ARK Park
Top Critic Average
Critics Recommend
Critic Reviews for ARK Park
A VR game that looks and plays almost like it was born on the PS2 era.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Instead of being a full-fat adaptation of Survival Evolved, ARK Park is more of a taster, chopping that game into smaller chunks, then isolating them. This isn't the same sprawling open world shooter – it's something much smaller and less substantive, though still looks to capture that core ARK essence. It may succeed on some level though, needless to say, those players who pony up £30 and go in blind could come away deeply dissatisfied.
An unevenly executed mish-mash of ARK's cornerstone components, ARK Park shows some promise but is ultimately too flawed and poorly constructed to be recommended to anyone but wide-eyed, dino-hungry youngsters.
The pieces were all in place for ARK Park to be something brand new and highly compelling in the VR market, but fails to maximize on the opportunity. While it can be spectacular to look at, the gaming elements just feel tacked on as if there was a checklist of features to build in, whether they made sense or not.
ARK Park was meant to be a virtual dive in a dinosaur park, bad and dishonest, it looks more like carnosaur the video game.
Review in French | Read full review
Ark Park has the ability to make us feel small in what could be a dangerous world of dinosaurs. The moments are there, you just have to find them.
Had ARK Park just been about freely exploring a theme park full of dinosaurs with the occasional bout of shooting thrown in for good measure, I feel I would have enjoyed it a hell of a lot more. Instead, it's a game that's full of busywork without much payoff for your troubles.
So many VR games are still just tech demos, sadly, but at least when they are just tech demos they have redeeming features. The prospect of ARK Park gave a chance for a VR experience that would show some stunning interactive experiences. It failed… and it fails in almost every area. It tries to adapt each key element of ARK: Survival Evolved and instead gives a horrible pale imitation of each, isolating each into a little slice, which doesn't live up to - or even represent - the original. The gathering is grindy, the crafting unrewarding, and the combat boring and repetitive. Not to mention as a VR game it suffers, too, as the controls are awkward, plus the price of the game is too high and the visuals lacklustre. The developer was so preoccupied with whether it could, that it didn't stop to think if it should.
