The tropical air was hot and humid, a strong gust of wind whistled through the metal gutters and roared through the open windows of the factory like facility.
Isla Nublar is a primitive place. It is on this small island off the coast of Costa Rica, where visionary John Hammond's amusement park showcased genetically recreated dinosaurs, before it collapsed to chaos.
Most video games based on the Jurassic Park license tend to gravitate towards the horrors of man and dinosaur coexisting in the same time and space. But the building simulator Jurassic Park Builder by Ludia focuses on attempting to improve Mr. Hammond's dream.
The goal of the game is to build your version of the five-star theme park and fill the park with all of the dangerous prehistoric attractions that were seen in the film.
The game is free-to-play and requires gamers to either wait hours and days to make progress, or speed the development and evolution of your park by using micro transaction that can carry a pretty high price tag.
The game lets you connect with friends via Facebook and visit each others parks.There are 30 species of dinosaurs to discover and many in game cameos from the film series' cast of characters. The game really makes you wait to build and expand, with in the first 3 days I purchased in-game extras to speed up the process.
The Jurassic Park economy and how dinosaurs lay golden coins. There are two types of currency in the game: gold coins and dollar bills. Gold coins can build smaller structures and clear away small-patches of bushes that get in your way.
Dollar bills can clear away large areas for further construction or can be used to speed up the game's progress. They are earned by completing in game quest or by purchasing them with real money. The prices for these bundles of money range from $1.99 to $99.99.
The game becomes a wildly addictive experience as you slowly expand your very own version of Jurassic Park, but personally I'm not sure that I have actually had any fun while playing this game.
Building roads, holding pens, structure and restaurants are actually tedious activities. The tiny road pieces are so darn small that I had to delete sections over and over again.
I can figure out why I am enjoying this game. I just know that I want to continue expanding my version of the park. I still haven't found the DNA of my favorite dinosaur the Tyrannosaurus Rex, I find the in-game mission to be annoying, but I keep playing sporadically throughout the day, plus this is the first free-to-play game that I actually bought items for.
I give the game a 7/10, while it lacks the charm of the last building simulator I played, The Simpsons: Tapped Out, it is still addictive and keeps me playing.