So in 2019 I've decided to try something new. I wanna start playing game genres that I've never gotten into before, city builders, rts, strategy, etc. I wanna give them a try and see if my opinion on them changes if I give them a fair shake and a few extra hours of time.
So with the Steam sale, I picked up Jurassic World Evolution, because it was super cheap and I was bored so here we go.
For those of you who might not know, JWE is a city builder slash amusement park management sim thing. It feels like Sim City meets Rollar Coaster Tycoon in a way. Now I don't normally like Sim games, for many reasons but mostly because I don't like to juggle too many tasks at once and these games always seem to be about how many plates you can spin at once.
The first thing that annoyed me was the controls. Holy shit moving the camera around to place buildings properly is so frustrating that I stopped trying and now my park buildings all look like they were plopped down randomly by some kind of God with ADHD or a drunk city planner. Either way it worked, and the park guests didn't seem to mind having to walk all that extra way to get from attraction to attraction.
After a little while of sending expeditions to gather fossils, sucking the dead dino jizz from the rocks, researching how to fuck with the purebloods to make them better faster stronger, and a dozen other tasks, I found JWE to actually be really manageable. There were a couple of times I thought I was fucked with $500 dollars in the bank, but I always managed to bounce back and I completed the first island with a thriving little showcase.
Then the next island is unlocked and I get to do it all over again and I immediately start to feel my enjoyment fall apart. The first thing that bothers me is that nothing on the previous island matters except research points, but without money or any of my task teams it doesn't do me any good. The money from your other island can't transfer over to help you pay for things on your new island, so each island has to be self sufficiant, you might be a rock star on that island but here on island 2 you are a sperm worm. It's like being a general manager at a McDonald's and having to start all over as a cashier just because you moved to a different city. You don't even get a head start.
In fact the second island starts by kicking you in the dick, a major storm has fucked up all of your buildings and you have to repair them (with no money and no personal capable of doing so). So talk about ramping up the difficulty. And this island is only like 5 miles away from the last one, how come no big fuck-you storms happen there? Even to a lesser degree it would be nice to have been prepared for storms with some sort of tutorial.
But no.
So I put in the work, and managed to build up all the things I need on island 2 in order to get things running and money coming in. However, just when things are going great a storm will come by to dump spunk all over your parade.
Despite my problems, especially as the difficulty ramps up, I still keep wanting to play JWE, but I also really like dinosaurs so I don't know if I'm really having fun or I just really want to unlock Velociraptors and tempt fate by starving them while a bunch of yummy tourists stare at them and laugh.
So with the Steam sale, I picked up Jurassic World Evolution, because it was super cheap and I was bored so here we go.
For those of you who might not know, JWE is a city builder slash amusement park management sim thing. It feels like Sim City meets Rollar Coaster Tycoon in a way. Now I don't normally like Sim games, for many reasons but mostly because I don't like to juggle too many tasks at once and these games always seem to be about how many plates you can spin at once.
The first thing that annoyed me was the controls. Holy shit moving the camera around to place buildings properly is so frustrating that I stopped trying and now my park buildings all look like they were plopped down randomly by some kind of God with ADHD or a drunk city planner. Either way it worked, and the park guests didn't seem to mind having to walk all that extra way to get from attraction to attraction.
After a little while of sending expeditions to gather fossils, sucking the dead dino jizz from the rocks, researching how to fuck with the purebloods to make them better faster stronger, and a dozen other tasks, I found JWE to actually be really manageable. There were a couple of times I thought I was fucked with $500 dollars in the bank, but I always managed to bounce back and I completed the first island with a thriving little showcase.
Then the next island is unlocked and I get to do it all over again and I immediately start to feel my enjoyment fall apart. The first thing that bothers me is that nothing on the previous island matters except research points, but without money or any of my task teams it doesn't do me any good. The money from your other island can't transfer over to help you pay for things on your new island, so each island has to be self sufficiant, you might be a rock star on that island but here on island 2 you are a sperm worm. It's like being a general manager at a McDonald's and having to start all over as a cashier just because you moved to a different city. You don't even get a head start.
In fact the second island starts by kicking you in the dick, a major storm has fucked up all of your buildings and you have to repair them (with no money and no personal capable of doing so). So talk about ramping up the difficulty. And this island is only like 5 miles away from the last one, how come no big fuck-you storms happen there? Even to a lesser degree it would be nice to have been prepared for storms with some sort of tutorial.
But no.
So I put in the work, and managed to build up all the things I need on island 2 in order to get things running and money coming in. However, just when things are going great a storm will come by to dump spunk all over your parade.
Despite my problems, especially as the difficulty ramps up, I still keep wanting to play JWE, but I also really like dinosaurs so I don't know if I'm really having fun or I just really want to unlock Velociraptors and tempt fate by starving them while a bunch of yummy tourists stare at them and laugh.
