➤ Parkasaurus: the review 🎮

If you are old enough to have seen the first Jurassic Park in the cinema, the idea of a theme park dedicated to Dinosaurs will not leave you indifferent. Maybe not as dangerous as the one in Steven Spielberg's film, but a place where the nice creatures stay quiet in their enclosures, wearing funny hats if necessary to entertain visitors. The Parkasaurus review that you are reading tells you about a management software of this type, linked to the trend of zoo tycoon with the presence of dinosaurs, but without taking themselves too seriously. The guys from WashBear Studio, name behind which there are only two members who, with the help of Early Access, managed to realize their project, now available in its full version on Steam. It was precisely the interest aroused by Parkasaurus on the Valve platform that made us curious to try it, starting to build parks where we can build a fortune thanks to our dinosaur friends. Do you want to know how it went? Read on!

Mode: dinosaurs from space

For a game like Parkasaurus, the main danger is that of putting too much meat on the fire for the player, leaving him confused among the many things to keep an eye on in the various management aspects. From this point of view, the work of WashBear Studio manages to put those who are in front of the monitor perfectly at ease from the very first bars of their tutorial, from which we are given the bases to address the two mode Parkasaurus main features: the campaign and the inevitable sandbox. The first calls us to complete a series of pre-defined scenarios, with the aim of helping dinosaur friends from outer space. The various levels are differentiated above all by the landscape on which we operate, as in the case of Toronto where we have to find a way to build our dinosaur park in the limited space offered by the canals of the city. Then there is the mission where we must instead build a house to some creatures kept segregated, and so on, going from time to time to meet the objectives of the level we are playing.

Once you have completed all this, you can choose to give free rein to your imagination by launching yourself in the sandbox mode, where you can build a park from scratch without having to chase particular objectives. At the beginning of the game you can customize the experience by changing some parameters, and then throw yourself headlong into the construction of the park. Considering the presence of the two modes, Parkasaurus can enjoy an excellent longevity, especially if you are passionate about the genre. Seeing the park at work and the dinosaurs moving around in their enclosures is indeed a real pleasure. The only drawback, as we are about to see, is represented by a not exactly high difficulty.

Gameplay: Watch out for poop!

Il gameplay Parkasaurus binds to that of Theme Park and descendants, while still offering some interesting insights from the standard. The first thing we need to do to give our dinosaurs a home is to build an enclosure intended to house them, bearing in mind that each species requires its own habitat. By playing with the leveling of the ground and the presence of rocks and vegetation within the space, it is thus possible to create a biome that meets the needs of the host. Secondly, we must guarantee food, going to see if it is a herbivorous or carnivorous dinosaur. At this point the park staff comes to our aid, to be precise the vets who take care of the creatures present there. In addition to the need to feed the dinosaurs, it can in fact happen that they get sick, resulting infectious towards others if not treated in time. The cause of the pathology can be identified by the color of their excrement, on the basis of which to administer specific therapy. To avoid relapses, however, the signal received should not be underestimated: it could for example be that the amount of food is not adequate, or the fence is not large enough, or the dinosaur could suffer from a lack of privacy. In fact, all of the creatures require a portion of tall grass, or in any case a shelter where they can sleep and take refuge from the sight of visitors.

The rest of the staff that we can hire in the park includes housekeepers, security officers and scientists. The first keep everything clean and repaired, the second avoid collateral damage inflicted by possible offenders, while the third give us the opportunity to accumulate science points, which can be spent in the appropriate research branch to unlock additional elements to populate the park. The other currencies present in Parkasaurus are the inevitable money and hearts, which we can accumulate by making our dinosaurs happy. Hearts can be spent on another branch to provide trinkets for dinosaurs, while the combined use of the three elements allows us to purchase new eggs to populate the park with. To do this, you must also go through an excavation minigame, in which you need to find footprints and fossils.

In terms of depth, in short, there is everything, and Parkasaurus cleverly manages to put it in front of us without making us lose ourselves in the management aspects of the park. The only complaint that we feel we have to make the effort of WashBear Studio is the absence of a certain level of difficulties, which thanks to a good level of clarity and cleanliness could have been dared. Once you have passed the slower start-up phase of the park, you will hardly find yourself in difficulty, especially from an economic point of view: while money and hearts will struggle to arrive at the beginning, the science points will be many from the beginning. Thanks to the bank present in the game, however, it is also possible to turn them into money, thus always remaining with a good amount of grain in the pockets without risking having to close. The choice to give players a relaxed experience is probably part of the Parkasaurus design, but the ability to select even a more challenging level of challenge would certainly not have hurt.

The graphics: cute and cuddly

As we said in the introduction, Parkasaurus is a game that doesn't want to take its topic too seriously. It demonstrates this from the first glance with one graphics bright colors, accompanied by a deliberately low and "playful" number of polygons. The result is a more than pleasant design, comforted by the attention to detail linked to the elements with which we can decorate the park. Dinosaurs are obviously not excluded from this design choice, so although they are perfectly recognizable by their species, they offer particular colors, which however fit well into the general context. As well as the possibility of making him wear special hats, with which to improve some statistics and give everything an extra touch of playfulness.

While also the level of the animations proves to be more than good, the only flaw in the technical field is represented by the management of the polygons, which sometimes tend to interpenetrate. Those who want to see their work "from below" can also enjoy a first-person mode, thanks to which they can descend into the paths of the park to visit them with a subjective view. In this mode we can also use a rifle to eventually go to sedate the dinosaurs that need to be immobilized.

The sound performs its task without particularity, for better or for worse. While playing Parkasaurus we hear a background noise in our headphones due to the presence of visitors, who from time to time let themselves go to a howl of amazement in a way similar to that in which dinosaurs make their sounds. The soundtrack fits perfectly into the atmosphere designed by WashBear Studio for the game, even if after a while you will practically not hear it anymore. Among the various languages available at the moment, theSpanish, but there is no need to despair: the translation is underway, and should arrive shortly.

PC System Requirements

Test Setup

Sistema operativo: Windows 10 - 64-Bit
CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3,20 GHz
RAM: 16 GB
Video card: NVIDIA GTX 970

Minimum requirements

Sistema operativo: Windows 7 SP1 (64-bit)
CPU: X64 Dual Core CPU, 2+ GHz
RAM: 4 GB
Video card: 1GB of RAM

Recommended Requirements

Sistema operativo: Windows 7 SP1 (64-bit)
CPU: X64 Quad Core CPU, 3+ GHz
RAM: 8 GB
Video card: 2GB of RAM

Comment

Digital Delivery Steam Price 20,99 € Resources4Gaming.com

7.8

Readers (3)

8.0

Your vote

With the Parkasaurus review we told you about a game that is undoubtedly fun and well designed, especially considering that the development team is made up of only two people. The work done by WashBear Studio is impeccable from many points of view, potentially giving hours and hours of fun to lovers of the tycoon and / or dinosaurs genre. A greater level of challenge would undoubtedly have given a greater boost in terms of appeal to the most experienced of management, but it is not certain that playing in a relaxed way can not be enjoyed.