Jurassic World Evolution 2 lets you try to fix the movies' many flaws
Be better than the people in the films in the neat Chaos Theory mode.
When I was younger I loved Jurassic Park. I was one of those really annoying kids who would say things like, "oh, but the book is so much better," and I read it so much the pages were falling apart and the cover had come off.
I was even more insufferable with The Lost World. Having this time read the book before seeing the film, I had hugely high expectations that were proverbially shat on by a Triceratops when I saw the disappointing Spielberg movie. Then the less said about the later films the better (although I found Jurassic World to be OK, actually).
And that sort of sums up a lot of the actions in the films: people doing bad or stupid things that simply don't make sense. This is where Jurassic World Evolution 2's Chaos Theory mode comes in. This isn't, sadly, Splinter Cell's Sam Fisher sneaking around a dino park and stealthily taking out raptors. It is, though, a mode that lets you attempt to right some of the wrongs from the films. And it's pretty cool.
You essentially get to build the parks that failed in each of the movies. I, obviously, jumped into building the park from the original move as it's by far the most iconic. You get some preamble from Jeff Goldblum's Ian Malcolm, and then you build the park from scratch with the help of some pointers from familiar faces. It's not exactly how I remember it, but it's a park full of dinos with some familiar looking buildings.
Can you build a park that runs, has dinosaurs, and then opens to the public without anyone dying? Well, I couldn't, as it happens. I opened the park with good intentions, but a string of broken fences and a lack of support staff meant the dinos ran amok. At first it was just the triceratops, but then the raptors got loose. That was the beginning of the end.
Chaos Theory mode gives you some fun scenarios to play through, each with ever tougher objectives to meet, before your final tasks are laid out for you that must be completed in order to finish the challenge. By the end of the Jurassic Park scenario, for example, you need to have 10 species of dino, loads of guests in the park, and more.
As with all park builders, you need to manage your time and resources wisely. There's a ton of research that needs to be done, fossil hunting, base management, infrastructure building, and dino nurturing. Things start off simple enough but quickly ramp up, with problems cropping up all over the place and an endless to do list.
From what I've played there's nothing groundbreaking in Jurassic World Evolution 2 (this is a park builder that leans into wildlife management), but it's put together well and has enough of the movies about it to feel authentic. I played for about four hours, and now I think I'll be humming the classic theme tune for weeks.
In a sim like this it's almost impossible to get the feeling of being part of what's going on, like you would if you were in the shoes of Alan Gran, for example, but what's absolutely apparent is that that control room needed far more people staffing it. And playing god over the whole thing is apt given what was trying to be done in the first place.
Disclaimer: Tested on Xbox Series X. A copy of the game was provided by the publisher. Also on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, PS4, and PS5.