GameCenter - May/June 2018 - 36

Dino DNA
While you'll of course be able to fill your
park with the usual dino suspects-T. rex,
Velociraptor, Stegosaurus, Triceratops-the
roster of species goes much further than
that. Here are some of the deeper cuts
you'll encounter in Evolution.

Metriacanthosaurus
Paleontologists have only found fossils from
a single Metriacnathosaurus, and even then
just a portion of its hips, legs and backbone.
That left plenty of room for artistic license
in the Jurassic World version, like with those
protrusions on its head.

Kentrosaurus
Most of the dinosaurs you see in Jurassic
Park and World actually lived during the
Cretaceous, but these stegosaurians are
actually repping the Jurassic. Swatting away
predators with a spiked tail is cool and all, but
ensuring the game's title is accurate? That's
truly something.

Edmontosaurus
Some of the largest hadrosaurids, these herbivores were among the last dinosaur species
around at the end of the Cretaceous, when a
meteor hit and kicked off a mass extinction.

Chasmosaurus
Though it may look a bit like Triceratops,
Chasmosaurus lived much earlier and differed in some key respects. Notably, its head
frill wasn't solid bone. It was mostly hollow,
so it wouldn't have been much use in a fight.

Pachycephalosaurus
No, this dino isn't going bald. That's a
10-inch-thick dome of bone on top of its
skull. Some scientists think pachycephalosaurs butted heads with one another, like
deer do with their antlers today.

As you work through the story, you'll need to
decide which contracts and missions you want
to prioritize. Should you focus on just one area,
or attempt to balance all three? "Choosing one
path is certainly possible and a perfectly acceptable path to the end of the game, but remember that in Jurassic World, Isla Nublar is a tourist
destination, scientific research facility and
security outpost all at the same time," Brookes
explained. "It can pay to do a little of everything.
We like games where choices have meaning
and consequences, and where following one
route might make other paths harder."

Jurassic World
Evolution will also
challenge you with
a wide variety of
crisis situations.

No matter what trade-offs you make, you
can be sure it won't always be smooth sailing. True to the spirit of the movies, Jurassic
World Evolution will also challenge you with a
wide variety of crisis situations. "A theft from
your facility is a small emergency, but if that
theft knocks out the power and one of your
dinosaurs notices their enclosure is no longer
electrified, that small emergency can become
a huge calamity," Brookes said. "Equally, huge
disasters can emerge suddenly thanks to
power outages or huge storms."
It's in this scenario, this idea of desperately
trying to salvage your dinosaur park while
everything threatens to come apart at the
seams, where Evolution sounds most promising. Plenty of simulation games let you build
amazing parks and live out a story that feels
like your very own. What Frontier has a chance
to deliver, however, is a game where each
of those emergent adventures feels packed
with enough drama to be worthy of its own
summer blockbuster. That's no small task, but
here's hoping Jurassic World Evolution, uh,
finds a way.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of GameCenter - May/June 2018