Having had time to obtain and play a copy of Operation Genesis while my laptop was out for repairs, I started to understand why some of the responses to the expansion were mixed.
Even though, there are aspects of Evolution that succeed where Genesis lacked for constraints (of the time that the game was released), I would say that the building diversity and functionality of Genesis was far more impressive than what we received in the Return to JP expansion.
While I now understand that the majority of the buildings in the game are actually spiritual successors to ones featured in Genesis, I feel like their exclusivity to the Jurassic World theme is unfounded and makes the Jurassic Park theme almost frustrating to revisit. Sure, only having the Land Rover tours is more of a challenge but, where is the line drawn between creative liberties/design choice and cut corners (though I would like the believe that the devs didn't intentionally leave JP mode lacking in some areas).
Sure the Land Rovers are cool but, we can't be expected to maintain a park on those alone. Until you realize that you're stuck with the equivalent to a model train set under an Xmas tree as an attraction for the first quarter of your 1993 challenge mode playthrough, you probably took the presence of the Viewing Platforms and the Observation Galleries for granted (I know I did).
If you really think about it, the fact that you need to risk scrapping an entire Safari track to add more sections every single time you want more dinosaurs is extremely inconvenient and time consuming (considering you have to shut down your main source of income in order to continue building your park).
Being directly influenced by OG is one thing but, actually seeing the designs of them in-game, Frontier could honestly, just replicate them as they appeared in OG with little to no change in their designs.
To be honest, when it comes to the OG Viewing Platform, I kind of like the idea of having 4 available viewing areas because it almost mirrors how the aviary had multiple camera feeds.
While I would like to see these features come to JP mode in a future update, the pessimist in me is sadly doubtful that we will get it since its not tacked to a priced DLC.
My thoughts on the lack of the core game mechanics in JP mode are somewhat split because part of me believes that we COULD have got viewing areas in the expansion but, didn't because they weren't worked on during the development window in favor of alot of the bells and whistles that padded out the expansion (all the alternate dinosaur skins, the useless East Dock sign, all those blueprints that were supposedly looked at to make the Visitor Center accurate) and thus we won't get the viewing areas. Basically, I'm speculating that the content in the expansion was a matter of quantity over quality.
HOWEVER, I'm not saying that no care went into the development of the expansion, far from that. I'm just saying that it seemed like the allocation of resources seemed a bit near sighted when compared to what we could have had in-game because they COULD have been working on the viewing areas but, they might have not been completed on time and (using modern game developer logic) won't come later if they can't be profited off of.
The other side of me believes that, we COULD still get the viewing areas for JP mode if they are worked on in conjunction with a new priced dinosaur pack to justify the cost of working on something we already paid for as a free DLC. There hasn't been a time that I didn't pay for more dinosaurs so far. So there is some hope that we could get viewing areas for JP mode.
One other aspect I wanted to touch on was how..."meh" the Sandbox starting areas were made for Jurassic World mode. I get there was an implied underlying story for why the Operation Center (the Security Center model) was used for starting area on Nublar North but, why is it just tacked onto all of the 1993 maps?
When it comes to Sorna 93, it looks like there was a very obvious place for the monorail station but, instead we get the Op Center just plopped off to the side with no real context for why we have to use this ugly cluster of blocks as our park entrance. If we were allowed to place the entrances freely around the park, I might be able to forgive it but, there isn't even a real explanation for how guests are coming out of it (no helipad or anything). With the Claire's Sanctuary expansion, it was implied that it was a covert operation for a recovery team (kind of like in Lost World) but, for just making park, it just doesn't look like any real thought went into it. But, for some reason, when playing Pena on JP mode, the docks are removed (so you can't even pretend that the East Dock sign could be used there).
It's also kind of odd that there isn't any actual functionality for the Raptor Pen outside of story mode. I thought maybe there would have been a difference between JP mode and JW mode where you could only incubate Velociraptors and Deinonychus from the Raptor Pen (which isn't the case). Its purely decoration outside of the story mode.
I mentioned this in another post already but, I think its pretty weird that the ability to airdrop in new dinosaurs is exclusive to the story mode. It seemed like something that would have been perfect for sandbox mode but, ultimately turned out to be a big missed opportunity to have the option between hatcheries and airdrops.
How does one let that slide? I mean...if they couldn't get the guests to walk up the stairs and just couldn't be bothered to program it in, that's one thing but, to just not allow any connection to the front door is just mind-boggling to me and the more I play the game, the more glaring and frustration it becomes to me (especially since they gave the Innovation Center like a dozen different entrances to connect).
To be honest, the expansion was okay but, having seen what we could have had coupled with what could have been executed differently, the expansion could have been better.
Even though, there are aspects of Evolution that succeed where Genesis lacked for constraints (of the time that the game was released), I would say that the building diversity and functionality of Genesis was far more impressive than what we received in the Return to JP expansion.
While I now understand that the majority of the buildings in the game are actually spiritual successors to ones featured in Genesis, I feel like their exclusivity to the Jurassic World theme is unfounded and makes the Jurassic Park theme almost frustrating to revisit. Sure, only having the Land Rover tours is more of a challenge but, where is the line drawn between creative liberties/design choice and cut corners (though I would like the believe that the devs didn't intentionally leave JP mode lacking in some areas).
The areas I'm referring to of course (as all of the OG community are probably well aware at this point) are the lack of the Viewing Platform and the Viewing Vent in Jurassic Park mode.
When it comes to JP mode, I don't know how the devs expected the replay value of the expansion to share that of the vanilla game with just the Land Rovers and the Aviary once the novelty/nostalgia for the story mode wore off.
Sure the Land Rovers are cool but, we can't be expected to maintain a park on those alone. Until you realize that you're stuck with the equivalent to a model train set under an Xmas tree as an attraction for the first quarter of your 1993 challenge mode playthrough, you probably took the presence of the Viewing Platforms and the Observation Galleries for granted (I know I did).
Prior to playing Genesis, I was under the impression that the JWE devs were just uncertain as to how to design the viewing buildings to make them fit into the 1993 theme but, I didn't know that the buildings in JWE were directly inspired by Operation Genesis.
Being directly influenced by OG is one thing but, actually seeing the designs of them in-game, Frontier could honestly, just replicate them as they appeared in OG with little to no change in their designs.
To be honest, when it comes to the OG Viewing Platform, I kind of like the idea of having 4 available viewing areas because it almost mirrors how the aviary had multiple camera feeds.
While I would like to see these features come to JP mode in a future update, the pessimist in me is sadly doubtful that we will get it since its not tacked to a priced DLC.
There's definitely some areas where you can see that some corners may have been cut though it could have simply been an oversight.
On the 1993 Sorna map, the mountains on the right half of the map (outside of the playable area) isn't textured.
There's also no pre-placed Redwoods on the map but, that's just a nitpick.
On the 1993 Sorna map, the mountains on the right half of the map (outside of the playable area) isn't textured.
There's also no pre-placed Redwoods on the map but, that's just a nitpick.
HOWEVER, I'm not saying that no care went into the development of the expansion, far from that. I'm just saying that it seemed like the allocation of resources seemed a bit near sighted when compared to what we could have had in-game because they COULD have been working on the viewing areas but, they might have not been completed on time and (using modern game developer logic) won't come later if they can't be profited off of.
The other side of me believes that, we COULD still get the viewing areas for JP mode if they are worked on in conjunction with a new priced dinosaur pack to justify the cost of working on something we already paid for as a free DLC. There hasn't been a time that I didn't pay for more dinosaurs so far. So there is some hope that we could get viewing areas for JP mode.
One other aspect I wanted to touch on was how..."meh" the Sandbox starting areas were made for Jurassic World mode. I get there was an implied underlying story for why the Operation Center (the Security Center model) was used for starting area on Nublar North but, why is it just tacked onto all of the 1993 maps?
It's also kind of odd that there isn't any actual functionality for the Raptor Pen outside of story mode. I thought maybe there would have been a difference between JP mode and JW mode where you could only incubate Velociraptors and Deinonychus from the Raptor Pen (which isn't the case). Its purely decoration outside of the story mode.
I mentioned this in another post already but, I think its pretty weird that the ability to airdrop in new dinosaurs is exclusive to the story mode. It seemed like something that would have been perfect for sandbox mode but, ultimately turned out to be a big missed opportunity to have the option between hatcheries and airdrops.
Additionally, the limit to one helipad also seemed off. A limit of two would have been nice but, not something I would lose sleep over.
I also thought it was odd that there's an option to change the paint job of the Rangers (despite there only being one available).
There IS an official design for a blue color swap of the Ranger but, I guess its another thing that either didn't cross anyone's minds or potentially could be part of a paid DLC.
Maybe something that could come as an addition for both JW and JP mode down the line.
I also don't see any reason for why we can't have all dinosaurs available for JP mode outside of sandbox mode. It takes away so much replay value from 1993 challenge mode (on top of the lack of viewing areas).I also thought it was odd that there's an option to change the paint job of the Rangers (despite there only being one available).
There IS an official design for a blue color swap of the Ranger but, I guess its another thing that either didn't cross anyone's minds or potentially could be part of a paid DLC.
Maybe something that could come as an addition for both JW and JP mode down the line.
One last thing that I won't go too in-depth about since I dedicated a whole topic to it, I really hate that the devs flexed how authentic they made the Visitor Center and yet they didn't make the front door functional.
To be honest, the expansion was okay but, having seen what we could have had coupled with what could have been executed differently, the expansion could have been better.
