REVIEW : Jurassic World Evolution 2: Late Cretaceous Pack (PC)
With the Jurassic World Evolution 2: Late Cretaceous Pack, you may showcase four breathtaking new ancient animals in your parks. This pack has four unique animals from the fascinating Late Cretaceous period that inhabited the land, sea, and air over 65 million years ago, from flying, stealthy sky predators to one of the largest dinosaurs ever found.
This pack features:
- Flying hunter Barbaridactylus lived near the end of the Late Cretaceous period. Barbaridactylus, with its spectacular head crest, will lend a special touch to your park. The Barbary Coast of North Africa, where this species was found, is where it gets its name.
- One of the biggest dinosaurs ever found, Alamosaurus was an armoured giant with shinbones taller than an adult human. Alamosaurus, a gigantic herbivore that has huge spines running down its shoulders, back, and tail, poses a significant threat to possible predators.
- Fast and agile medium-sized carnivores called Australovenator once roamed Australia 95 million years ago. Australovenator had a light frame, razor-sharp teeth, and flexible limbs for gripping, making it ideal for stalking and chasing down prey.
- The dominant marine species during the Late Cretaceous period was Stegosaurus. Styxosaurus was one of the most effective predators of its time thanks to its streamlined design and large fins, which provide lethal underwater swiftness. Try altering the DNA of the organism with various bioluminescent pattern colours.
Our Thoughts
So, you might recall that I gave the Early Cretaceous pack that came out last year a bit of grilling for not even attempting to include new dinosaurs that were particularly popular (unless you count the Wuerhosaurus arguably), but I did praise the Kronosaurus and Dsungaripterus as a good marine reptile and pterosaur pick respectively.
Looking at the choices of new species in this pack, they are much better chosen overall. Australovenator adds the first megaraptorid to the game, introducing a whole new theropod group with potential for expansion and improvement. Alamosaurus is probably a bit iffy for some people. Some might ask why they didn’t do Argentinosaurus instead. However, I think the Alamosaurus is well chosen for being the only known sauropod thus far from late Cretaceous North America and is a similar size compared to its relative Argentinosaurus. Overall, I like it okay. The Barbaridactylus is an interesting pterosaur choice. I think the reason it was chosen was due to its recent popularity from the Apple TV+ series, Prehistoric Planet, and I think you could make an argument that maybe Nyctosaurus as the namesake and flagship member of the family would’ve been a better choice, but overall it’s okay in my book. Plus, it gives more utility to dig sites from Africa, which is one of the still under utilized continents in the game as far as creature variety, though it’s getting better slowly. The Styxosaurus I don’t have a lot of strong opinions about it. It’s a perfectly fine Cretaceous plesiosaur to include, but I think the marine reptile roster in the game has a bit of an overabundance of plesiosaur and pliosaur species right now. We need more variety from other marine reptile groups. There’s the Nothosaurus from Camp Cretaceous which needs to be implemented. Plus, there’s a variety of smaller mosasaurs, smaller pliosaurs (Leptocleidus, Trinacromerum, Umoonasaurus, etc.), bigger ichthyosaurs, marine crocodylomorphs, placodonts, nothosaurs, plesiosaurs, giant marine turtles, and other marine reptiles that all deserve a chance at inclusion. Suffice it to say, I think the next creature DLC like this needs to reach for a more ambitious or unique marine reptile pick. We have enough plesiosaurs and larger pliosaurs right now.
Anyway, I certainly recommend this DLC more highly than the Early Cretaceous pack and I hope that these period creature packs maybe get a little more creative or unique with their species picks from here on out. But, overall, this one is better than its predecessor and I recommend getting it. Also, I do agree that maybe the number of creatures in these packs needs to be upped to 5 or 6 species instead of just 4, even if it means each pack costs like $10 or something like that because I think many will agree 4 species just feels like a bit too little, especially if these DLCs are spaced roughly 3 months apart like Planet zoos are. Planet Zoo does 5 to 8 new species per DLC, so I think JWE2 could stand to step it up to a similar level of effort. Just saying. Also, I want to make it clear that this does not let Frontier off the hook for the missing Dominion species. I expect them to make sure those are implemented by the end of this year at the latest. I still for the life of me don’t know why they didn’t just put them in back in June, but they better do it sooner rather than later because people are starting to get a little suspicious of what’s going on. To be clear, my positive rating reflects how I gauge the DLC’s worth and my opinion of it, not because I care what Frontier or anyone else thinks about my opinion. Just want to get that out there so there’s no misunderstanding.
REVIEW : Gunslingers & Zombies (PC)
