that lack of save feature is a huge embuggerance. I never actually owned Jurassic Park when I was younger, I just rented it a whole bunch. I dreamt of escaping the island, and it was only recently that I sat down and completed the game, much to the chagrin of my couch. The ending was ?nothing special, but I will say that it was ??worth playing. Maybe in a format that allows save states.

The SNES version of Jurassic Park was an inventive adaptation of the license. It feels like one of the programmers was noodling around with ray casting on the console, and this provided an opportunity to use whatever prototype they came up with. For a historical perspective, the very next year, the Sega Genesis would get Zero Tolerance which had more graphical trickery to it. The FPS genre moved and changed really quickly during that time span. Jurassic Park might not seem all that impressive today, but for a kid who dreamt of having Doom on her co??nsole, this was r?eally close if you squinted hard enough.

For previous Weekly Kusoge, check this link!

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Remember we parked in the Itchy lot

You probably have some good memories of at least one bad game. I’ve got a few. One that stands out is when I rented Universal Studios Theme Parks Adventure. It was released one month after the GameCube. The GameCube had a pretty killer launch, but eventually, you run out of big titles to try out and decide to see what washed up in the gutter. So, I rented it, and my mother decided to try it out w?hile I was at school. What followed was this short period where we would swap tips on how to get through the game.

I think it was just funny to see my mom just so put off by a game. I’m not saying she doesn’t have taste, but I think it was the first time I saw her struggling to grasp how such a terrible game could exist. I remember her giving me the tip, “You can get points from the Waterworld ride. It’s just a movie.�/p>

That’s bonding, right there. Trading tips and utter bafflement with each other. And that’s the only reason I look back fondly on Universal Studios Theme Parks Adventure.

Roller Coaster Tycoon awakened a love of theme parks in me as a youth. As an adult, I recognize them as wonderous places full of marvels of engineering but horrifically infested by humans. Disney World may actually be the most magical place on earth, but peop??le ruin everything and the place is co?nstantly bursting with them.

Universal Studios Theme Parks Adventure captures exactly that. You’re placed in the Universal Studios Osaka theme park, and your guide is Woody Woodpecker. I don’t know if there has eve?r been a more irritating cartoon character than Woody Woodpecker. Bugs Bunny frust??rated his foes, but you still rooted for him because you were in on his jokes and his antagonists were less tolerable than him. No one is less tolerable than Woody Woodpecker. He is the worst human creation ever given voice. I’m not a violent person, but I feel like everything about him is one big temptation to wring his neck.

Your goal is to wander the hellish theme park to earn stamps that will enable you to fucking leave. In order to gain them, you have to play mini-games based on?? the rides, as well as find all the letters littering that park.

Universal Studios Theme Parks Adventure has mini-games based on Back to the Future, Jurassic Park, Backdraft, Jaws, E.T., as well as a quiz and one based on the Wild, Wild, Wild, West Stunt Show. They all suck, but at different levels. Let’s ta????ke a look:

Back to the Future

This one is actually pretty similar to the ride, but with less chance of whiplash. Biff Tannen has stolen a DeLorean time machine, and it’s up to y??ou to chase him in your own time machine. The goal is to not run into walls. Avoiding walls allows you to catch ??up and ram Biff. Give his ride enough bent fenders and you win. As far as the mini-games go, this one is sort of tolerable.

Jurassic Park

I think this would be more fun if the entire mini-game was driving to outrun a T-Rex while Jeff Goldblum panics in the back ??seat. Instead, someone else drives while you launch homing rockets at velociraptors and any other dinosaur with the misfortune of crossing the street. It is laughably ugly. There’s more draw-distance fog than an N64 game, and the environments have an impressive lack of detail to them. Just to make things more hilarious, the framerate still drops in some spots. It’s a really awful on-rails shooter and it feels like it just goes on and on.

Backdraft

I might have heard of Backdraft. Wikipedia sugge??sts it might have been decent, but I never hear anyone talking about it. The mini-game itself is probably the most game-like game in the collection. You control your stupid child character around a burning building, putting out fires and rescuing people. Stuff explodes and you have to try to not die. Thinking back on it, this was the last game I had to complete, so I think I’m maybe being more kind to it than I should. The bar was just set so low at that point that nothing could have slid?? under it.

Jaws

An interesting concept with poor execution, Jaws puts you aboard the Orca, and you’re tasked with defending it from the titular ?shark. You pick up barrels and junk, then watch your radar to see what direction he’s coming from. Once he pops up, you hit him with the garbage to put him back down. This wouldn’t be so bad if the radar wasn’t so unreliable and there was more time to hit the shark before he ate your boat. I frequently had to throw before it even surfaced, hoping that I was pointed in the correct direction.

E.T.

My husband actually has an irrational fear of E.T. and I’ve never seen the movie. The game is like the worst imaginable version of Excite Bike. Unexcite Bike? Mundane Bike? Yawn Bike? You’re set on a track and have to avoid stuff littering the path while trying to get to the end. The worst part is trying to adjust your bike so you land properly: exactly like Excite Bike except you’re in the air for far less time. However, the game is ridiculous?ly easy, so even if you fall down a who??le bunch, you still might end up with the stamp.

Wild, Wild, Wild, West

This is a standard shooting gallery, but far lazier. Here’s how you win: shoot targets, then when the bonus target pops up, shoot that. You win. The biggest setback to this is that the fire button is R and the GameCube’s analog shoulder buttons feel awful to shoot with. I don’t know how I could stand it with games like TimeSplitters 2. They’re big, clicky marshmallows.

Quiz

I really don’t know enough trivia about �0s movies for this. Then, every once and a while, they’ll be like, “who directed The Birds?�I actually know that one, but this game feels like it was mostly made with kids in mind�which is just now striking me as strange. Anyways, I had to use intuition, repetition, and my mind’s unique inability to let go of even the most mundane of trivia knowledge to succeed. You can then play more mini-games for extra points, but it’s concentration and one of those sliding picture puzzles like you find in dentist offices and Wind Waker.

When you’re not playing mini-games that would be embarrassed by Mario Party, you explore the park, which is like something from an experimental indie horror game. It uses pre-rendered backgrounds, much like Resident Evil, but figuring out how they match up is impossible. If yo??u talk to one particular person, they’ll give you a map which is simultaneously your only m??eans of finding your way around the park and also completely useless.

It isn’t li?ke you have a compass. The pre-rendered backgrounds don’t give any indication of what direction you’re going in. They don’t even give much of an idea of what each section’s exits and entrances are. Sometimes, the ri??ght-bottom of the screen is a transition point, and the left-bottom of the screen moves you somewhere else. The map is only really good for playing hot/cold. You move somewhere, check your map, and see whether you got closer to your destination or further away.

Only a couple of the activities are actually available from the hop, the rest you can’t access right away because of lines. Line of people. Queues. The lines are too long in an idealized version of a theme park. When brainstorming for ideas, someone on Universal Studios Theme Parks Adventure’s development team suggested over-stuffed queues as a way of advertising the park, and no one objected. In order to bypass them, you have to save points by collecting trash and visiting Waterworld until you can ?buy corresponding hats that let you just skip the line.

I didn’t go into Universal Studios Theme Parks Adventure thinking it would be any good. I already knew it was closer to the top of the “Worst Games Released on GameCube�than it is to “Most Okay-est? Advertisement Video Games.�Really, ??I was just amused at how badly I wanted to finish it quickly. The credits ran in 2 hours, 15 minutes judging by the video evidence I recorded. I didn’t go for the red stamps that mark beating a certain score threshold in each game, but I really don’t want to play Jurassic Park: The Ride a second time. I just wanted to escape from the hell that is Universal Studios Osaka.

This sort of thing was attempted before with 1990’s Adventures in the Magic Kingdom on NES. It had the advantage of being developed by Capcom while they were rocking their Disney license with such games as Duck Tales and Rescue Rangers. However, even t?hat game managed to kind of ?suck, despite its prestige.

However, it wasn’t anywhere near the level of Universal Studios Theme Parks Adventure. Surprisingly, the developers were credited. If you look back, it actually includes Mikio Ueyama, who designed Air Zonk, and Akira Sato, who worked on Mister Mosquito. Do you know what they did after Universal Studios Theme Park Adventure? Nothing. Well, okay, Sato-san worked on the sequel to Mister Mosquito, but then also disappeared from the industry. That is how much this? game sucked; it absorbed t?wo of my heroes into its putrid mass.

For previous Weekly Kusoge, check this link!

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Life keeps finding a way

In my original review for Jurassic World Evolution, I described the game as shallow and an overall mediocre park management game. I even ended on the note of "here's hoping Fron?tier Developments continues to support the game in the coming months because what's here right now is just a skeleton of a game waiting to be fossilized."

Well, they went and did exactly that. From fossil to fully fleshed out, Jurassic World Evolution went on to be a much better game than it was at launch, thanks to a plethora of new content and improvements from Frontier Developments. However, when the sequel announcement popped up earlier this year, admittedly, I was surprised. I thought for sure that's the last Jurassic World game we'd see for a good long while.

So, here we are, and I'm happy to say �for the most part �Jurassic World Evolution 2 is? far better than its predecessor was at launch.

Jurassic World Evolution 2 (PS5 [reviewed], PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PC)
Developer: Frontier Developments
Publisher: Frontier Developments
Released: November 9, 2021
MSRP: $59.99

The key comparison here is specifically at launch. The original game is now reasonably polished all around. In contrast, Jurassic World Evolution 2 feels like it's all over the?? place in terms of gameplay complexity, length, and narrative. On that last note, let's ?start with the incredibly brief campaign mode.

Set after the events of the latest film (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom), dinosaurs are pretty much let loose all across the United States, and you're tasked with helping the conservation efforts. Essentially, with the help of the Fish and Wildlife services (yes, really), you'll be capturing and re-homing problematic di?nosaurs across several different biomes set in the US. From Washington state to Pennsylvania, you'll be taking pictures, tranquilizing, and moving dinosaurs into fenced-off ??enclosures of your creation and learning the basics of taking care of them.

//youtu.be/g76Zx7zydXQ

The campaign mode in Jurassic World Evolution 2 is pretty much a brief tutorial on how to handle your dinosaurs with a fun in-universe narrative spin thrown in. Once again, Jeff Goldblum reprises his role as Dr. Ian Malcolm and delivers some of the best commentary and narration in the game. Other characters from Jurassic World make an appearance again, such as Claire (voiced by Bryce Dallas Howard) and Owen, who some random dude voices because Chris Pratt is too busy being Mario and Garfield.

The overall story has some interesting moments (such as working with the CIA to prevent dinosaurs from entering Canada). Still, my biggest issue is that it ends out of nowhere with no actual resolution. It comes off feeling more like an epilogue from the last game than a natural continuation. In general, this whole mode can be wrapped up in the span of three-to-four hours. I suspect there will be more to the campaign and various modes once the latest movie (Jurassic World: Dominion) is out next year.

Hell, there's even a convenient big blank spot in the Chaos Theory menu when you're selecting ?which movie what-if scenario you wanna tackle that you just know is where the Dominion take on this is going to be.

On that note, though, let's talk ??about the Chaos Theory mode �because outside of the sandbox mode, I'd argue this is the meat and potatoes of the whole game. To sum it up??, you're essentially tasked with fixing or avoiding the disasters that happen throughout the various movies and, instead, turning them into successful dinosaur theme parks.

It's in this mode, though, where I think a lot of the improvements and added detail that Frontier Developments have done for both the dinosaurs and park management aspects make Jurassic Word Evolution 2 shine and make it an obvious step-up from the original game. The dinosaurs, in particular, look stunning. Admittedly, they were reasonably impressive looking in the original. However, these are a step above in all-around attention to detail, animation work. I think the resol?ution boost from the new consoles goes a long way here ?as well.

There's also a ton of them this time around (79 to be exact, with five more included in the deluxe edition). I couldn't spell or properly pronounce half their names if my life depended on it. I also maybe only recognize like a quarter of these at best. Still, honestly, it made researching, sending out scientists to excavate, and ultimately releasing a shiny new dinosaur I've never heard of before into an e?nclosure fun and addicting in a messed-up crime against nature gameplay loop that I appreciate.

Dinosaurs also have different behaviors and needs you?? need to keep track of and be aware of this time around. This also includes their enclosure and the environment around them. Different dinosaurs need anything from different types of plants and food to even space requirements and cohabitation limits. You can't just throw in a bunch of herbivores into a single enclosure and call it a day. Some may need tons of forest coverage and fruit, while others might prefer nuts and ground grazing. All of this takes up precious space, so you'll want to plan out these pens in advance before hatching specific dinosaurs.

That goes doubl?e for big predators. The moment they're unhappy, your guests behind your low-security fences will go from "Oooh, ahhh" to screami?ng and running.

Genomes and DNA tampering play a big part in the creation of your dinosaurs and how they behave. Depending on how much research you've done and how well trained your science staff is, your batch of dino eg?gs can have plenty of bo??th positive and negative traits tied to each dinosaur.

For example, my first batch of velociraptors were all 30% more aggressive (meaning they were more likely to attack staff who occasionally do wellness checks from the safety of vehicles). However, on my second batch, by some miracle, I managed to create one that was completely docile towards staff. These perks also vary from the diet (requiring more water or specific food as an e??xample) to even being more susceptible to disease.

There are also both flying and aquatic dinosaurs now that require unique pens (aviary domes and giant pools of water, basically) that I think add a nice visual variety to your parks. However, it's in the parks themselves, and the more complex management systems that I believe make Chaos Mode far better than the campaign mode. I could? just list off various mechanics and reasons why like I did with the dinosaur stuff, but instead, let ??me tell you a tale of both a failed and successful park that I think highlights both the management mechanics and the Chaos Theory mode perfectly.

My first attempt at making the original Jurassic Park a success started off pretty normal as I followed the tutorial in placing various buildings in the park, hiring my staff of scientists, researching the basics, and learning the basics. However, after successfully beelining my way to breeding a tyrannosaurus with no expense spared (??quite literally draining most of my income in the process), I had one major task left: Create a five-star park.

I figured now that I had the tyrannosaurus sorted, money and guests would just come flowing in, and I'd be on my way to completing this first part of the Ch??aos Theory mode. After some story-related sabotage involving ??all my gates mysteriously opening up, I dealt with the escaped raptors and re-opened my guest shelters. However, the whole ordeal put me into the red in terms of money. So, naturally, I just sped-up time in the hopes my tyrannosaurus would draw folks back in, and I'd recoup my money.

After waiting aroun?d a bunch, it accomplished exactly that. Not a lot, but enough to breed a batch of new raptors I desperately needed after mine all died from old age (they're the first dinosaur you produce in this specific mode). So, after splurging all my money and releasing my new batch of raptors, s??uddenly, mother nature decided it had enough of my rule-breaking and released a hurricane on me.

Different biomes have different weather, including extreme weather events like tornadoes, blizzards, and so forth. This wasn't the first time I dealt with a hurri??cane, with the first one only causing minor damage to my park, and again, I just sped up time to r?ecoup enough money to get me out of the red.

This time, however, it was far worse. There were multiple fences broken, multiple dinosaurs escaping (including those raptors I just released), and even that tyrannosaurus I spent ho??urs saving up for. By the time the hurricane was over, I was around two million in the red and straight-up couldn't afford even to fix the fences that were broken all over my park. I had no choice but to either reload a save file or restart, but I decided to go with the latter and go in with a plan.

On my second attempt, I already knew that I had to research and release a tyrannosaurus to progress the plot along, so I decided to give this park a thrill-seeking theme and focus. You see, guests are broken up into different categories: General guests, luxury guests, nature guests, and adventure guests. The latter of w?hich love high infamy dinosaurs (big predators and dangerous dinosaurs all around, basically).

So, knowing this, outside of the plot-related triceratops you have to include, I went all-in on researching big predators, with the tyrannosaurus placed right in the middle of the park. I built wide pathways all around it, viewing galleries on every side of the enclosure, big ol' steak houses, and other amenities equipped to cater directly towards adventure guests. This place was BIG DINOS EATIN MEAT, and my guests loved it.

The money poured in, I spent it on researching high-security fences and upgrades all-around to my buildings to bring in as much money as possible, and I even survived my first hurricane with money to spare. I went in with a plan and a focus, and it paid off. It was incredibly satisfying to pull off, and a lot of that is due to the added complexity in Jurassic World Evolution 2. They took the criticism of shallow in ??the original and went, "fine, we'll make it a swimming pool," and it rules.

Admittedly, the game is very menu-heavy, though. It? can be a task and a half clicking through all the various sub-menus and constantly assigning your scientists to multiple thing?s. Your staff of scientists is used in everything from research to digging up bones and hatching the dinos themselves. They can even be overworked and require rest (I bet the developers loved adding that detail). However, as a result, it's a whole lot of extra clicking and steps to get dinosaurs made, and I can easily see some folks being turned off from that.

Outside of the Chaos Theory mode, there's also a challenge mode, but admittedly I barely touched this and only completed the first challenge. It's basically pre-made parks with different problems or in specific states of disaster that need to be fixed within a given timeframe or with a specific amount of money. Each ??challenge has different difficulty settings, but this wasn't as interesting to me as Chaos Theory or the sandbox mode.

Sandbox is the endgame, and I think it will be the most appealing mode for people. It basically gives you tons o?f settings to play and toggle with (including unlimited money), letting you go wild in creating whatever type of park you want. However, at the very start of the game, all the different biomes, dinosaurs, and amenities are locked away until you've unlocked them by completing either the challenge or Chaos Theory mode.

This has been a pretty divisive decision within the community, as a lot of folks just simply wanna dive right into creating their own unique parks or crazy dinosaur battle arenas. Honestly, to bring up another point from my review of the original: I think Frontier Developments should simply add in a che?at code or toggle that unlocks everything in sandbox. Maybe have it disable trophies/achievements on that sa?ve file or something; who cares! Let people have their fun.

To wrap things up, again, I think Jurassic World Evolution 2 is a much better game than its predecessor was at launch. That said, I can't shake th??e feeling that much like the original, it's only going to get better and more content-rich in the next coming year or so. It's a beautiful trend from Frontier? Developments that I think will make an already great game all the more excellent.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Jurassic World Evolution 2 appeared first on Destructoid.

A new story campaign and 75+ species to manage

Jeff Goldblum showed up at the Summer Game Fest 2021 Kickoff stream to do �what else? He brought his charming quirkiness for a bit of banter and dropped a trailer for Jurassic World Evolution 2, which is launching later this year.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULFAEnoc5jA

It's been a few years since the last park-building management sim, so the timing checks out. The sequel will have a post-Fallen Kingdom story campaign as well as "expanded construction," "more customization optio??ns," and sea critters. Aside from ??the main mode, there's also Challenge mode, Sandbox mode, and a fittingly named Chaos Theory mode that will channel "pivotal moments" from the movies through a twist of fate.

Fans seem pretty stoked for this reveal, but at the same time, expectations are even higher. Let's just say the first Jurassic World Evolution has lots of room for improvement.

Jurassic World Evolution 2 will be released?? toward the end of this year for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and? Xbox Series X/S.

The post Jura????ssic World Evolution 2 picks up after Fallen Kingdom appeared first on Destructoid.

One last Epic freebie for the road

Di?nosaurs are on the short li?st of good things. They go, in order: Back massages, dinosaurs, astronauts. That's it. That's comprehensive.

You have a fine opportunity to close 2020 with dinosaurs, to begin the new year with dinosaurs, or to bridge the two with (you guessed it) dinosaurs. Epic is back to its weekly free games and Jurassic World Evolution is first up.?? Life finds a way (to ?escape from its cage and ruin your park).

Although Epic hasn't come out and said it's doing another year of weekly free games, that trend certainly looks set to continue. After Jurassic World Evolution expires on January 7, Crying Suns takes its place. Free video games almost makes the cut o??f lif??e's good things. Almost.

Jurassic World Evolution [Epic Games Store]

The post Close the year with dinosaurs appeared first on Destructoid.

I always had a soft spot for the Dilophosaurus

Even if you have no interest in Minecraft's crossover content, you might get a kick out of this trailer for the just-released Jurassic World DLC. The music, the iconography, the classic dinos – it hit me hard. I don't know the last time I watched Jurassic Park, but whenever it was, it's been far too long.

Similar to that recent-ish Pac-Man add-on Chris told us about, Jurassic World is available f?rom the Minecraft Marketplace for 1340 Minecoins. (Quick reminder: it's $9.99 for 1720 Minecoins). The pac??k includes 21 skins, 60 dinosaurs – some of which are hybrids – and familiar faces from the movies.

"Craft and train dinosaurs, build exhibits, manage the park, and open it fo??r business," according to the listing. "Use vehicles and your team of NPCs to solve disasters or ?? go on expeditions to find dino DNA." As the unenviable park manager, you'll "see how long you can keep the park open for a high score."

All that and a Dr. Ian Malcolm skin. Not bad!

Jurassic World [Minecraft]

The post Jurassic World looks surprisingly cool in ??Minecra??ft appeared first on Destructoid.

It's good to be king

[This post is going to require some audience participation. Mentally hum the Jurassic Park theme while reading this. Or click this link and listen to it. Blogging is now a transmedia enterprise.]

Ahead of the Thanksgiving weekend, Xbox has let us know what we can look forward to for Dece??mber's Games with Gold. Get ready for dinosaurs, robots, and vampires.

The headliner for this batch of Games with Gold is dinosaur petting zoo sim Jurassic World Evolution. You were so preoccu??pied with whether you could genetically engineer dinosaurs back into existence, put them in captive quarters, and then charge a mint for pe?ople to come see them -- which says nothing of the inevitability of those dinosaurs breaking out and massacring your park guests -- that you didn't stop to think if you should.

The other Xbox One freebie is Insane Robots, which is a card battler that released in 2018. The Xbox 360 titles (all playable on Xbox One through backward compatibility) are more high-profile. Toy Story 3 takes the first half of December and the console port of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow -- Mirror of Fate (originally a 3DS game) takes the latter half.

Here's the official breakdown for Xbox's Games with Gold in D??ecember:

• Insane Robots -- December 1 to 31 on Xbox One
• Jurassic World Evolution -- December 16 to January 15 on Xbox One
• Toy Story 3 -- December 1 to 15 on Xbox 360
• Castlevania: Lords of Shadow -- Mirror of Fate HD -- December 16 to 31 on Xbox 360

The post Jurassic World Evolution is the T-Rex of Xbox’s Games with Gold for December appeared first on Destructoid.

$20 expansion releasing on PC and consoles

Not that I'm complaining, but we're never gonna stop returning to Jurassic Park. That's how these things go nowadays. The next DLC for Jurassic World Evolution is Return to Jurassic Park, an add-on? pack set in 1993, after the events of the first ?movie, with seven fully-voiced missions to restore the park.

The best pa??rt? Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum are reprising their original r??oles.

New dinosaurs inc?lude the Compsognathus (those little ankle-biters) and the Pteranodon (those big-beaked boys), along with 1??993 Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor "legacy skins" and a retro UI.

I had no real interest in Jurassic World Evolution, but this DLC speaks to me. It's launching on December 10, 2019, for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. It's $20, and you'll need the base? game to play.

Frontier Developments has also promised a free Evolution update with "changes to the ranger ??interactions with dinosaurs, guest toilet needs, and general fixes and ??tweaks" on the same day.

My lawyers advise me that I'm legally obligated to link to "the funny Jurassic Park video."

The post Jurassic World Evolu?t?ion: Return to Jurassic Park reunites the original cast appeared first on Destructoid.

"That is one big pile of shit"

Bad games have been a blight upon the world for as long as video games have been around. Most likely, they always will be. From broken or bland design to poor technical execution, there are many ways a potentially good game can go bad and an equally long list of reasons for why a game might desc??end into the realm of endless suck.

Whether fun ju??st wasn't in the budget or over-ambition resulted in under-delivering, the bottom line is that bad games just aren't that much fun. Except when they are.

This is something that can be difficult to pin down. What constitutes a bad game is generally left open to interpretation. Some people say that Deadly Premonition is a bad game, and to those people, I say, “Please don’t talk to me.” What’s art in my eyes might be a tire fire in yours. Can we at least all agree that Carmageddon 64 is an absolute blight?

We can’t even reliably say that bad games equal a bad time because, as I’m about to demonstrate, sometimes a perfect storm of horrible execution can result in something that contains all the hallmarks of a positive experience. There are games out there that have all the ingredients of a horrible concoc??tion, yet somehow manage to not only be perfectly edible but also mindbogglingly delicious.

To illustrate this, I present to you 1998’s Jurassic Park: Trespasser.

There have been a lot of games that have attempted to bridge the gap between movies and video games in terms of experience. Whether that involves making a game 95% FMV footage like Night Trap or by filling in gaps in the story, like Enter the Matrix, the idea of films and games being held in the same esteem has been a carrot dangling in the face of developers. Trespasser was another game reaching for that carrot. Promising to feature an experience that was as real as being in the film?? itself, it had no shortage of ambition. Among its key features were a fully working dinosaur ecosystem and a real-time physics engine that powers everything from the items you pick up to the way the dinosaurs move.

Unfortunately, ambition is only the first step of the process, and for Trespasser, ev?ery other step appears to have been a tumble down the stairs. The ecosystem didn’t really work out, so all the dinosaurs had their moods set to pure malice and are merely scattered about the linear levels. The physics engine, on the other hand, is certainly there, but ??it feels less like an immersive mechanic to the game and more like a curse has descended upon the island.

You play as Anne, the lone survivor of a plane crash that has left one of her arms broken - I think. The game doesn’t tell you this outright, but Anne never uses her left arm and that’s my only explanation. As luck would have it, the plane crash-landed on Isla Sorna, Site B, the place where The Lost World: Jurassic Park takes place. Since th??at’s not a good place to be, it’s up to you to get Anne off the island.

It doesn’t take long to see where Trespasser went wrong. You use Anne’s right arm to manipulate everything in the world. Whether you’re moving boxes or picking up a gun, you do it by reaching out and grabbing it with her floppy arm. Did you play Surgeon Simulator 2013 or any of the derivatives that came out after it? Remember how its core concept was that fine motor control with a traditional controller is impossible, so let’s all laugh at it? Well, Trespasser is like that, but it’s not in on the joke.

But this is a Jurassic Park game and the dinosaurs are the stars of the show, and in Trespasser, they’ve been drinking in their trailer all morning before staggering out onto the stage. The dinosaurs are also slaves to the game’s physics engines, and their legs are left to try and figure out how to deal with tricky concepts like momentum. The result is that everything from triceratopses to t-rexes all stagger around, attempting to stay upright. Some?times they attack each other. Sometimes they attack you. If you can call it attacking.

Eventually, you’ll come face to face with your first raptor, and here’s how combat typically goes: it will stagger in your direction, and when it gets near enough, it will open its mouth and try to rub its teeth on you. If its teeth touch you, you get hurt and the tattoo on your heaving bosom gets progressively filled with more ink?. If you’re good, you can swipe frantically at them with a stick in hopes of killing them, or maybe you’re lucky enough to have?? a gun and can jam it down their throat before you’re killed by gingivitis.

The result of all this is a perfectly fun experience. The game keeps trying to put you into tense situations, but if the physics don’t undermine the moment, a glitch surely will. Dinosaurs will often find their legs pivoting wildly back and forth, and if you catch one unaware, you might see it wildly pirouetting until it launches itself into space. Sometimes you just find dead raptors and can’t help but wonder what happe??ned. On my most recent playthrough, one of the end bosses killed itself by crashing through a pile of crates that crushed it beneath their meager weight.

Jurassic Park: Trespasser is, to sum things up, a beautiful mess. There’s? not one aspect of it that it does very well, but all its broken pieces come together in something that is wonderfully entertaining. Despite having so many problems, it's perfectly playable in spite of itself, and the janky physics system is a constant source of entertainment.

Would I recommend playing it? Heck, yes. If you can, that is. The game was optimized for now antiquated hardware, and it doesn’t play nice with new setups. Thankfully, there are fan patches out there that can allow you to run the game on modern machines. It can be a pain to set up, but the effort ?is worth it??.

So, what horrible game would you rec?ommend? What is the "best" worst game you’ve ever played?

The post What’s the ‘best’ worst game of all time? appeared first on Destructoid.

It's not perfect, but I have a soft spot for this game

Just in time for the launch of the Switch Lite, Warner Bros. and TT Games are bringing LEGO Jurassic World to Nintendo Switch on September 17. It's not my favorite of the LEGO games, but it's up there.

Contrary to what the name implies, LEGO Jurassic World isn't solely dedicated to the 2015 film with Velociraptor wrangler Chris Pratt and co. – it spans the events of Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Jurassic Park III, and World, with character and scenes conjoined to form a lengthy collectible-filled adventure.

Switch or no Switch, I could never play this game again – not after grinding for 100% completion the first time – but as a late? port, it's a smart pick on the publisher's part. Kids will always love dinosaurs.

If you've never?? played it, you'll quickly learn just how many side characters this series has.

The post LEGO Jurassic World is up next for Ni?ntendo Switch appeared first on Destructoid.

Bryce Dallas Howard repirses her role from the films

Frontier Developments will be releasing some new premium DLC for its popular management sim Jurassic World Evolution this month. Titled Claire's Sanctuary, the DLC pack will be hitting PC, PS4, and Xbox One on June 18, 2019, for $14.99. Included will be a brand new campaign that sounds like it's inspired directly by Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, tasking players with rescuing the dinosaurs before a volcano erupts on Isla Nublar. Better late than ne?ver, I suppose.

Claire's Sanctuary sees the return of star Bryce Dallas Howard, reprising her role as Claire Dearing from the newer films. The description reads, "Players will return to Isla Nublar in a race against time to rescue the island's remaining dinosaur inhabitants from?? the?? eruption of Mt. Sibo and relocate them to Sanctuary Island, where players will be tasked with building them a new home under guidance from Claire Dearing." That could be an explosively good time...

As well as the new campaign, Claire's Sanctuary will introduce a slew of new structures, features, and a few extra dinos to raise. The Albe??rtosaurus, Euoplocephalus, and Ouranosaurus will be hatchable and players will be able to pen them with new plants tailor-made for them. A Greenhouse facility will let players resear??ch extinct fauna for their parks, which should give a unique flavor to their creations. A new off-road truck will even let your guests get an up-close look at the wildlife growing within your walls.

If you aren't keen to drop money on this new DLC, a free update arriving the same day will include extras for everyone. Brand new types of rocks and flora will be present, some dinosaurs are getting tweaks to their stats, the Gyrosphere and monorails will be getting improved, and some unnamed quality-of-life changes will be made. There won't be any additi??onal missions as the free update is focused on creative options instead of campaign content.

The post Jurassic World ??E?volution gets new campaign DLC this month appeared first on Destructoid.

Clever girl

Jurassic World Evolution has received some DLC today. Available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One, the "Carnivore Dinosaur Pack" adds three new creatures to be displayed in your parks. You can welcome the Herrerasaurus, Proceratosaurus, or Acrocanthosaurus into your pens and get a bloodbath going for your park patrons. Time to recreate some famous Gladiator moments.

If free is more your jam, a brand new free camera option has been added to Evolution. Called "Capture mode," the option allows players total control of the in-game camera. You can even disable the HUD and get some really astounding pictures of your park dinosaurs. Seeing as how half of the fun of Evolution is in the technology r??ecreating the ancient creatures, this sounds like a real treat for dinosaur lovers.

T??he "Carnivore Dinosaur Pack" is available for $4.99 (£3.99/€4.99) on your respective digital marketplace.

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Uncover the secrets of Dr. Wu (spoilers: it's dinosaurs)

A new expansion is getting ready to hatch in Frontier Developments' dino-based management title Jurassic World Evolution. The Secrets ??of Dr. Wu is a paid DLC add-on that will bring new missions, facilities and, of course, dinosaurs to the alternative theme park sim.

Featuring the Dr. Wu character, (played by B.D. Wong in the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movies), the new DLC will add new campaign missions to the game, set within two secr?et research facilities Wu has situated on Isla Muerta and Isla Tacaño. Here, Wu has genetically-created new species of prehistoric mayhem, with creatures such as the Ankylodocus and the ?Spinoraptor. There will also be new dig sites, research techniques and facility tools to explore.

Also coming to Jurassic World Evolution is a free update, for all players, that will add an optional day-and-night cycle, new behavioral patterns, and new challenge contracts. This patch, along with The Secrets of Dr. Wu DLC, will be made available on November 20.

Jurassic World Evolution is available now on PS4, PC and Xbox One.

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Two runners-up will win JW: Fallen Kingdom on Blu-ray

When a movie makes over $1.5 ?billion at the box office, you don't have to waste a whole lot of time introducing it. Chances are you've seen it, and anything I say about it won't tell you anything you don't alrea?dy know -- so let's just get to it.

We've got some Blu-ray copies of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom to give out. Come win one!

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is the fifth film in the blockbuster movie franchise. When natural disaster once again threatens the existence of dinosaurs (they really can't catch ?a break, can they?) it's up to Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) to find a way to help life find its way. But things don't go exactly as planned, and man yet again learns that playing God must also spur the creation of a devil. The park may be closed??, but the world is open for business.

One grand prize winner will receive a Blu-ray copy of Jurassic World 5-Film Collection, which features all five movies in the series. Two runners-up will receive a Blu-ray copy of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. Everyone wins when Chris Pratt flexes.

To enter to win, comment below with your horrible genetic dinosaur hybrid. I'm crossing the dilophosaurus (the highly inaccurate spitter from the first movie) with a camel to crea?te a creature so vile that it lugs around a carnival dunk tank to use as its spitoon. It's totally useless apart from all the spitting, but it's also pretty hilarious.

Winners will be drawn on Tuesday, September 18. This contest contains a physical prize, and as such, you need a United States address in order to win. Make sur??e you comment using a Dtoid account that has your current email address on file. If I can't email you, I can't send you the schematics for my stupid dinosaur. Or this free movie.

Jurassic World 5-Film Collection and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom are available anywhere that likes money on September 18. Want more chances to win? Check out Flixist for their Fallen Kingdom contest!

The post Giveaway: Only the cleverest of girls will ???win the Jurassic World 5-Film Collection on Blu-ray appeared first on Destructoid.

Updates will find a way on September 13

Frontier Developments' massively successful Jurassic World Evolution will be getting a free update on September 13. Along with improving things on t??h?e performance side, this latest update will be bringing a host of new features to the theme park simulator. The biggest addition has to be a challenge mode, but more sandbox features are also coming.

First up is the challenge mode, which is basically a campaign remix. This will task players with creating successful parks on the game's five islands under specific stipulations. You'll be able to tweak starting difficulty (with Easy, Normal, Hard and "Jurassic" being the options) and the contracts system will have a new cancellation penalty to force you into actually paying attention to it. Some new skins will be available (probably for the Dinos and vehicles) a??nd Frontier is even adding achievements for beating the mode.

With the sandbox mode, Frontier will be giving players the ability to tweak specific parameters to better suit individual playstyles. You'll be able to set how much money you start ??with along with turning off the dinosaur's lifespans. As well as that, you will even be able to turn off power requirements (removing the need for generators) and even set feeders to automatic resuppl??y.

The rest of the features are mostly quality of life changes. After five starring an island, players will be able to revisit it with a selected time of day. New contract types are bei??ng added to the campaign to prevent each division from having the same quest at the same time. Players will be able to enter viewing platforms to watch their dinos like park patrons. It all sounds pretty good.

The changes to sandbox are really the biggest, though. My main problem with Evolution was that after going through the slog of a campaign, I basically had no d??esire to create my own dream park. With completely unlimited funds, there really wasn't a point to doing anything else. Having some limiters available, though, might just create a situation where I'll need to think about ho??w I'm spending my cash.

The post Challenge your dino prowess in Jurassic World Evolution’s next update appeared first on Destructoid.

Life found a way

Frontier Developments has announced that its hit dino theme park simulator Jurassic World Evolution has reached a combined sales total of one million units. This is factoring in the PS4, Xbox One and PC releases along with digital sales figures (which I'm sure Steam sale figures overwhelmingly contributed to). The physical release launched a few weeks after the digital version, but that c?ertainly didn't stop enthusiasm for this game.

Frontier CEO David Braben told GamesIndustry.biz, "We are really pleased with Jurassic World Evolution and are delighted to have crossed the 1 million unit threshold so quickly. There is no doubt that initial sales have benefited from the worldwide awareness created by the film release, but it's the quality of the game that's really important and I believe our team h??ave done a terrific job in creating a game that a wide range of players are now enjoying around the world."

I think the lack of any significant Jurassic Park games over the last decade is what really helped push Evolution to success. Like Destructoid's own Dan Roemer, I didn't find the game par?ticularly good, but it is certainly?? the best looking video game based on the popular film franchise. It also does a better job of capturing the essence of the films than any title before it. That is likely key in what helped propel Ian Malcolm's worst nightmare to became a smash hit.

Jurassic World Evolution hits one million sales [GamesIndustry.biz]

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Fallen quality

One of the amazing things about the original Jurassic Park is its ability to create wonder. No matter how many times I watch it, the reveal of the dinosaurs at the beginning of that movie is awe inspiring. I get goosebumps ?every time Sam Neill shakily lifts his glasses from his face and the score kicks in. It's a film about ??the wonder of life, and man's role in that.

The Jurassic World films are not that. They're monster movies, and that is, of course, OK. The original Jurassic World was fun enough as one, and still maintained some of the childish wonder at just how cool dinosaurs are. It had charm. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom does not. It takes the themes of the original movie, and the plot of its predecessor and mushes it all into what amounts to almost nothing. There's no wonder here. No goosebumps moments. It's that wonder of?? dinosaurs turned into the franchise of din??osaurs.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
Director: J.A. Bayona
Rated: PG-13
Release Date: June 22, 2018

Fallen Kingdom kicks off with a moral question that teases a movie that might actually want to do so??mething interesting. The dinosaurs living on the island where the Jurassic World theme park was are all about to go extinct thanks to a volcano that's erupting. Should humanity save them or should we let them die as they were never really supposed to be around in the first place and they enjoy killing people? While most of the world decides to let them die a much-softened Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) is working to get someone to rescue them. Thankfully, Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell), who helped create the dinos originally, pays her and Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) to return to the island and rescue a few, including our boy Blue, the velociraptor. 

Dinosaurs back on mainland, evil idiots doing evil things, a kid somehow getting involved. Yadda yadda yadda. As no one has learned anything from any history ever, shit hits the fan and almost any thematic questions are tossed out the window to once again have a genetically modified monster movie, but this time w??ithout a?ny of the fun or creativity of the first. 

There's a moment in Fallen Kingdom where our heroes are trapped and reflecting on the first time they saw a live dinosaur. It's supposed to be the film's equivalent of the aforementioned scene from the original (the timeless Jurassic Park score even kicks in), but it is so out of place in a film that carelessly throws dinosaurs around the screen that it caused me to sneer with cynicism. There's no feeling to the film, it's just CGI dinosaurs and a bunch of people doing stupid things over and over. It's hard to even enjoy it as a monster film as nothing feels cheesy enough, and the movie keeps trying to lay on the moral quandaries but doesn't actual??ly care about them. There's nothing here but the repeated and hollow roars of a franchise that used to have a soul.

A lot of the blame needs to fall in the lap of J.A. Bayona, who seems to have ditched the originality and creativity that made A Monster Calls so good for straight up plagiary. You expect sequels to repeat the key shots of their predecessors here or there and give fans something to cheer about, but Bayona never does anything of his own to make the movie new. The iconic T-Rex moment from Jurassic Park is repeated over and over, and if he had done one more dramatic push into the mouth of a screaming dinosaur I would have thro?wn up from motion sickness. At no moment does anything in the film feel truly original, more? a collection of scenes that hit a franchise checklist, all of which previous films in the franchise have done better.

The film has some redeeming value here and there keeping it from being a total trainwreck?. The beginning of the movie features a prolific escape sequence amidst a volcanic eruption. It's ;loud, and big, and everything a monster movie should be. It even contains?? the one emotional moment that actually functions in the film. Sadly, it's at the beginning of the movie and you have to slog through the rest unless you're smart and leave early. 

Pratt does his best with what he's given, but that's not much, especially as a host of other new characters are shoved in left and right for us to not enjoy. There's a new tech guy who hacks everything, and the manic pixie dream girl who does doctor stuff, and the big evil ?guy just out to make money who yells at the contractually obligated child. Why every movie in this franchise needs to have a child is beyond me, but Maise Lockwood (Isabella Sermon) has got to be the dumbest excuse ever. I'd be spoiling plot details in my rant on this so I'll digress, but her backstory and entire reason for existence just gets dumber and dumber as the movie tries to salvage some of its thematic pull through idiotic plot twists.

Speaking of idiotic, what the hell happened to Claire Dearing? Her character is almost completely changed from the original film. I know she learned a life lesson in that one, but she went from badass sprinting in heels to nothing more than a screaming, shouting, McGuffin that gets Pratt's character to go places. It's a really weird shift considering the film was written by the same guy and a loss of a character who could have been interesting. Even if they had used her well the movie completely wastes Blue, whose reappearance feels more like a toy contract oblig?ation than anyone actually wanting him back.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is supposed to be a big dumb monster movie, but it doesn't even pull that off. It feels so redundant of Jurassic World and so reliant on the tropes of the series that nothing is ever interesting. Despite its repeated and desperate reminders that it thinks dinosaurs are so cool, it doesn't treat them that way. Somehow it takes all the childhood wonder that Jurassic Park encapsulated so perfectly and forgets it, leaving behind the fossilizing bones of a behemoth that once ruled many years a??go.

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Spare no expense! Because it doesn't matter anyway

First, you build the park and hire staff, then you begin expeditions in search of fossils and mosquitoes trapped in amber. Then comes creating new life from something long dead millions of years ago, all while ignoring the opinions of someone who's seen this all before and once described chaos theory. This is then fol??lowed up by crowds of people willing to pay top dollar to see these creatures in a habitat as close to natural as you decide for them.

Then, soon enough, comes the screaming and yelling as one of these creatures you created with much larger teeth escapes due to a less than obvious power disruption at an inopportune time. All while this is going down, the ranger jeep is stuck inside a restaurant. This is all fine, though, because soon after the alarms have ended and the creatures are back in their enclosures, people come pouring back in once more to do it all over again. It's just a shame they care as little for their own lives as much as Jurassic World Evolution seems to ca?re for its overall business and park?? simulation mechanics.

Jurassic World Evolution (PC, PS4 [reviewed], Xbox One)
Developer: Frontier Developments
Publisher: Frontier Developments
Released: June 12, 2018
MSRP: $59.99

Evolution was at its best when I was simply planning out the next enclosure I wanted to build for one of the many dinosaurs it's possible to dig up and bring back from the past. Evolution features an impressive roster of over 40 different dinosaurs, many of which are from the various films. Everything from the obvious tyrannosaurus with its iconic roar, to the towering brachiosaurus, the ever so clever and overgrown velociraptors, and even that spliced-up monstrosity from Jurassic World.

But, this roster of dinos also includes notable surprises not seen in the films, such as the giganotosaurus (my personal favorite), and even the dinosaur the films based the velociraptor's size and general appearance on -- the deinonychus. All of them are beautifully and meticulously detailed. Simply sitting back and watching them was something I spent more time doing than I care to admit.
 
All of these dinosaurs also include their own distinct stats and preferences that you'll need to be aware of to fully integrate them into your park. Things as simple as how much foliage and grassland you need to have in your enclosure, to the more complicated matter of maintaining dinosaur population and social stats by ensuring you have just the right amount of ?them in any specific enclosure. Having too many or too little of something will result in your dinosaurs' comfort levels dropping, followed up by them getting pissed off and trying to break out of the enclosure. That said, it's difficult to gauge what your enclosure will need before you hatch a new dinosaur for the first time, as you can only more or less find out once you've released one inside it.

Notably, you can also modify the dinosaurs themselves by messing wit??h their genome, allowing for a number of different alternate colors to choose from and stats. This also increases the rating of that dinosaur at the risk?? of making them harder to incubate and the predators far more dangerous.

Regardless, these dinosaurs will break out thanks to a huge variety of things that can go wrong within your park, from power outages and sabotage to massive storms that can hit your island at any moment. It's here where both the dinosaur and park tycoon aspects blend perfectly, as you chase down dinosaurs with an ACU helicopter to tranquilize them before they chow down on too many customers.

However, these brief moments of chaos are some of the very few decent park tycoon and simulation mechanics in Evolution, as pretty much everything else is extremely shallow. Sure, Evolution has a fair amount of variety in what you can build, but none of it really adds to anything outside of a simplistic five-star rating system. You build restaurants and stores to serve food and sell stuff, you build shelters and hotels to keep your guests safe and so more can come. That's about as far Evolution treads into the realm of a business tycoon. There are no quotas to meet or time constraints, hell, the concept of time is straight up absent altogether in Evolution -- including day and night cycles. Instead, Evolution simply has preset times of day across its differen??t islands, ranging from noon, dusk, and night.

For example, you don't even need to worry about how clean the park is. Evolution doesn't even have bathrooms, benches, or trashc?ans anywhere to be found on the pathways you construct in your park. You also don't interact with guests in any meaningful way. Instead, feedback just boils down to a small window advising you of three specific criteria t??o meet for both your dinosaur and facility rating.

Even worse, when those dinosaurs do inevitably break out and eat your guests, the?? consequences are so minimal it's almost comedic. Once they're back in the enclosures and all the alarms are over, regardless of the damage caused and lives lost, as long as you still have a fair amount of dinosaurs on hand, the park will continue to make more money than you can even spend.

To compensate for the lacking business tycoon mechanics, Evolution instead offers up a variety of tasks to complete in the form of contracts and missions. You'll progress through these missions across five different island scenarios given to you by three specific divisions that run the whole operation known simply as Science, Security, and Entertainm?ent. The missions and contracts themselves range from researching a specific type of new genome modification, in?creasing the island to a specific rating, or even incubating a specific set of dinosaurs.

Notably, the voice work in Evolution is pretty solid thanks to its star-studded cast that includes the likes of Jeff Goldblum reprising his role as Dr. Ian Malcom. You'll mostly hear dialogue during and after the missions themselves, with an overarching plot of Dr. Malcom trying to get to the bottom of what Dr. Wu and the Secur?ity Division are u??p to. But, sadly, that plot thread goes nowhere.

After completing the final mission in the game, various characters spouted some throwaway dialogue, resulting in the game coming to a pause...and then the credits rolled. Simply put, the progression system in Evolution is downright awful and makes me wish cheat codes were still a thing so I could simply skip this crap. Even worse, Evolution gates off dinosaurs and buildable amenities behind these contracts and missions as unlockables for co??mple??ting them.

Throw all this in with a surprising lack of space to build things across the five scenario islands and it makes the already unfulfilling park building more frustrating than it should be. Even when I completed all the missions across the five scenario islands, the final free-for-all island with unlimited money (known as Isla Nublar) wasn't exactly as large as I'd hoped. Admittedly, you do unlock Isla Nublar pretty early in Evolution, but in order to make use of that space effe?ctively, you'll still need access to plenty of dinosaurs, research, and buildable amenities.

Despite all this, after playing over fifty hours of Evolution, I still certainly had my fair share of fun. The dinosaurs are absolutely the star of the show here and surprisingly enough, the controller support for Evolution is spot on and really intuitive. But if you're looking for a solid dinosaur-themed tycoon or business sim, then you might wanna keep looking. Because sadly, Evolution just comes off feeling like it was rushed out t?he door. Here's hoping Frontier Developments continues to support the game in the coming months?? because what's here right now is just a skeleton of a game waiting to be fossilized.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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Movie Poster 101

Team Dtoid, I wanted - no, I really wanted, to make fun of this official poster for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. Let's be honest, if a Sum?mer flick delivers a poster? that's just too confusing to understand, it is fair game for internet commen?tary and jaded haters like me.

Only, it turns out that this homage-like 80s recreation poste?r is fan work, selected by director J.A. Bayona, Universal Pictures and the producers of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. The fact that a franchise, a major motion picture, would do something like this is incr??edibly cool. Credit is due and I'm?? paying it out. On top of that, instead of creating a potentially cheesy situation, they selected a legitimate fan artist, Nima Nakhshab, who was able to create something believable enough to pass for real.

Albeit real in the sense that it falls into all the classic trappings, dressings, and framings of a movie poster clusterfuck. Was the concept to imagin??e every dinosaur ever and throw them all in one big orgy of mega-yawns? Flying God Dinos in the sky! Toss a peon dino stampede pulling a lemming exodus and a single tiny helicopter up top, stage right, and you've created the perfect Jurassic poster disaster.

It's like a King Kong scenario, but the dinos are both the giant monkeys and the tiny people. Then there's the volcano which could not have been planned any better. One must wonder if the producers of JWFK are actually ??behind the worldwide volcano outbr??eak as some sort of viral marketing gone wrong.

Did you notice the?? Sam Neil Easter Egg, hinting at a possible return for a certain Dr. AG?

What do you think? Is it a romanticized callback to a golden age of movies that does vintage posters proud, or is it a spatially unaware clusterfuck, ignorant that po?sters can survive without the presence of every plot element?

We’re not sure if this ‘Jur??assic World: Fallen Kingdom’ poster is a joke, but tickets are Now on sale [Slash Film]

The post Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom poster has dinosaurs,? is a cluste??rf*%k appeared first on Destructoid.

You crazy son of a bitch, you did it

Rocket League is about to dip its toes into the Mesozoic. Or, at least the scientific recreation of the Mesozoic. Specifically, the Jurassic Era. Okay, you know where this is going. Jurassic Park. It's Jurassic Park.

Later this month, just ahead of the release of Jurassic World, Psyonix is adding the Jurassic Park Jeep to Rocket League. The ??$2 download will include the Jeep, a T-Rex goal explosion, a hard hat topper, th??ree themed banners, and three themed flags. It goes live on June 18 on all platforms.

Psyonix has confirmed that the Jeep has the same hitbox as the Octane, which is Rocket League's most popular car among experienced players. Also, the goal explosion is reminiscent of the Black Market Hellfire explosion, but with a dinosaur rather than a demon's head. Considering it can be equipped to any car (not just the Jeep), this pack's a good deal bas??ed on that alone -- at least for anyone who's looking for a cool goal explosion. It's certainly a lot cheaper than burning through crates and keys hoping the RNG smiles favorably upon you.

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Blue is a good boy

I wasn't a huge fan of Jurassic World when it first came out, but I can tell you that I liked the fact that it ended with a t-rex, a raptor, and a genetically modified dino fighting it out in an obvious homag?e to early Hollywood monster movies. Once that happened I knew that they were ditching the pseudo-science thread of the originals and basically going all out monster movie, and it let you fram?e the movie in a slightly better light. 

Well, if the conclusion of the first film was a hint at the franchise's direction than the newest trailer for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is basically shouting it. We're in full monster movie territory, folks. Giant sea creatures taking out helicopters? War mongering corporations designing super dinosaurs? The return of plucky dino sidekick Blue? All we need now is a giant monkey. We've left behind the very basic attempts to be somewhat realistic of Jurassic Park, and we're in full commitment to something entirely different. This is Jurassic Park via Godzilla, not Michael Chrichton.

And I'm kind of all for it? Is that bad? This just looks like some crazy fun, and no I'm not just saying th?e because The Goldblum, hollowed be his name, is in it.With my expectations re-calibrated to giant monster movie, I'm actually looking forward to this. 

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I want to role-play as an evil genius

The idea of building and operating a dino theme park sounds lovely right now. Frontier Developments is still putting the final touches on Jurassic World Evolution, but it's not far out. The game launches digitally June 12 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One, follo??wed by a console-only retail release on July 3.

The trailer ends on back-to-back high notes. First off, the dinosaur being air-lifted behind the roaring Tyrannosaurus rex is the real MVP. It looks so undignified! I'm all about this transportation system.

Second, the video closes with a park guest who's about to be eaten. Now, I don't know about the rest of you, but I intend to play Evolution responsibly and to the best of my ability -- right up until the point at which I intentionally let it all go to hell and send my park into chaos. It's gonna be beautiful.

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I want an out-of-character bonus mode

A dinosaur theme park management game from Frontier Developments is pretty much the dream scenario. Will Jurassic World Evolution live up to expectation??s? It's too early to call. But one thing is certain: it's got everyone's favorite dad, and he's "gonna be with ya the whole game."

Jeff Goldblum is bringing back Dr. Ian Malcolm for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and also Evolution. In the game, he "guides players th?rough the moral choices and tactical decisions that will test their building and management skills as they attempt to successfully run their own Jurassic Wor?ld."

I'd say I posted this news entirely for the header image, but that's not quite true -- there's also a video! Jeff Goldblum could speak about dang near anything and he'd still have the same mesmeric effect.

The image is good as hell, though.

The post Hell yeah, Je??ff Goldblum is ??in Jurassic World Evolution appeared first on Destructoid.

Finally

***SPOILERS***.

Dinosaurs in civilization! Military dinosaurs? This will all probably be the last 10 minutes of Jurassic World 2, setting up the next inevitable sequel?? in the franchise, but?? who cares--they're finally doing it!

Y??ou can see more dinosaurs in theaters on Jun?e 22, 2018.

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Unless they learn how to make good sequels ... uh, open doors

This trailer was due out a week ago, but Universal got trailer envy when Marvel dropped some big-ass Avengers: Infinity War action right in front of their release. That's right, not only did Marvel show up DC by making more money on a ?trailer than DC's flagpole franchise movie did in the same week, but they whipped it out, and all the dinosaurs Universal could muster turned tail and ran for the jungle.

For a week, at least.

Now that you've seen the first full look at Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, what are your thoughts?

The premise seems confused: we're clearly shown the volcano blowing up with what looks like every-single-dinosaur-on-the-island not having been rescued. This after they've told us they're there to rescue the dinosaurs from the volcano. Perhaps this will all take place in the first 15 minutes of the movie and then we'll get to the movie I've been hoping for: dinosaurs loose in civilization. Super smart dinosaurs in civilization? Think Turok. When they get there, it's going to be so g?ood. If they get there.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom finds a way June 22.

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