Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis

                    Demo reviewed by Sue

You know me and strategy games. I enjoy them a lot and I do like
something a bit different.

When I noticed a demo of Jurassic Park which lets you create and
run a dino theme park, I liked the sound of it a lot. It was an 80
meg download. I installed it and got it up and running.

The demo isn't very generous in what it allows you to do. It gives
just a few options. The first one, Exercises, contains only one
sample tutorial. As you enter you're told 'Welcome to Jurassic
Park. Learn the basic park controls. You had better be a fast
learner, trouble could be just round the corner!'

Clicking the Start button loads the exercise. The camera scans
across the park. There are enclosures, roads and small buildings.
The trees have a realistic 3D appearance. Looking good so far.
John Hammond (looking like Richard Attenborough from the film)
welcomes you and introduces the controls. You move the camera view
using W, S, A and D keys and rotate with Q and E. Zoom uses R and
F (in and out). Another park employee explains how to use the map
to quickly move from one area to another. All the buildings and
dinosaurs are shown on it and as you move your mouse over it,
their names pop up.

You're told to find the Triceratops and the Tyrannosaurus. When
you find the latter, you're told it looks as though there's
trouble.  You have to fly the park helicopter to her and shoot her
with a sedative. This is quite easy (just click the left mouse
button) though controlling the helicopter took me a while to
master.

This done, it's back to the main menu to select Missions. There
are two of these. The first is called When Carnivores Attack.
They can't open the park because the carnivores have gone crazy.
You have to help.

Sedatives again, I thought. But no. You have to kill them all
within a certain time limit. No, I wasn't keen on that at all. I
had one go, ran out of time and decided not to retry it.

The second mission was more acceptable. It's called Danger Club
Photo Shoot. Wealthy thrill seekers from the Danger Club will
donate a fortune to the park if you can show photographic evidence
of thrilling safari rides. You have to take 200 points worth of
exciting dino photos. Again there's a limit - you only have 10
shots. And you lose points if you run over a dino and hurt it.

The only other section in the demo is called Site B. Here you can
generate a new island, change its shape, amount of trees, rivers
and mountains, then breed some dinosaurs and watch them be
released. That would be okay if it wasn't for the food.  If you
breed carnivores, you need a feeder (a metal box with a trapdoor
set into the ground) and this dispenses goats or cows.  Press a
button and one of them appears and starts wandering across the
landscape. It's a matter of waiting for one of your dinos to home
in on it and ...

I don't actually know what happens because it was at this point I
stopped. No, I want to be entertained, not sickened. It may only
be a game, but I didn't find the idea entertaining.

The full game offers lots of scenarios and 12 missions, and
attractions such as balloon rides and observation towers. There
are environmental effects like twisters and tropical rainstorms.
The screenshots showing people wandering round the park look
great. One showed a dino rampaging and chasing a lot of screaming
tourists. Funnily enough, that didn't worry me. I don't know what
that says about me, that it was okay to bump off cartoon people
but not cartoon dinos, cows and goats!  But the upshot was that I
won't be buying the full game. It just doesn't appeal.

You can download the demo from www.jpthegame.com



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