At the time of writing this E3 is in full swing and I'm pretty sure this has flown well under the radar. I've put a few good few hours into it, unlocked four island. It's fun busy work, there isn't really that much strategy, but there is a little more than is really ever explained by the game. Your never really punished financially or crippled into failure, in fact I'm not entirely sure how you would achieve an abject 'game over'. Each island presents variations on scenarios, but the basic impetus is the same, run a successful park, build all the buildings, increase your over all level of quality, unlock new dinos and upgrades.

What is interesting, and at times a little frustrating, is you are required to run ALL the parks at the same time, as unlocking the various upgrades involves building more research centers, of which you can only build one per island, so you constantly darting between bases, fulfilling missions to raise your level in the three disciplines of success, science, entertainment and security.

One thing that stuck me, is the the constant waiting around for timers (not unknown in management games) that got me wondering was this ever planned for mobile with monetization hooks (there is some DLC at present), even the UI seems quite touch friendly and interaction is never really that frantic to require a mouse and keyboard. Overall its a good looking game, that is a pretty inoffensive time sink.

Anyone else playing this?

This is out?!

@sarnecki: My reaction exactly.

Sounds like it might be a little brutal with its difficulty; which maybe that's what sim fans want?

I don't think it's particularly difficult, (this coming from someone who becomes financially unstuck pretty regularly in management games) but it is time consuming, and possibly little more gated in it progress system than it needs to be. It's quite fun, building your park and solving the mission criteria is entertaining if you like this type of genre, it's got lots of codex about dinosaurs, the environment and the films, so it fairly robust for fans of Jurassic Park.

People are enjoying it, but there's also plenty they could improve, if all the 'reviews' I've seen mean anything.

I was so looking forward to playing this, really hyped ever since the announcement trailer a year and a half ago...after putting 20 hours in, it's lost all steam and I'm completely deflated.

I absolutely despise the contract/mission system in the game, and its the only way to unlock research and more dinosaurs. Its a complete chore and doesn't make any god damn sense. Why does doing a contract for Entertainment involving discovering a new dinosaur PISS OFF SCIENCE. And then doing a contract for Science involving discovering a new dinosaur PISS OFF ENTERTAINMENT.

And then if you piss off the division heads enough they fucking poison your dinosaurs or open the gates and get your innocent guests killed.

THESE ARE PEOPLE EMPLOYED BY YOU

The dinosaurs are beautiful and their animations are stellar, but it quickly gets old and you never really have time to appreciate them because there is so many tedious things to take care of. I'd love to watch my sauropods walk around but I have to refill every feeder on the island...Also, the AI of the dinosaurs is super basic and this is such a let down because the AI in Operation Genesis was leagues better and that came out in 2003.

Herbivores don't herd, they just mill about and occassionally gather around for a cult meeting and then disperse. Carnivores are mindless killing machines that will kill anything that moves even if they aren't hungry.

This makes creating a Site B or mixed enclosure impossible, I loved making ecosystems in Operation Genesis and just observing my dinosaurs being dinosaurs. Actually impossible in Evolution. Everything has to be connected to a path and the power grid so having a dinosaur nature preserve is a huge pain in the ass.

There are so many bad design decisions that I could go on and on, but its my own damn fault for expecting much more then I was going to get.

It's a 6/10 in its current state at best. Wait for a sale or for Frontier to make this a good game in a year

Holy shit. This can happen? I've slogged through about 20 hours so far, too, and haven't seen this. I'm already close to setting the game down, but I'm pretty certain this would be a nail in the coffin for me.

Big thing I come away feeling: Evolution is a game of very obvious potential, clearly made by a very talented team, seemingly made to hit a very specific deadline to run parallel to the release of the film. There are just too many mechanical oversights and design limitations here.

There are too many long processes you can't cancel after initiating--incubating a dinosaur, for instance, which costs lots of money and a great deal of time, is something you can't undo. Even if selected accidentally (which I've totally done--the menus are not super responsive or manageable). So, if you accidentally breed a Velociraptor in a hatchery when you meant to click on a Brachiosaur--you HAVE to let it incubate. Even worse, you HAVE to let it out. You can't just sell it off from inside the hatchery, which means you're giving your accidental predator the opportunity to run wild in a paddock it shouldn't be in. PLUS, the helicopter team--the only team that can tranquilize dinosaurs, for some reason (the jeep-based Rangers cannot, again, for whatever reason)--is just terrible. They're just terrible at hitting targets with tranq rounds. I've watched the helicopter team circle a stationary Triceratops for minutes, just whiffing tranq dart after tranq dart. Manually shooting isn't much better, because the game wants you to spend money on researching an "accuracy upgrade," so, by default, the darts often veer to the right and left of the target reticle.

Also, the arbitrarily limited build space on each island--including Isla Nublar, the supposed "sandbox"--puts a significant lid on what you can accomplish in a given park. Thank god you have five islands at your disposal, because you're never going to build all you might want to on just one.

I have a ton of problems with Evolution. It's very obvious to me that this game can be extremely cool. It just isn't at the moment.

It's a shame. As a fan of Operation Genesis, I way into this since it's announcement, bought it the day before release, and then cancelled after seeing people's impressions.

Game like this has so much potential but yea they had to squeeze it in for the movie release I'm sure. Maybe a sequel or expansion will fix it. I'll wait for a sale on this one.