Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis
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| Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis | |
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| Developer(s) | Blue Tongue Entertainment |
| Publisher(s) | Vivendi Universal |
| Engine | TOSHI |
| Platform(s) | PC, PlayStation 2, Xbox |
| Release date | March 11, 2003 |
| Genre(s) | Theme Park Simulation |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: Teen |
Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis (known colloquially as 'JP:OG' or 'JPOG') is a video game for the PC, Xbox, and PlayStation 2 based on the novel and film series Jurassic Park. The main point of the game is to recreate Jurassic Park - building a 5 star theme park with dinosaurs, and turning John Hammond's dream into reality. In the park, the player builds paths, amenities for food and toilets, as well as enclosures and attractions. One must also keep the park safe and secure. For example, during a raptor breakout detected by a security camera, one raptor could run towards the visitors and be quickly taken down by a sentry turret (an automatic heavy machine gun), while the rest could be sedated by the ranger helicopter and moved back into their enclosures. The park can be populated with up to sixty dinosaurs representing twenty-five different species. The player can also add attractions similar to those seen in the film, such as the safari seen in the Jurassic Park film and can also build new ones (e.g. a balloon tour, a viewing platform).
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[edit] Gameplay
[edit] Creating Dinosaurs
In the game, in order to create a dinosaur, a significant percentage of the particular dinosaur's DNA is needed. Fifty percent is needed in order to create a dinosaur; the higher the percentage of DNA, the longer that dinosaur will live. To gain a dinosaur's DNA, the player must extract it through fossils or amber.
[edit] Fossil Hunting
Using a fossil hunting team to dig in one of the nine dig sites positioned around the world is the first way to obtain fossils to extract DNA from. Only 5 of the 9 sites can be chosen in the PC version, and only 3 sites can be chosen in the console version. Each dig site contains fossils from three certain dinosaurs. The chance of finding fossils in the site depends on the quality of the site. More dig teams can be purchased at a cost of $5,000 for the first team, $10,000 for the second, $20,000 for the third, and $40,000 for the final team. After a certain length of time, the dig team will report their findings. When the teams are digging they occasionally will come across gold, silver and opals, which are solely for selling. These precious metals and stones will increase in worth when accumulated and can help raise park funds if in debt. Additionally, fossils retrieved can be sold, and once the park has 100% of a dinosaur's genome, any more discovered fossils of that dinosaur are automatically sold by the team.
[edit] Fossil Market
The "Fossil Market" is a place to buy fossils if your dig teams can't find any more fossils due to digging. Fossils have large amounts of DNA, and small amounts. The smaller the DNA in the fossil the less it will cost. The Fossil Market also sells Amber, a frozen ball of tree sap with a Mosquito inside.
[edit] Amber
Sometimes, when either digging or buying in the market, the player will come across amber. Amber is very useful, especially if it is high quality. If amber is discovered, there are two ways it can be used. Amber can either be sold (which is recommended if there are financial issues since it is deemed valuable) or the player can try to extract DNA from it. While extracting the amber can be a gamble because the DNA present is unknown, amber yields much more DNA than fossils. This gamble often pays off (hence the reason why amber is more expensive and also sells for a higher price than fossils).
[edit] Jurassic Park Management Team
There is a management team that continuously sends the player mail about the issues and accomplishments that the park has made.
- John Hammond is the CEO of InGen and creator of Jurassic Park. He makes contact infrequently to report on the status and rating of your park.
- Peter Ludlow is the financial director of InGen. He rarely interferes with the daily running of the park. A player only gets mail from him if there are financial or security issues in the park.
- Dr. Alan Grant is a world-famous paleontologist who oversees all of the fossil-hunting teams. He sends mail to report about finds and the status of the fossil market.
- Dr. Henry Wu is Jurassic Park's head geneticist and the creator of InGen's cloning technology. He sends the player mail about fossil and amber extractions and research programs.
- Dr. Ellie Sattler is the Park's dinosaur manager. She is an expert in dinosaur ecology and paleobotany. She monitors the park's dinosaur population, and she informs the player of the current status.
- Ray Arnold is the chief administrator and oversees all maintenance and day-to-day operations of the park. If something gets damaged in a storm or experiences technical problems, the player will be informed by him.
- Robert Muldoon is the park warden and in charge of all the park security systems and rangers. He also oversees operation of the balloon rides and safari tour.
- Jane Powers is the public relations manager, and will alert the player's attention to visitor and attraction problems. (She is the only member of the management team that's not from the movies or books.)
[edit] Purpose
The purpose of this game is to give the player a feeling of how Jurassic Park would look and work if the unfortunate events in Jurassic Park (the movie) never happened, or try to stop them from unfolding. Also, if Dennis Nedry never shut down the power switch and electricity at Jurassic Park (which released the dinosaurs), then how Operation Genesis would have happened in the films. Jurassic Park, in the films, failed to start a dinosaur attraction park because the dinosaurs escaped from their paddocks. Also, Operation Genesis was John Hammond's dream, but later, when Site A failed, his selfish nephew-in-law Peter Ludlow wanted to use his uncle's dream to make himself money and fortune by making a San Diego Jurassic Park arena by using men to capture dinosaurs from Site B. However, this dream was cut short when he was killed and eaten by a baby T-Rex at the end of the film. Site B can still be built in the game. The purposes of Jurassic Park II and The Lost World: Jurassic Park was to endorse a dinosaur park without getting eaten, or having dinosaurs escape, but never succeeded.
[edit] Dinosaurs
Operation Genesis features twenty-five species of dinosaurs, including thirteen of sixteen that appeared in at least one of the Jurassic Park films. Most of the dinosaurs, however, are based on their look and appearance in Jurassic Park III, even if they were in the previous films. Compsognathus, a major feature in the franchise is notably absent presumably due to its very small size which would have created tremendous logistical problems. Other species missing include two that were shown as embryo species in cold storage in the first film; Metriacanthosaurus and Proceratosaurus, and two others from the Jurassic Park films; Mamenchisaurus and Pteranodon (which was absent alongside any flying reptiles and aviary structures). Each species has its own behavior. Each species is ranked using a star rating (1-5) based on their popularity with the virtual visitors, as well as grouped into one of four major categories based on size and diet:
Revision of the files in the PC version showed that more dinosaur species were planned to be in the game, but got scrapped for unknown reasons. Those species are Alioramus, Deinonychus, Baryonyx, Ornithomimus, Yangchuanosaurus, Diplodocus, Apatosaurus, Iguanodon, Maiasaura, Panoplosaurus, Thescelosaurus, Tenontosaurus and Wuerhosaurus.
[edit] Fighting
Each dinosaur will fight with another dinosaur with the opposite diet. Example, if a Triceratops meets a Tyrannosaurus, they may fight because both are grouped under Large herbivore/carnivore. Each dinosaur has its own fighting style. A large carnivore will not fight a small carnivore/herbivore. Instead, the latter will usually flee. If a large carnivore is hunting and attacks a small herbivore or carnivore, it will often kill it in a single bite and proceed to devour it whole.
[edit] Missions
The game has 10 missions the player can complete. There are about three or four general types of missions, including taking photographs of dinosaurs to try to rack up a certain amount of points from the photos in a Safari mission. Here are all the missions numbered. (1) Jurassic Park is being accused of exhibiting fake dinosaurs, you must help them prove them wrong! (2) The park's carnivores have gone out of control! You must retire them before time runs out. (3) You must muster your herbivores to the muster area. (Optional) Retire all 4 T rex's before they eat the herbivores. (4) InGen scientists want to conduct further research into dinosaurs behavior in weather conditions. You will need to take photos of different dinosaurs during the heatwave and the thunder storm. (5) The president of Dregovia has arrived at your park when a twister has hit the island. You must retire all 18 carnivores and rescue the president. (6) The danger safari club is willing to donate a load of money to Jurassic Park if you can get them dangerous, scary photos. (7) The park has gone into emergency mode leaving John Hammond trapped in a visitor shelter. You must go to the Ranger Station and get a rifle, then go rescue Hammond. (8) The parks automated hatcheries have gone out of control! Destroy the engines and retire all carnivores. (9) You must muster the herbivores through a maze and into the muster area. (10) Many visitors have suggested that they would like a Jurassic Park calendar, take photos of dinosaurs to win.
[edit] Site B
After all the missions are completed, a Site B option unlocks on the title page which allows the player to build an island without any fences or buildings for people, and no visitors are allowed. In it, the player gets to place eight hatcheries and only sixty dinosaurs. The dinosaurs will be created and live out their lives on your island.
[edit] Third-party creation
Thanks to the PC version's modular file structure, the game is very easy to modify with nothing more than a regular text editor. It is possible to create almost completely new missions, exercises, dinosaurs and play options as well.
Thanks to this open ended design, a small community of fans have come together to work to improve realism, unlock unreleased features, and design new things to be included. A group of people have formed the Community Expansion Project (which closed down) and the Genesis Expansion Project, which takes previous modifications, and designs new ones for release in a patch for the overall community. The team's main aim is to recreate the dinosaurs to be as realistic possible, mainly expanding and creating new behavior. They have already released their first expansion pack, and are currently working on a follow up release. The expansion can be downloaded from the website, Modding Genesis.
The Modding Genesis team also release dinosaur texture packs, but as separate downloads from the GEP. They've currently released season themed packs, and are currently working on revising them, and releasing them combined to one download.
Another expansion, is the Film-Canon Mod, made by Jurassic Park Legacy. The "FCM" includes film-based dinosaur skins, music, sounds, and islands.
Some plans for future expansion include new dinosaurs, new buildings, and dinosaur breeding. However, the ability to create new content with a different model is not yet possible.
According to a less then reliable source, there are rumors of plans for a real expansion pack , although a petition with almost 900 signatures is supposed to be sent to Universal Interactive.
Some of the original content as showcased in the trailer, was removed from the final release for unknown reasons. The trailer shows a 'Dinovet Station' (whose functions were instead integrated into the ranger station), 'Kiosk' (whose functions were split into a 'Dinoburger' restaurant and a 'Souvenir Stall'), High security concrete walls (with no visitor view), cross paddock gates accessible by the Safari Cruiser (a feature that would have made it possible to create a similar experience to the vehicle tour in the first Jurassic Park film) , Carnivore Feeders with hunting platforms (the inability to hunt is a major stress to carnivorous dinosaurs in the game, it is likely that this would have resolved hunting urges without the need to produce dinosaur prey), advanced terraforming options and various ranger weapons.[1] None of these cut features can be enabled despite some of the files existing in the installed area of the game.
[edit] Reception
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Please help improve this article or section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (May 2008) |
The game got mainly positive reviews. Gamerankings, gave the game an average score of 73%. Gamespot gave the game an average score of 7.0 which is Good on the scale.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
[edit] External links
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