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Fun game, but maybe a little too easy

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 67 / 69
Date: March 15, 2003
Author: Amazon User

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You Run Jurassic Park!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 13
Date: October 28, 2004
Author: Amazon User

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dream it, Build it, Survive it.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 14
Date: February 22, 2003
Author: Amazon User

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Great game.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 14 / 18
Date: February 16, 2003
Author: Amazon User

So far I have only played the game demo (availible at http://www.jpthegame.com) but I really loved it, and I think the game will be as good as the Demo, the Dino's do everything what they supposed to do, they eat, sleep, drink, poop etc. and the missions where you have to photograph or shoot the dino's from a helicopter are well made, this game is a must have for every fan of Jurassic Park or Dinosaurs, the graphics are highly detailed and it sounds like the sounds of the Dinosaurs are comming right out the movie, and the sountrack from John Williams makes it all a great game.

this game rocks!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 12
Date: May 26, 2003
Author: Amazon User

... Anyways, this game really does rock, with awsome graphics and sounds. You get to build your own cool park and dinosaurs. You can even fly in a chopper and shoot dinosaurs. Plus, there's so much much more to this game that it'd take days to write about! BUY THIS GAME IT'S AWESOME!!!

This Game is SWEET!!!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: October 06, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game is awesome. It lets you build your own park, protect your guests, and make real, live-looking dinos! You can also do missions, which provide excellent practice. It's also amazing because, well, try smashing a safari car into a Brontasaurous or an angry T-rex or Spinosaurous. Watch it explode. It's worth it to see was the dinos do to the humans (if they're carnivores),but don't let them kill too mach 'cause you pay A LOT of money, and your populairity goes zippo.
I got another sweet idea for you. If you've got some carnivores, clone a lot because when you destroy all the fences, security, and exits an' you hate some guests you get your revenge!
All in all, it was a great game and I'd rate it 5 stars on anything but park size. It's... too... SMALL!
So, anyways it's a great game and I really like it. I hope you have fun on it too... if you buy or play it at your friend's house (I played it at my cousin's).

Hope you like it!! :)(: (they're smiley faces).

WOW!!! The graphics are AWESOME!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: November 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Ever since I saw the movie, I wanted to build my own version of JP. Well, here it is. I absolutely love this game. The graphics are AWESOME!!! It is especially pleasing to see the great detail and effort put forth to make the dinos look realistic. Also, the dinos' AI is pretty smart... even for a dino. Some dinos would play with each other, some would chase and eat each other, and some would protect each other. My only fustration was the dino cap limit. You can only produce 60 dinos max. This game is much easier to play and learn compared to Roller Coaster Tycoon, Sim City, etc. I was up and playing this game like a pro after the tutorials. I really like how the team incorporated the various rides in the movie and put them in the game. He he he, I like it when a T-Rex trashes one of my land cruisers and I have to fly in and rescue the poor visitor. Bottom line: A GREAT GAME!!!
I hope they make an expansion pack that includes dinos from Jurassic Park III.....

The Most Frightening, I Mean, Ultimate Theme Park

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: June 21, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I've played Jurassic Park Operation Genesis where you have to build a 5-star dinosaur park & grow dinosaurs. The PS version only allows you to unlock 3 sites to dig but the PC version allows 4 or 5. I like creating but the game can be annoying with all the emails coming through every 5 seconds to report a problem. I tried turning down the sound so I couldn't hear the urgent messages but if you turn down the sound, something bad could be happening in your park (like a T-Rex becomng enraged & breaking the fence to have your visitors for a mid-morning snack). You need to send your rangers over (or you can fly the copter yourself) to sedate the dinosaur. What a theme park - all your canivores are drugged up most of the time. I don't like fences. Put up Avoidance Beams which emits an electrical sound that repels dinosaurs but found out these beams run on batteries that have to charge so when they are off & charging, that's when the dinosaurs get through. Twice I was fired for poor management. Ingen doesn't like it when you run the park into the ground (lost track of how much money I was spending) and they don't like it when your visitors are being killed by Tornadoes (supposed to build Visitor Shelters to protect your visitors) or dinosaurs eating them (supposed to build fences to protect the visitors-but a high security fence makes it hard to view the dinosaurs). Hey you can't please everybody. Fun game and great learning tool also. Teaches about the different dinosaurs of each period which could spark a child's curiousity to find out further information about dinosaurs. No bones about it - Jurassic Park Operation Genesis is a great game.

A brilliant Sim, but is it a brilliant game?

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: October 11, 2006
Author: Amazon User

To start with, let me just make one obvious but highly important point: don't buy this game if you don't love dinosaurs, okay? If you don't like them then Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis isn't for you. Now. On to the review.
Well. JPOG is a sim, to begin with. There are missions and exercises, but the primary mode of the game is to construct and manage your very own Jurassic Park. Before I begin, I recommend you watch the introduction before you begin playing. It doesn't really tell you anything you didn't know, it's just satisfying to hear John Hammond say 'Ooh yes, you have a Tee-Rex!' in that lovely strong Welsh accent (no offence to any Welsh people reading this; I love that accent).
The interface is relatively simple to get to grips with. You've got Operation Genesis, Site B, Exercises, Missions, Options and 'Dinopedia' in the main menu. 'Dinopedia' is this useful little guide that tells you about the dinosaurs and tips for running the park, so it makes sense to have a flick through this before you unleash a 'starvin' 'ungry' Tyrannosaurus Rex into your park of slavering morons- I mean, er, happy visitors. Options is of course where you can customize your game- sound, controls, you get the picture. Exercises are practises to prepare you for some of the things that will inevitably go wrong in your park, e.g. giant carnivores going on rampages, twisters striking the island. Missions are obviously missions, where you play a sort of ranger in Hammond's park and must fulfill many carnage-filled tasks that the other staff couldn't be bothered to do- either that or they were all dead or stuck in emergency hampers (oh, how convenient...). And Operation Genesis is the main game itself. I'll come to Site B later on.
If I was you, I'd try the missions before you actually start building your own park. They just generally test your abilities to carry out varied tasks, ranging from saving the president of Dregovia from rampaging Velociraptors to mustering gentle herbivores into their paddocks. I think the best mission is the last one (you'll find that you've completed all the missions sooner than you'd think. I was confused when I couldn't click the 'next mission' button on the ending mission). Called 'Safari' (well, THAT'S an imaginative title...) you've gotta go round in your jeep taking photos of dinosaurs in different positions. However, you'll probably realise to late that when that T-Rex comes in your direction with a hungry look on his face he's actually charging at YOU.
Now. Onto the park. You start on your island, with nothing on it but trees, mountains and rivers. You start with 60 000 pounds, but this overwhelming amount whittles down surprisingly quickly. The expenses are used up on fences, ranger stations, cleaner stations, paths, benches, trash cans, park entrances and kiosks, and your debt will be announced by InGen leader Peter Ludlow's cries of 'you've run this park INTO THE GROUND!' Unless you can make profit instantly from your highly critical visitors, that is. I mean, come on- isn't it just a tad unfair to slag off a park about a bit of dirt or whatever, when, you know, THERE ARE REAL LIFE DINOSAURS, THAT WERE SUPPOSED TO HAVE DIED OUT 65 MILLIONS YEARS AGO?! Then again, I suppose the visitors do have a lot to complain about on certain occasions. You'll find that fatalities every now and then is the norm. There are some hazards that CAN be prevented, like a Spinosaurus breaking out of its low security enclosure and eating everything in site, and some that are unstoppable, like tornados. I remember thinking in my first twister alert: 'I know I SHOULD hit the emergency button, but...who cares.' The damage that the twisters make is just so cool! If you look at dinosaurs when they're up in the air, being whirled around by the wind, they're not actually panicking at all, simply making casual walking movements as if nothing is happening. But visitors do also get them killed in stupid ways also. I think one guy got so annoyed with my park that he commited suicide. I just remember the park ranger saying randomly on an ordinary, sunny day: 'FATALITY! £5000!' I tried to find the corpse and figure out its cause of death, only to find a man IN an Albertosaurus enclosure with no reasonable excuse of being in there. I can only assume he fell in there off a viewing vent or was pushed (...). I surprisingly 'Shaun of the Dead' style scene followed as Albertosaurs gathered round to feast on his flesh.
Graphics: Excellent. You'll need a good driver to run this brilliantly animated game. The water is reflective, grass and vegetation is brushed realistically to the side on impact, and most of all the dinosaurs are perfectly done. Their mouths open and close in cue to the sounds, and you can see their muscles rippling as they move. They even defecate, but I suppose that's not really graphics. I think the only problem are the humans. Their faces are ridiculous! Noses are non existant, and the cleaners look like they're made out of paper with completely triangular foreheads and mouths. But it's a good conversation piece, I suppose...
Sound: Perfect. All the sounds are excellent, and the dinosaurs from the Jurassic Park movies have their original distinct sounds- except the Dilophosaurus, which sounds more like a duck than a bloodthirsty meat eater. The new dinosaurs are also just as good, probably using roars of tigers and bears to create scary growls and roars. The rifle in the helicopter makes a nice realstic BANG, and there is a constant jungle ambience of the natural wildlife- birds, insects etc. The voice overs in the games are okay, but as always would have sounded better if done by the original actors themselves. Mr Arnold, the technician of the park, sounds similar enough, buy Dr Grant is way off, sounding more like a cheesy Elvis Presley impersonator than the leader of a fossil hunt.
AI: The AI is very good, but I wouldn't say excellent. The dinosaurs are brilliant, but the game falls down on the humans aspect. In the event of an emergency where everyone must evacuate into an emergency bunker, the stragglers who don't make it in time won't hide in another building, but will run in retarded fashions around the outside of the bunker for no particular reason. But, as I said, the dinosaurs are good. I think one, the Ceratosaurus, will actually turn its head around and sniff its own phosteria on occasion, and dinosaurs will drink and feed when they need to. If they are not fed, they will either go on Dino Rampages or go into comas. I think the coma is the easiest problem to deal with.
Overall: JPOG is an extroardinary game for those who enjoy dinosaurs. Its unique blend of exciting missions, massive varieties of dinosaurs and the ability to play in several different modes give it the edge over most sims, but there are some bugs, which will get slightly annoying- sometimes dinosaurs will forget to fall over when they die, and stand rotting for the rest of their time. But these aren't major issues, and I highly recommend that you give this game a try.

[...].

Welcome To Jurassic Park!!!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: February 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

One day I was flipping around on the internet and found a game called Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis. I played the demo and I was hooked! I bothered my parents for a month and I got the game. On with the review. There are only 4 modes of gameplay in this game. The first is Operation Genesis, the fun! You start out with one digsite and unlock more as you go along. I thought it was extreamly fun and I have 10 5 star parks. The next is Missions. There are 10 super challenging ones. They are hard and itm took me 2 months to beat them all. My favorite one is Danger Club Safari because you have to take pictures of rampaging dinos without getting eaten. Stick withe the raptors and go on mountains to take pictures of the big ones. You can also do Excersises. They are like scenarios in Zoo Tycoon. Jurassic Classic is the best because they give you the park from the movies and you have to manage it. The last is Site B. A private island where dinosaurs you pick roam free. I saw wich herbivores would last the longest on an island with huge bloodthirsty carnivores. The graphics are incredible!! I thought they were real dinos and the fights and hunting of the carnivores was a visual treat. The audio was what the movies sounded like. Listen to these words and obey them: BUY! THE! GAME! NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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