It has it's issues, but that doesn't take away from the fact that the game is entertaining and rather addictive as it is...

Being a fan of Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis as a kid, I had been anxiously awaiting a follow up or remake to that very game - and it finally arrived with Evolution. Though, it unfortunately doesn't really seem to be trying much, if anything, new or fresh when compared to that much older title... As others have exhaustively pointed out, there are things that predecessor does better than Evolution, but that doesn't mean Evolution isn't worth your time.

At the end of the day, Evolution is still a good - albeit simplistic - park management simulator, BUT with DINOSAURS. And not only that, but Jurassic Park DINOSAURS (...okay, okay... they're technically "Jurassic World" Dinosaurs, but still).

Even still, I managed to find my own fun at times. Taking control of the Ranger vehicles myself, I liked to race the other A.I. Ranger cars to the objectives, speeding my way through the endless waves of visitors without caring for their safety (since I quickly found they just automatically dive out of the way and couldn't care less that they nearly died from a car landing a jump from a nearby hill on their heads). It took away the need to drive safely and slowly to an urgent matter at the other side of the park... even if it was a bit immersion breaking.

To be honest, I think that's the only sort of thing I really disliked about this game: the immersion breaking "safety" the game has going on. I loved taking away the Park Entrances & public paths in Operation Genesis, letting the T-Rex loose on the guests and watching them suffer as they're torn to shreds - it's admittedly a bit sadistic, but that's part of the charm of a game like this. In Evolution, I don't think you can truly take away the Monorail system the guests arrive on in order to trap them here, but I honestly didn't really care... I actually found myself actively AVOIDING having dinosaurs loose on the guests here. I don't even know why... it's not necessarily a bad thing, since that is supposed to be my objective as park manager, but I do think it speaks on that "safety" hindrance I mentioned earlier. I'm not sure if it's to do with the boring & all too same-y animations every single dinosaur seems to go through when escaping an enclosure or eating a guest alive that just don't make that appealing to me here, or if the game just makes me care about my park more? It's just something to ponder over...

At the end of the day, I like Evolution as it is, and I have very much so enjoyed my time with it all the way through to the closing credits... However, if an Evolution sequel was to ever see the light of day, I do think they'd need to step up their game quite a bit to make it a little more worth while and long lasting.

Overall rating: 7.3/10

I did not expect to like this game as much as I did. I knew it was a quality game, and I like park builder and simulation games well enough. However, this game was very good.

I probably only have two big complaints about it. First, there is no way to tell exactly how large your enclosures are square footage wise. This meant a lot of adding or shrinking fences to ensure they were the optimal size for the dinosaurs. Not having this info handy or at least a grid you can activate made it difficult to plan out the park effectively.

My other complaint is the game is too easy, but also too chaotic (near the end levels). Once I got to the 3rd island, I focused on getting 5 stars on every island on campaign, which was pretty easy. However, while the last level is still easy, stuff just happens all at once it seems too often. First my gates are sabotaged and opened, then dinos got sick while fixing that, then a tornado happens and destroys fences, then the raptors and dionicuses get mad from the storm and break their fences even if the tornado wasn't near them. All of this within 2 minutes. But then you go 25 minutes with no hiccups at all. It was very bad for pacing I think.

Outside of those two complaints, the game was a blast to complete the campaign on. Sandbox was good too, but I didn't try the challenge modes or DLCs (which there are many of).

Great untapped potential but at launch was a bit lacking in content, they updated in more features as time went on. It's better than it was before, but it could have still been more. The campaign is fun once but not very repayable, Challenge mode isn't my thing, and Sandbox is great but pulled down by the restrictive customization and terrain features of the main game. The DLC for this game is alright with 'Return to Jurassic Park' being the best pack with the original cast returning and the best campaign this game has to offer.

My Scores for DLC:
Deluxe Dinosaur Pack - 5/10 Dinosaurs are cool but it is overpriced
Secrets of Dr. Wu - 7/10 Fun and short add on to the campaign with cool new animals but I don't like the new Hybrid designs
Claire's Sanctuary - 6/10 Not as memorable as Dr. Wu but the Dinosaurs are nice and Sanctuary is neat to see up-close.
Cretaceous Dinosaur Pack - 7/10 Iguanodon alone is poggers
Carnivore Dinosaur Pack - 6/10
Herbivore Dinosaur Pack - 6/10
Raptor Squad Pack - 2/10 Overpriced Raptor skins that should have already been in the game from the beginning.
Return to Jurassic Park - 10/10 Sexy Cabot Finch, Jeff Goldblum, Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Compies, Aviaries, and Retro Dino Skins, also a really fun campaign.

Aunque me ha gustado mucho, he de decir que, en algunos aspectos, cojea bastante. Toda la parte de gestión es prácticamente inexistente, casi todos los dinosaurios son funcionalmente iguales y apenas tienes que tocar nada para que sobrevivan. También tiene la pega de que gran parte del juego conlleva esperar y no hay ninguna forma de acelerar el tiempo, cosa que en un juego de este género me resulta rarísima.

Dicho esto, visualmente es una chulada y la progresión de ir desbloqueando dinosaurios y cositas nuevas poco a poco funciona muy bien. Tiene ideas muy curiosas, como lo de controlar manualmente a los equipos de control de animales y todo el tema de las modificaciones genéticas (aunque, una vez más, tampoco sirven para especialmente mucho más allá de darte más bonus).

En general, me ha gustado. Podría haber sido mejor, sí, pero estoy satisfecho con lo que es.

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Although I enjoyed it a lot, I must say that, in some aspects, it's a bit lacking. The whole management part is almost nonexistent, almost all the dinosaurs are functionally the same and you barely have to touch anything for them to survive. It also has the inconvenient that most of the game is you waiting and there's no way to speed up time, which, in a game like this, is very weird to me.

That being said, it's visually fantastic and the progression and unlocking of new dinosaurs and new stuff little by little works really well. It has some very nice ideas, like manually controlling the animal control teams and the whole genetic modification side (although, again, it barely does anything beyond giving you bonuses).

Overall, I liked it. It could've been better, sure, but I'm satisfied with what it is.

There's basically no reason to play this over Planet Zoo because you have much less freedom to do what you want and there are some very confusing design choices (two separate buildings for gathering fossils and analyzing them? c'mon Frontier, you know better than to do that) but if you're into the Jurassic Park movies or dinos in general and you want to play a Zoo Tycoon-type game with them, you could do a lot worse. It's also really addicting, I spent many hours building dino habitats while I was playing this so if you're looking for a game that'll give you something to do for a week Evolution is a great choice.