First look: Jurassic Park: Project Genesis

Universal Interactive has released gameplay details on Jurassic Park: Project Genesis, its upcoming game that will allow players to design, build, and manage their own dinosaur theme park.

The primary gameplay mode in Jurassic Park: Project Genesis is very much in the vein of PC games like SimTheme Park and SimTheme Park --players are presented with a plot of land, or in this case a whole island, and challenged to turn it into a successful attraction. In more conventional amusement park games, this would require building of rides and hiring entertainers, but in Jurassic Park the attractions are living dinosaurs. Players will need to build dinosaur-proof enclosures before acquiring dinosaurs from the dino vet lab. Incidentally, the dino vet lab will also be the place to visit for players requiring mood-altering chemicals for dinosaurs that they'd like to be more aggressive, hungry, angry, or sleepy.

The game will feature no less than 25 different species of dinosaurs, and although the full list hadn't been released at the time of writing, a number of them are revealed in today's screenshot gallery. Of course, anyone who's seen the movie Jurassic Park will know that there are a number of dangers inherent in the running of a theme park where the main attractions are giant man-eaters, and this is where the game's second mode of play comes in.

With 12 different missions, the second gameplay mode will see players getting a lot closer to the action than the first--perhaps even a little closer than they would like. With objectives such as rescuing visitors and stopping dinosaur rampages, players will get to fly a park helicopter, wander around the park in first-person mode as a visitor, and even go after dinos with a tranquilizer gun as a park ranger.

Jurassic Park: Project Genesis is being developed by Blue Tongue and is scheduled for release later this year on the Xbox, PS2, and PC. We'll bring you more information on the game as it becomes available..