Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis (known colloquialy as 'JP:OG' or 'JPOG') is a video game for the PC, Xbox, and PlayStation 2 based on the novel and film series Jurassic Park. The main point of the game is to recreate Jurassic Park - building a 5 star theme park with dinosaurs, and turning John Hammond's dream into reality. In the park, the player builds paths, amenities for food and toilets, as well as enclosures and attractions. One must also keep the park safe and secure. For example, during a raptor breakout detected by a security camera, one raptor could run towards the visitors and be quickly taken down by a sentry turret (an automatic heavy machine gun), while the rest could be sedated by the ranger helicopter and moved back into their enclosures. The park can be populated with up to sixty dinosaurs representing twenty-five different species. The player can also add attractions similar to those seen in the film, such as the safari seen in the Jurassic Park film.

Gameplay

Creating Dinosaurs

In the game, in order to create a dinosaur, a significant percentage of the particular dinosaurs DNA is needed. Fifty percent is needed in order to create a dinosaur; the higher the percentage of DNA, the longer that dinosaur will live. The player needs to extract the DNA through fossils.

Fossil Hunting

Using a fossil hunting team to dig in one of the nine dig sites positioned around the world is the first way to obtain fossils for the DNA. In each park only 5 of the 9 sites can be chosen in the PC version, and only 3 sites can be chosen in the console version. Each dig site contains fossils from three certain dinosaurs. The chance of finding fossils in the site depends on the quality of the site. More dig teams can be purchased at a cost of $5,000 for the first team and an $10,000 for the second $20,000 for the third and $40,000 for the final team is added on for each additional team. After an elapsed length of time, the dig team will report their findings. When the teams are digging they occasionally will come across gold, silver and opals, which are solely for selling. This can help raise park funds if in debt. Additionally, fossils retrieved can be sold, and once the park has 100% of a dinosaur's genome, any more fossils of that dinosaur discovered are automatically sold by the team.

Fossil Market

The second way to get fossils is to purchase them in the fossil market. The market contains a range of fossils of varying qualities and prices. The fossil market updates every month. This is useful if the player cannot afford additional teams, but the highest quality DNA is expensive.

Amber

Sometimes, when either digging or buying in the market, the player will come across amber. Amber is very useful for a dig teams to uncover, especially if it is high quality. If amber is discovered, there are two things for which it can be used. Amber can either be sold, which is recommended if there are money trouble since it is deemed valuable. Secondly, the player can try to extract DNA from it. While extracting the amber can be a gamble because the DNA present is unknown, amber yields much more DNA than fossils. This gamble often pays off (and hence is the reason why amber is more expensive and also sells for a higher price than fossils).

Jurassic Park Management Team

In the gameplay, there is a management team that continuously sends the player mail about the issues and accomplishments that the park has made.

• John Hammond is the CEO of InGen and creator of Jurassic Park. He makes contact infrequently to report on the status and rating of your park.

• Peter Ludlow is the financial director of InGen. He rarely interferes with the daily running of the park. A player only gets mail from him if there are financial or security issues in the park, or if the park's finances are in debt.

• Dr. Alan Grant is a world-famous paleontologist who oversees all of the fossil-hunting teams. He sends mail to report about finds and the status of the fossil market.

• Dr. Henry Wu is Jurassic Park's head geneticist and the creator of InGen's cloning technology. He sends the player mail about fossil and amber extractions and research programs.

• Dr. Ellie Sattler is the Park's dinosaurs manager. She is an expert in dinosaur ecology and paleobotany. She monitors the park's dinosaur population, and she informs the player about the current status.

• Ray Arnold is the chief administrator and oversees all maintenance and day-to-day operations of the park. If something doesn't work, the player will be informed by him.

• Robert Muldoon is the park warden and in charge of all the park security systems and rangers. He also oversees operation of the balloon rides and safari tour.

• Jane Powers is the public relations manager, and will alert the player's attention to visitor and attraction problems. (She is the only member of the management team that's not from the movies or books.)

Dinosaurs

Operation Genesis features twenty-five species of dinosaurs, including thirteen of sixteen that appeared in at least one of the Jurassic Park films. Most of the dinosaurs, however, are based on their look and appearance in Jurassic Park III, even if they were in the previous films. Each species is ranked using a star rating (1-5) based on their popularity with the virtual visitors, as well as grouped into one of four major categories based on size, diet, and behavior:

Visitors

Like the dinosaurs, visitors are divided into four categories: Mainstream, Thrill Seekers, Fun Lovers and Dino Nerds.

• Mainstream, the general audience, are easy to please and simply want to see dinosaurs.
• Thrill Seekers like to see dinosaur violence and killing.
• Fun Lovers like to see herbivores playing.
• Dino Nerds want to see authenticity- they like dinosaurs from similar timezones and areas to be placed in the same enclosures, and they are also impressed when prehistoric trees are placed in the enclosures.

Visitors want to see dinosaurs, as well as find something to eat and drink in kiosks. Additionally, they need to use the toilet frequently, and rest in special Rest Areas. Visitors become frustrated when these luxuries are not around, and also get irritated during storms when there are no umbrellas available (the Weather Guard, a research item, can provide umbrellas). They rate the park security. The security rating drops when visitors see damaged buildings or loose carnivores (herbivores don't seem to frighten them, despite the fact that triceratops rampage and it is technically possible for many of the herbivores to kill a visitor). Dinosaur attacks on safari Land Cruisers cause a dramatic drop in the ratings. The security rating rises again when a Ranger Station is built.

Missions

The game has 10 missions the player can complete. There are about three or four general types of missions. They feature taking photographs of dinosaurs when the player has to try rack up a certain amount of points from the photographs. Points from photographs range, depending on the rarity of the dinosaur in the photo, the number of dinosaurs in the photos and the scenery in the background. Another mission is when the player has to either dart or kill a certain number of dangerous rampaging dinosaurs within a time limit in a helicopter using a rifle. The third type of mission is to guide a group of herbivorous dinosaurs into a certain area using a muster pulse, a blip of sound that can repel dinosaurs.
One mission that does not fall into any category is 'Rescue Hammond', where the player must drive in a Land Cruiser and get to the Ranger Station to collect the hunting rifle. Then the player must shoot a nearby Spinosaurus, and drive the Jeep to the visitor's center, where John Hammond is trapped. Then the player drives to the park entrance and wins.

Site B

After all the missions are completed, a Site B option unlocks on the title page which allows the player to build an island without any fences or any buildings for people. In it, the player gets to place several hatcheries and create dinosaurs of your choice (depending on which areas are selected.) The dinosaurs will be created and live out their lives running about the island.

Paleontological inaccuracies

• Velociraptor was only a few feet high.
• Dilophosaurus is shown being able to spit poison and has a frill. This trait was based on the Jurassic Park film. Its size in real life is much larger than depicted within the game. In fact, the information panel conflicts the animal, stating the length in real life, when the animal in the game was much smaller.
• Dryosaurus is majorly sized down, it could have grown up to four metres while the game depicts it as two.
• Camarasaurus, which was really 18 metres long, is only about 13 metres long in the game.
• Although classed as a "small herbivore", Gallimimus was really omnivorous.
• Homalocephale and Pachycephalosaurus are said to herd together, but in real life they lived in different locations.

Modding

Thanks to the PC version's modular file structure, the game is very easy to modify with nothing more than a regular text editor. It is possible to create almost completely new missions and exercises as well.

Thanks to this open ended design, a small community of fans have come together to work to improve realism, unlock unreleased features, and design new things to be included. A group of people have formed the Community Expansion Project (which recently closed down) and the Genesis Expansion Project, which takes previous modifications, and designs new ones for release in a patch for the overall community. Another expansion, is the Film-Canon Mod, made by Jurassic Park Legacy. The "FCM" includes film-based dinosaur skins, music, sounds, and islands. Some plans for future expansion include new dinosaurs, new buildings, and dinosaur breeding. However, the ability to create new content with a different model is not yet possible.
Some unreleased features were hunting platforms, vet depots, and various ranger weapons.

See also

• Jurassic Park video games
• Jurassic Park (film)

External links

• Blue Tongue Official Website
• Modding Community
• More Modders

Donate to Wikimedia