So i was a massive fan of JPOG and still played up to this year. When i first learned abou JPE i was mega excited and having played it now for 25 hours, and having 5 starred all the islands apart from Isla Sorna (Which i have not yet started) i wanted to give my thoughts on the game as it is right now...and im guessing a lot of this has already been talked about but its my first post so whatever...I do want to start by making it clear that i think this is a good game that COULD become a great game if they make some major changes and patches.
Initial Thoughts on the Dino List
So we start very positive. I like the variation in dinosaur species massvily. I was pleased to see some lesser known animals here like Polacanthus (Being a brit i like seeing our unique dinosaurs here) and Nodosaurus. I liked that the old cast where here (Although stegosaurus looks awful. The tail needs to be higher up and straighter like oddly is present on the other stegosaurs). The addition of some famus creatures like Diplodocus also made me smile. Theres a really great variation here. And SOME of the skins for these animals are stunning.
That being said the dino list is lacking in a few areas. More smaller dinosaurs would be nice (Homolocephale, Ornitholestes, Neovenator (From the isle of wright),) or some unusual dinosaurs (Saltosaurus; an armoured sauropod for example). Im hoping that future DLC/Patches will add some more unique and interesting species for us to see.
An angry point here however...You make us pay EXTRA for 5 special dinosaurs but to unlock them we have to increase division scores and such in gameplay? So...we are basically unlocking them twice? I thought this was a really sneeky thing to do.
Isla Matenceros and my First 5 Stars
Delving into the game from the very start i found Matenceros a good tutorial map, with a decent mix of dinosaurs and a a decent amount of room. 5 Starring it was not massivly difficult, especially when i had Ceratosaurus finally in the place. One thing that did initially annoy me was how the buildings that were pre-place totally wasted so much space, and i found i was able to shift them around to immediatly make more space for what i really want in this place...more dinosaur exhibits. Initially building variation was ok for guests (I'll come back to this). Two issues came up from Matenceros...firstly they allow you to name your creatures...as if you will become some how attached to them...however the dinosaurs die SO FLIPPIN MUCH! Why do these creatures have such terriably short life spans? Yes i know...to make us all use your genetic modification system...but even then they still don't last amazingly long. The other issue that came up that really annoyed was the terrain system...its awful. Why does each building need such a large amount of area round it? Why do flat terrain areas stop you building because of 'Terrain Constraint'. Why are the terraforming tools so unuseful? But apart from those two issues I mostly was happy with how things were. Missions made sense...it wan't too difficult to balance the factions and if they were annoyed the sabotage was not TOO bad.
Isla Mertua...or however you spell it
The moment i got to island number 2 the amount of things i liked started to decrease against the amount of negative points. The terrain system was still annoying here, and the lack of space was starting to bug me. Sure there were some new dinosaurs to play with, and i liked the missions still. It was nice to get a few new dinosaurs to boost the parks early score. However when the Sercurity mission asked me to get a Dilo and a Velci to fight...i felt my good will drain away a little. During the fight the Dilo did not use its venom spit even once...which...struck me as a little odd. And then from that moment on i couldn't stop seeing the copy-pasted animations. Why do herbivores socialise in small triangular groups? Why don't Ceratopsians rut? Why don't Dracorex rut? And more and more i thought to myself 'well JPOG had this...why doesn't this?' and more and more my only answer was 'Universal probably rushed them...it'll be fixed post...maybe' I still maintained that hope as i went along to island number 3...
Isla Tacano...and further annoyances
And once more i started the now beocming tedium of putting down identical boring looking white and black buildings...only this time i had so little cash that the game gave me ample time to investigate other issues. Straight off the bat i started getting annoyed with why this game is trying to make you run a shopping centre. Why do we need Fast Food place...a Resturant and a Bar...all for food and drink? Why can't we just have one food place, and the rating of the food/drink vary dependent on what you serve? They are basically all the same size anyway so its not like some are easier to place (thanks to the awful terrain system). Why do we need a Gift shop and a toy shop and a fossil shop? Why do we need a bowling alley and an arcade? Are you telling me that guests coming to a dinosaur island are that dis-interested with the dinosaurs they would choose to spend their time...in an arcade?
And so i trudged on...new dinosaurs...yay...only by now i was sat there watching these things and wondering why all these creatures feel like damn robots. So many compied animations. Also...why don't hadrosaurs (That could rear up on hind legs) eat from tall feeders? More tedium as i waited for money to come in...and atlast i could breed 1 Parasaurolophus...and it looked beautiful...and then it went mad...because to keep it happy you have to have like 4 or 5...and i was left wondering why you can't see a dinosaurs social requirement BEFORE you clone it? Why can't you see what the skin looks like BEFORE you clone it. The game certainly needs some quality of life improvements now too...
My park expanded...and i got my Rex...and all was good...and THEN the real bull**** started. 'Oh i see you have ignored sercuity for a while...im gunna lock every gate OPEN now'...
For the next 45 minuites i suffered this procedure 5 times...they didn't vary the attack. Nopes just the same thing over and over. Sometimes even when i was doing missions FOR THEM! (Incidentally why is it that the Science department hates you finding fossils when the sercurity division asks for it? That seems so damn stupid) Each time the gates were locked open the same things would happen...carnivores would go into herbivores paddocks and massacre EVERY SINGLE LAST ONE acting like nothing but COD players in deathmatch. And when certain dinosaurs (Like Maisara and Parasaulophus need 5 or so dinosaurs to be happy..). By the time everything was back under control and i was starting to recover they would attack again. It became SO tediuous that once it was 5 starred i left the island and that was that...but if i thought this was tedious i was in for a big shock...
Isla 'Arbitrary Difficulty' AKA Pena
Where do i start with this waste of space? So dull i never bothered to screen shot it? Firstly the size limitation is rediculous...however it would be managable if it wasn't for the missions. (more on that later). Again...building the same tediuos white and black buildings...the same boring dull parks with no variability. But hey NEW DINOSAURS! is all the map seemed to scream at me. So i grinded onwards...finding Pena's lack of space and the Terrain system conspiraing against me...and then the missions came in. The science mission was immediate annoyance as id filled the sountern most tip with a T-rex, a mixed small herbivore place and the preset concreate paddock (which incidenatlly i managed to make twice as large by actually placiung fencing correctly up to the border Frontier!) with a split in half mix of Dracorex and ceratosaurus. However the Science mission required atleast two if not three new paddocks for three species. So i plodded opn, using up the only other are aof land large enough to make paddocks. And THEN the chasmosaurs became a problem...i could only incubate 2 at a time...and was having to tranq and helicopter them once done to a new paddock (Why are Incubation buildings SO MASSIVE!). Only Chasmosaurs are basically the PMSing Ceratopsians who unlike Triceratops or Torosaurus or Styracosaurus like to basically smash everything up if they are unhappy. Numerous time i had to counter this.
Again the sercurity division attacked me by opening my gates however i stopped this being an issue by emplacing fences around gates. True i had to remove a small strip of fence to call in rangers...but calling in ranger sis such a annoyance and fuss that it didnt make it worse. No...what made Pena worse was the STUPIDITY of the Entertainment and the Sercurity missions. Both ask you to make a Trex...with different features...i had room for only 1 at a time. Another issue was that when i failed the entertainment mission (as rexy escaped) and wanted to re-do it THE GUY FORCED ME TO MAKE ANOTHER REX! Even though the last one was still alive! So for two missions i had to make 3 REX'S! In the end i had to keep selling off dinosaurs to make the room...which felt rubbish. (Why can we not send dinosaurs to other islands for use when we go back?)
But where things properly broke for me was when i suffered my first Tornado. These massive weather systems were terriable in JPOG. They killed guests, dinosaurs, wrecked up the place...they were hateful. And yet the Tornados here? Well they barely break anything really. They do a lil damage but nothing terriable. They don't kill guests or dinosaurs. So...whats the point having them about as opposed to storms like we had on Meurta?
Generalised Thoughts - Dinosaurs
Why do some dinosaur skins look really amazing and detailed...
While some like the Velociraptor skins look really dull as dishwater. Where are the colours and the patterns that other species have?
- Why do dinosaurs not have unique animation sets? I really hope this will be fixed in post launch
- Why do Raptors 'break fences' and not climb them. Could a small dino really break down a heavy steel fence that easily?
- Some dinosaurs are chores to have...and because the dinosaurs don't feel unique theres no reason to bother with them (Maisara, Parasaurlophus,. Chasmosaurs, Brachiosaurs and Camarasaurus spring to mind immediatly) I get the idea is to make them difficult to look after but if you combine that with a terrain system that doesn't work, a needs system that is radius based rather than paddock based and the fact that the dinosaurs feel like robots...and die so fast...why bother?
- Why do carnivores have such terriable social skills? For large dinosaurs it makes sense but for smaller ones they seem to have a very limited social bar...so you end up with mostly empty paddocks wasting the limited space.
- Why don't herbivores socialise? Why don't dinosaurs sleep or lay down (like we saw in trailer footage). Why don't dinosaurs gain food from grazing on grass or trees? All this would make these things feel actually alive and not...robots.
General Thoughts - Vistors and Park Building
- Why do all the buildings in this game look so dull and boring? Just a see of white and black and grey. Wheres the colours? Couldn't we atleast alter the colour of buildings ourselves?
- Why do we have to have a research building on every island...but we can use research buildings on other islands during research? Why can't we access those buildings whenever?
- Why do the hotels not serve food or drink? Practically every hotel does these days. Given how large it is and difficult to place...can't it do that too? Why do we have to surround it with 3 or 4 other buildings to keep guests feed and watered?
- Why do we need so many buildings that do the same thing only a lil better or worse? Why not have a single food and a single gift and a single enterainment building. We are playing a DINOSAUR ZOO game...not a build your own shopping centre game.
- Why do the guests feel so arbitrary with terriable behaviour? Why do they run INTO dinosaur enclosures? Why don't we have people coming who wanna see more carnivores or more herbivores?
- Why are there so few ways to show off your dinosaurs? A viewing gallery or a tower...or the Gyrosphere (to replace the safari basically). The monorail i dont count as a attraction whatever people say. Why not a balloon tour or a viewing dome or a safari jeep thing...or if you wanna jurassic world this why not a river cruise system?
- Why no decorative items? I don't know any zoo builder like game that doesn't have stuff like this.
General Thoughts - The Mission, Plot and Characters
- Why the hell is Owen Grady on the sercurity side? Why would he be on their side after everything he sees in Jurassic World? This makes zero sense.
- Clare is such a forgettable character...and her self-gratificating attitude in this game (and the films) comes across as really hateful. She should be in jail for even thinking Indo-Rex was a good idea...not stating 'if i had it my way everyone could see these dinosaurs'...leaving out the 'but we have to make a fortune somewhere right?! wooo!'
- Science lady i actually really like. I like that she is about these creatures behaviour and making them healthy and happy. Shame she has so little input with Wu...i would have liked to see more interactions between them both of the Ethics of what they are doing (Consideirng that has always been part of the franchise)
- Doctor Wu...really like. He comes accross as this semi-meglomaniac and makes a really great to hate bad guy...if we can call him that. Where is the plot? You give us dedicated islands in a campaign but...not much plot?
- Entertainment guy...eh...forgettable.
- Ian Malcoms inclusion...again...i like it. I found myself quoting hammond many times 'i really hate that man'. But he was good as a neutral outsider.
- Why are some missions not really suited to work with each other...especially when basically to get everything from this game you have to level up all the divisions anyway? Rewards should be generic and you should be able to choose which division you purely want to specialise in. And this should feed into the wider plot/story...again...like much of this game it lacks depth.
General Thoughts - Misc
- Why can't we KILL rampaging dinosaurs?
- Why can't we install a kill gene (Like the Lysene Contingency?)
- Once the FK DLC drops i will have 48 dinosaur species to choose from...but hardly any land to put them on. There is a serious lack of replayability here. Once you have 5 starred everything...what then?
- Why can you not tranq dinosaurs from the Jeeps?
- Why cant you take photos from the choppers?
- Why 5 skins for jeeps but only 1 (2 if you pre-paid) for the choppers?
- Why are two of the jeep skins basically just a jeep in red and a jeep in blue. Why not the JP safari jeep? Why not give us a choice in jeep colour?
- Why do carnivores that we know were probably fish eaters mostly (Spinosaurus, Suchomimus and probably Baraonyx when we get it) not have a fish feeding option or deeper water options?
- Since this game wants to make JW and JW FK look great why can't we skin our raptors to blue charlie delta etc?
- Why do we not have Aquatic Reptiles or flyring reptiles? (Im assuming this may have been a time issue)
- Why do we not have the ability to build paths ABOVE or BELOW ground?
- Why do we have to put horrid looking pylons everywhere?
- Why do carnivores not damage or pose a threat to your ranger jeeps BUT try to attack them anyway (This makes it look like there are some unfinished animations/gameplay here...was this attacking animation a left over or a WIP of them posing danger to your rangers?)
An Overall Opinion So Far
Is this a good game? Yes. Is it a good zoo game? No. Is it better than JPOG? No. Could it that good or better? YES...easily.
JPE suffers what a lot of games suffer these days...and thats a lack of depth. This was 50 quid pre-ordered in the duluxe edition. A fairly high price tag. But i trusted the developer as i really enjoyed Planet Coster. JPE however suffers a terriable lack of depth and interest. Islands feel samey, too small and lack really unique things (Like story or plot). Much of the games 'difficulty' is brought about by its flawed systems (Terrain issues, dinosaur needs, lack of space etc). Theres a lack of immersion (Robotic dinosaurs, robotic guests) which also doesn't help. Much of your gameplay is spent either handling the annoying issues (Constant feeder filling, Disease or Dead dinosaurs) or grinding reptitive contracts to get divisions individually high enough for dinosaurs.
Whats dissappointing is that i can see the potential in this game. It has tonnes of it...but whether or not it achieves that potential is unknown. At the moment we all seem to be trusting Frontier will make this game better and support it BUT we don't have that gaurentee do we? And if they don't fix some of the common complaints (Terrain issues, AI issues, Space and Game Replayability) then what do we have? The question really here is why buy JPE when you can play JPOG which is deeper, more immersive, cheaper and at the end of the day doesn't include so much heavy grinding gameplay?
Please Frontier...make JPE the game it should be.
But these are all just my thoughts. I welcome responses and discussion on the points ive raised here.
Initial Thoughts on the Dino List
So we start very positive. I like the variation in dinosaur species massvily. I was pleased to see some lesser known animals here like Polacanthus (Being a brit i like seeing our unique dinosaurs here) and Nodosaurus. I liked that the old cast where here (Although stegosaurus looks awful. The tail needs to be higher up and straighter like oddly is present on the other stegosaurs). The addition of some famus creatures like Diplodocus also made me smile. Theres a really great variation here. And SOME of the skins for these animals are stunning.
That being said the dino list is lacking in a few areas. More smaller dinosaurs would be nice (Homolocephale, Ornitholestes, Neovenator (From the isle of wright),) or some unusual dinosaurs (Saltosaurus; an armoured sauropod for example). Im hoping that future DLC/Patches will add some more unique and interesting species for us to see.
An angry point here however...You make us pay EXTRA for 5 special dinosaurs but to unlock them we have to increase division scores and such in gameplay? So...we are basically unlocking them twice? I thought this was a really sneeky thing to do.
Isla Matenceros and my First 5 Stars
Delving into the game from the very start i found Matenceros a good tutorial map, with a decent mix of dinosaurs and a a decent amount of room. 5 Starring it was not massivly difficult, especially when i had Ceratosaurus finally in the place. One thing that did initially annoy me was how the buildings that were pre-place totally wasted so much space, and i found i was able to shift them around to immediatly make more space for what i really want in this place...more dinosaur exhibits. Initially building variation was ok for guests (I'll come back to this). Two issues came up from Matenceros...firstly they allow you to name your creatures...as if you will become some how attached to them...however the dinosaurs die SO FLIPPIN MUCH! Why do these creatures have such terriably short life spans? Yes i know...to make us all use your genetic modification system...but even then they still don't last amazingly long. The other issue that came up that really annoyed was the terrain system...its awful. Why does each building need such a large amount of area round it? Why do flat terrain areas stop you building because of 'Terrain Constraint'. Why are the terraforming tools so unuseful? But apart from those two issues I mostly was happy with how things were. Missions made sense...it wan't too difficult to balance the factions and if they were annoyed the sabotage was not TOO bad.
Isla Mertua...or however you spell it
The moment i got to island number 2 the amount of things i liked started to decrease against the amount of negative points. The terrain system was still annoying here, and the lack of space was starting to bug me. Sure there were some new dinosaurs to play with, and i liked the missions still. It was nice to get a few new dinosaurs to boost the parks early score. However when the Sercurity mission asked me to get a Dilo and a Velci to fight...i felt my good will drain away a little. During the fight the Dilo did not use its venom spit even once...which...struck me as a little odd. And then from that moment on i couldn't stop seeing the copy-pasted animations. Why do herbivores socialise in small triangular groups? Why don't Ceratopsians rut? Why don't Dracorex rut? And more and more i thought to myself 'well JPOG had this...why doesn't this?' and more and more my only answer was 'Universal probably rushed them...it'll be fixed post...maybe' I still maintained that hope as i went along to island number 3...
Isla Tacano...and further annoyances
And once more i started the now beocming tedium of putting down identical boring looking white and black buildings...only this time i had so little cash that the game gave me ample time to investigate other issues. Straight off the bat i started getting annoyed with why this game is trying to make you run a shopping centre. Why do we need Fast Food place...a Resturant and a Bar...all for food and drink? Why can't we just have one food place, and the rating of the food/drink vary dependent on what you serve? They are basically all the same size anyway so its not like some are easier to place (thanks to the awful terrain system). Why do we need a Gift shop and a toy shop and a fossil shop? Why do we need a bowling alley and an arcade? Are you telling me that guests coming to a dinosaur island are that dis-interested with the dinosaurs they would choose to spend their time...in an arcade?
And so i trudged on...new dinosaurs...yay...only by now i was sat there watching these things and wondering why all these creatures feel like damn robots. So many compied animations. Also...why don't hadrosaurs (That could rear up on hind legs) eat from tall feeders? More tedium as i waited for money to come in...and atlast i could breed 1 Parasaurolophus...and it looked beautiful...and then it went mad...because to keep it happy you have to have like 4 or 5...and i was left wondering why you can't see a dinosaurs social requirement BEFORE you clone it? Why can't you see what the skin looks like BEFORE you clone it. The game certainly needs some quality of life improvements now too...
My park expanded...and i got my Rex...and all was good...and THEN the real bull**** started. 'Oh i see you have ignored sercuity for a while...im gunna lock every gate OPEN now'...
For the next 45 minuites i suffered this procedure 5 times...they didn't vary the attack. Nopes just the same thing over and over. Sometimes even when i was doing missions FOR THEM! (Incidentally why is it that the Science department hates you finding fossils when the sercurity division asks for it? That seems so damn stupid) Each time the gates were locked open the same things would happen...carnivores would go into herbivores paddocks and massacre EVERY SINGLE LAST ONE acting like nothing but COD players in deathmatch. And when certain dinosaurs (Like Maisara and Parasaulophus need 5 or so dinosaurs to be happy..). By the time everything was back under control and i was starting to recover they would attack again. It became SO tediuous that once it was 5 starred i left the island and that was that...but if i thought this was tedious i was in for a big shock...
Isla 'Arbitrary Difficulty' AKA Pena
Where do i start with this waste of space? So dull i never bothered to screen shot it? Firstly the size limitation is rediculous...however it would be managable if it wasn't for the missions. (more on that later). Again...building the same tediuos white and black buildings...the same boring dull parks with no variability. But hey NEW DINOSAURS! is all the map seemed to scream at me. So i grinded onwards...finding Pena's lack of space and the Terrain system conspiraing against me...and then the missions came in. The science mission was immediate annoyance as id filled the sountern most tip with a T-rex, a mixed small herbivore place and the preset concreate paddock (which incidenatlly i managed to make twice as large by actually placiung fencing correctly up to the border Frontier!) with a split in half mix of Dracorex and ceratosaurus. However the Science mission required atleast two if not three new paddocks for three species. So i plodded opn, using up the only other are aof land large enough to make paddocks. And THEN the chasmosaurs became a problem...i could only incubate 2 at a time...and was having to tranq and helicopter them once done to a new paddock (Why are Incubation buildings SO MASSIVE!). Only Chasmosaurs are basically the PMSing Ceratopsians who unlike Triceratops or Torosaurus or Styracosaurus like to basically smash everything up if they are unhappy. Numerous time i had to counter this.
Again the sercurity division attacked me by opening my gates however i stopped this being an issue by emplacing fences around gates. True i had to remove a small strip of fence to call in rangers...but calling in ranger sis such a annoyance and fuss that it didnt make it worse. No...what made Pena worse was the STUPIDITY of the Entertainment and the Sercurity missions. Both ask you to make a Trex...with different features...i had room for only 1 at a time. Another issue was that when i failed the entertainment mission (as rexy escaped) and wanted to re-do it THE GUY FORCED ME TO MAKE ANOTHER REX! Even though the last one was still alive! So for two missions i had to make 3 REX'S! In the end i had to keep selling off dinosaurs to make the room...which felt rubbish. (Why can we not send dinosaurs to other islands for use when we go back?)
But where things properly broke for me was when i suffered my first Tornado. These massive weather systems were terriable in JPOG. They killed guests, dinosaurs, wrecked up the place...they were hateful. And yet the Tornados here? Well they barely break anything really. They do a lil damage but nothing terriable. They don't kill guests or dinosaurs. So...whats the point having them about as opposed to storms like we had on Meurta?
Generalised Thoughts - Dinosaurs
Why do some dinosaur skins look really amazing and detailed...
While some like the Velociraptor skins look really dull as dishwater. Where are the colours and the patterns that other species have?
- Why do dinosaurs not have unique animation sets? I really hope this will be fixed in post launch
- Why do Raptors 'break fences' and not climb them. Could a small dino really break down a heavy steel fence that easily?
- Some dinosaurs are chores to have...and because the dinosaurs don't feel unique theres no reason to bother with them (Maisara, Parasaurlophus,. Chasmosaurs, Brachiosaurs and Camarasaurus spring to mind immediatly) I get the idea is to make them difficult to look after but if you combine that with a terrain system that doesn't work, a needs system that is radius based rather than paddock based and the fact that the dinosaurs feel like robots...and die so fast...why bother?
- Why do carnivores have such terriable social skills? For large dinosaurs it makes sense but for smaller ones they seem to have a very limited social bar...so you end up with mostly empty paddocks wasting the limited space.
- Why don't herbivores socialise? Why don't dinosaurs sleep or lay down (like we saw in trailer footage). Why don't dinosaurs gain food from grazing on grass or trees? All this would make these things feel actually alive and not...robots.
General Thoughts - Vistors and Park Building
- Why do all the buildings in this game look so dull and boring? Just a see of white and black and grey. Wheres the colours? Couldn't we atleast alter the colour of buildings ourselves?
- Why do we have to have a research building on every island...but we can use research buildings on other islands during research? Why can't we access those buildings whenever?
- Why do the hotels not serve food or drink? Practically every hotel does these days. Given how large it is and difficult to place...can't it do that too? Why do we have to surround it with 3 or 4 other buildings to keep guests feed and watered?
- Why do we need so many buildings that do the same thing only a lil better or worse? Why not have a single food and a single gift and a single enterainment building. We are playing a DINOSAUR ZOO game...not a build your own shopping centre game.
- Why do the guests feel so arbitrary with terriable behaviour? Why do they run INTO dinosaur enclosures? Why don't we have people coming who wanna see more carnivores or more herbivores?
- Why are there so few ways to show off your dinosaurs? A viewing gallery or a tower...or the Gyrosphere (to replace the safari basically). The monorail i dont count as a attraction whatever people say. Why not a balloon tour or a viewing dome or a safari jeep thing...or if you wanna jurassic world this why not a river cruise system?
- Why no decorative items? I don't know any zoo builder like game that doesn't have stuff like this.
General Thoughts - The Mission, Plot and Characters
- Why the hell is Owen Grady on the sercurity side? Why would he be on their side after everything he sees in Jurassic World? This makes zero sense.
- Clare is such a forgettable character...and her self-gratificating attitude in this game (and the films) comes across as really hateful. She should be in jail for even thinking Indo-Rex was a good idea...not stating 'if i had it my way everyone could see these dinosaurs'...leaving out the 'but we have to make a fortune somewhere right?! wooo!'
- Science lady i actually really like. I like that she is about these creatures behaviour and making them healthy and happy. Shame she has so little input with Wu...i would have liked to see more interactions between them both of the Ethics of what they are doing (Consideirng that has always been part of the franchise)
- Doctor Wu...really like. He comes accross as this semi-meglomaniac and makes a really great to hate bad guy...if we can call him that. Where is the plot? You give us dedicated islands in a campaign but...not much plot?
- Entertainment guy...eh...forgettable.
- Ian Malcoms inclusion...again...i like it. I found myself quoting hammond many times 'i really hate that man'. But he was good as a neutral outsider.
- Why are some missions not really suited to work with each other...especially when basically to get everything from this game you have to level up all the divisions anyway? Rewards should be generic and you should be able to choose which division you purely want to specialise in. And this should feed into the wider plot/story...again...like much of this game it lacks depth.
General Thoughts - Misc
- Why can't we KILL rampaging dinosaurs?
- Why can't we install a kill gene (Like the Lysene Contingency?)
- Once the FK DLC drops i will have 48 dinosaur species to choose from...but hardly any land to put them on. There is a serious lack of replayability here. Once you have 5 starred everything...what then?
- Why can you not tranq dinosaurs from the Jeeps?
- Why cant you take photos from the choppers?
- Why 5 skins for jeeps but only 1 (2 if you pre-paid) for the choppers?
- Why are two of the jeep skins basically just a jeep in red and a jeep in blue. Why not the JP safari jeep? Why not give us a choice in jeep colour?
- Why do carnivores that we know were probably fish eaters mostly (Spinosaurus, Suchomimus and probably Baraonyx when we get it) not have a fish feeding option or deeper water options?
- Since this game wants to make JW and JW FK look great why can't we skin our raptors to blue charlie delta etc?
- Why do we not have Aquatic Reptiles or flyring reptiles? (Im assuming this may have been a time issue)
- Why do we not have the ability to build paths ABOVE or BELOW ground?
- Why do we have to put horrid looking pylons everywhere?
- Why do carnivores not damage or pose a threat to your ranger jeeps BUT try to attack them anyway (This makes it look like there are some unfinished animations/gameplay here...was this attacking animation a left over or a WIP of them posing danger to your rangers?)
An Overall Opinion So Far
Is this a good game? Yes. Is it a good zoo game? No. Is it better than JPOG? No. Could it that good or better? YES...easily.
JPE suffers what a lot of games suffer these days...and thats a lack of depth. This was 50 quid pre-ordered in the duluxe edition. A fairly high price tag. But i trusted the developer as i really enjoyed Planet Coster. JPE however suffers a terriable lack of depth and interest. Islands feel samey, too small and lack really unique things (Like story or plot). Much of the games 'difficulty' is brought about by its flawed systems (Terrain issues, dinosaur needs, lack of space etc). Theres a lack of immersion (Robotic dinosaurs, robotic guests) which also doesn't help. Much of your gameplay is spent either handling the annoying issues (Constant feeder filling, Disease or Dead dinosaurs) or grinding reptitive contracts to get divisions individually high enough for dinosaurs.
Whats dissappointing is that i can see the potential in this game. It has tonnes of it...but whether or not it achieves that potential is unknown. At the moment we all seem to be trusting Frontier will make this game better and support it BUT we don't have that gaurentee do we? And if they don't fix some of the common complaints (Terrain issues, AI issues, Space and Game Replayability) then what do we have? The question really here is why buy JPE when you can play JPOG which is deeper, more immersive, cheaper and at the end of the day doesn't include so much heavy grinding gameplay?
Please Frontier...make JPE the game it should be.
But these are all just my thoughts. I welcome responses and discussion on the points ive raised here.
