Jurassic Park
April 25, 2008
Movie-based games have existed since the early days of gaming. And throughout this time, they've held the distinction of being almost consistently bad. In fact, one of the earliest movie-based games, E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial for Atari 2600, is often considered to be the worst video game of all time.
Not all movie-based games are terrible, however. The early 1990s showed us that movie tie-ins could be successful and even fun, with such masterpieces as The Lion King and Aladdin for Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis. For the next few weeks, I'll be covering the most important, influential, or otherwise noteworthy movie-based games, one franchise at a time.
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I'll start with Jurassic Park, one of my personal favorites. In 1993, Jurassic Park was it. Great story, incredible special effects, Samuel L. Jackson--Jurassic Park had it all. And its premise could be easily adapted to a video game: “You're stuck on an island with dinosaurs. You have a gun. Stay alive.” It was as simple as that, but even looking back it's difficult to see a way in which that concept could disappoint. In fact, in a world dominated by the moral ambiguities of the Metal Gear Solid franchise, and the ”epic storyline” of Halo where every level needs to be prefaced by 20 minutes of cut-scenes to give the illusion of a well thought out plot, it would be nice to return to a setup this black and white.
It should come as no surprise that 1993 saw the release of two Jurassic Park games (for the SNES, and the Sega Genesis), each with a gameplay experience unique to its respective platform. (There was actually a third one for the NES, but I'll skip over it, since it's more or less a simplified, level-based version of the SNES game.)
Jurassic Park (SNES)
Awesome.
This is probably my favorite of the 1993 Jurassic Park games. Whereas the Genesis game is a side-view platformer, this one is an overhead adventure game, sort of like Zelda. You're given a list of tasks, which I believe are detailed in the instruction manual (I'd check, but I lost it years ago), and you're allowed to go complete them in any order. While going from objective to objective (which can be anything from restoring power to collecting dinosaur eggs), you pick up various weapons and fight dinosaurs.
The game itself gives you some direction by way of pop-up messages from movie characters who give you hints about the dinosaurs' behavior. Dennis Nedry, one of the movie's human villains, even lies to you, telling you that approaching the T-Rex will give you an extra life, and that Velociraptors will not attack you if you stand still. Yeah, OK, Dennis.
This might be useful information if it were true. They actually just stampede no matter what you do.
The game does a pretty good job of keeping you on your toes; raptors will attack you from hiding places, Triceratops will try to trample you . You're always in danger of being killed by something, whether you know it or not. And there are enough varieties of dinosaur, each with its own attacks and behavior, to keep things fresh. But make no mistake, you're going to die. A lot.
A lot.
Most of the game's objectives take you into various buildings around the park. Whenever you enter them, the game switches from the overhead perspective to a first-person view. The graphics in these portions have not aged especially well. The enemies' artificial intelligence is also pretty awful; most of the time the dinosaurs just stand there looking at you until you attack them. But this actually makes it more exciting, because you never know when (or if) they're going to strike.
Here's a battle with a raptor. And no, that brown lump is not a 6 foot turkey. It is in fact a Velociraptor.
Finally this brings us to the fateful encounter with the T-Rex. You'll know you're nearby, because you'll keep getting this message:
Nothing can compare to the feeling you get as a kid, knowing that the T-Rex could be waiting around the next corner, ready to strike.
By the time you see this, it's too late.
Believe me. You don't mess around with the T-Rex.
As a movie game, this is a huge success. It's fun, and it captures the feel of the movie while still being its own experience. Tune in next time, when we see how the Genesis version stands up to the SNES one.
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I played this game and hated it. Why didn't you talk about the genesis one. It is so much better
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