Editorial 11/06/2015- ARK: Survival Evolved and Saurian

Sorry about the long time between postings. I've had a bit of a stressful weekend and got myself into a bit of a creative block. I was still able to prepare for Mothers' Day successfully, but the new ideas I have been getting aren't quite as finalized. For all I know, I just haven't been eating properly.

Luckily, there's been enough creative development elsewhere to keep me from going insane (although the fact I'm saying that probably means that I've already gone off the deep end.) For instance, a little post by IGN about open-world dinosaur survival games really piqued my interest. I followed the link and, wouldn't you know it, up came one of the most ambitious trailers I've ever seen for dinosaur-media. Will it pay off? Will it change the way we look at dinosaurs? How will it hold up compared to other open-world dinosaur games? Let's take a look and see. 

This is not to be confused in any way with "HALO: Combat Evolved," regardless of the title. According to the official synopsis, players start the game on the shores of a wild island without any resources, weapons, or knowledge of what they're doing here. The twist is that this island is lost in time in a way, covered with prehistoric and mythical creatures from across the globe and time. They can hunt and kill, or tame and ride just about every creature there and use them to explore the massive environment. The goal is to help your group survive against the dinosaurs and other humans to develop a society, learn the truth about the island, and (hopefully) escape.

For a little backstory, it's arguable that the genre is returning to its roots. One of the first marketed 3D Survival games was a little flop called "Jurassic Park: Trespasser" from 1998. The idea was basically the same- the player would craft weapons to survive the dangerous Isla Sorna from "the Lost World: Jurassic Park". Unfortunately for them, the creative and developmental power of licensed games of the time didn't allow that to work as well as it should have. The game was buggy in the best of times and unplayable in the worst. The open-world genre was nearly forgotten until games like DayZ and Minecraft came out more than a decade later. Meanwhile, dinosaur games have been struggling ever since, with the somewhat decent "Primal Carnage" and "Turok" to the awful "Jurassic: the Hunted" and "Dino D-Day."
Fortunately, that may be about to change. This game here may add so much more to the world of dinosaurs in gaming, and there are at least three factors that can help it.
First off, its coming out at the right time. "Jurassic World" hits theaters in a little over a month, showing us another massive take on stylized dinosaurs. Whether or not it will be successful, it has created quite a bit of buzz. It offers not only nostalgia for the last franchise, but dinosaurs may become a big deal in film again. The subjective high generated from this may be for "ARK"'s favor. Judging from the trailer, it borrows quite a few elements and even includes species I'd like to see in later Jurassic Park installments. That, and the fact that early access begins only a few weeks after "Jurassic World"'s debut, could mean that everybody will look to that for either comparison or just by curiosity.
Second, as far as open-world games go, it seems really well-defined. The Unreal Engine, used for phenomenal games like "Unreal Tournament", "Tribes: Ascend", and the recent "Mortal Kombat" entries, is the developer's choice here. It's definitely providing on the end of polygons and textures, aside from a few pre-alpha bugs (I apologize, but there's something enjoyable about dancing atop a sauropod.) There's also a unique and ambitious game play twist here. Riding dinosaurs and pterosaurs: imagine the possibilities that can open up from that! Since they seem to be going for style in their design, this could enter a new level of dynamism in combat rarely seen or used in games.
Third and possibly most importantly, it has a foil, shown below:

The project "Saurian" has been in announced development for years now, and it may be because it's just as ambitious. In this game, the players will control all life stages of a single animal of their choice from the Hell Creek formation- that is, the famous site in Montana that delivered the most popular animals from the very end of the Cretaceous. This is special because the entire game was overseen by world-class scientists on the matter, ensuring accuracy down to the types of plant life seen in the environment. It's a far cry from "ARK," which, as mentioned, is flying by rule of cool (I even wrote an article a while back on how pterosaur wings are NOT shaped like that!) However, this doesn't ensure that one will be better or perform better than the other. If anything, we may see these two react off of each other the same way they will react to "Jurassic World," generating their fanbases from the collective hype of so many different dinosaur projects, each offering something truly different from the others.

So, are all of these movies and games destined for greatness? Probably not. I had many similar predictions about other media, and some of those failed spectacularly. Although, especially looking at ARK, all of these look as though they stand a chance based on how unique they are and how close they are to each other. The trend of dinosaur media is coming back with a vengeance. Its even possible and probable that it will kickstart a new urge to up the ante in other thematic areas. As long as all of these manage to hold up to their hype, there is hope for prehistory yet.

...

However, my "Dino Hunter" plans are sounding less and less profitable by the minute...

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