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Platform Filters:   All Platforms  Xbox   GameCube   PlayStation 2   PC   Game Boy Advance   Site Sections:   Updates  News   Games   Publishers   Developers   Reviews   Previews   Release Dates   Editorials   Glossary   Contact Us		Preview:       25th January 2003: Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis  Previous uses of the Jurassic Park license to create games have been pretty dire; but this one might well break the mould... Posted by Marc Hull - PlayStation 2,Xbox,PC - UK and Europe OK, so the film Jurassic Park may not have made you want to start up a business in the theme park industry, but there's definitely something attractive about realising John Hammond's dream of creating a park with live dinosaurs in it and then watching them tear it to shreds, eat the visitors and generally cause hideous amounts of mayhem without having to go through lengthy lawsuits and insurance battles afterwards. Fortunately, Vivendi are giving you the opportunity to do just that in their latest strategy game for PC, PlayStation 2 and Xbox! Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis allows you build your own virtual theme park like the one in the film, and tailor every inch to your own desires. Everything, from the shape of the island to the price of admission is controlled by you, and it's also up to you to make sure that your visitors don't get any nasty surprises while checking out the park's main attractions. With the entire game running in lovely realtime 3D, you'll be able to keep track of everything that goes on in your park thanks to various camera and gameplay modes. The Ranger Cam allows you to go around you park and tranquilize offending dinosaurs, while the Chopper Pilot mode gives you a great aerial tour of your construction, and there's even a Visitor View mode that give's you a first-person view of your park from a visitor's perspective! The game promises to faithfully follow the original film, with lush jungle environments modelled in 3D and highly detailed dinosaur meshes to bring the prehistoric creatures to life. There will be over 25 of them in the final product, and each are controlled by a complex artificial intelligence system which takes into account how they hunt, fight, feed and flock together. However, you'll also be able to alter their characteristics yourself in the 'Dino-Vet Lab', where you can brew up mixtures of chemicals that will affect how angry, sleepy, aggressive and hungry they are. Get the chemical combinations right, and you'll have nice, docile dinosaurs that wouldn't harm a fly, but get it wrong and you'll have the prehistoric beasts rampaging through your park faster than you can say "nothing could possibly go wrong". The title's gameplay will be split into two distinct sections; one in which you start from scratch and try to build up the largest park you can, with as many dinosaurs as possible, and another where you play through a set of scenarios, with certain tasks to be completed in each. The former will allow fans of games like Theme Park to let their imaginations run wild without any form of mission constraints, and is the perfect mode for building up a massive park and then 'accidentally' leaving the dinosaur pens open and seeing what happens. Meanwhile, the latter provides the player with a set of objectives to be met, so that you can progress through the game and, eventually, 'complete' it. Also, the game's developers promise that the missions available in this mode will no walk in the park, with loads of action-packed tasks such as rescuing stranded visitors and stopping a dinosaur rampage keeping things interesting. Graphically, the new screenshots from the PS2 version show off some pretty impressive texturing and detailed building models, which should push the consoles to the max. Fortunately, the game's sound is also getting a similar amount of attention, with the Melbourne Symphony providing ten completely original music tracks for the game, to accompany two by the movie's composer, John Williams. Overall, this looks as if it's well on the way to being one of the few Jurassic Park games that will actually be good! We hope to have a full review when it hits European games stores on the 21st March, but until then keep your eyes peeled on our news section where we'll be bringing you the latest details and screenshots as they're released. Marc Hull             Latest Images:		Related Games:  Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis for PlayStation 2  4  Screenshots  1  Preview Click here for All Game Information.
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