Jurassic Park Games Part 2
June 10, 2008
Jurassic Park for the Genesis is a different sort of beast from the SNES
version. It has more realistic and, for the time, impressive graphics, as well as the ability to play as a Velociraptor, which was something that every kid wanted. In fact, in my youth, I most likely would have said the Genesis version was my favorite, listing the ability to play as a dinosaur as the main reason for its superiority. And I think few would argue; it was a great game... the key word there being “was.” Today, the game's wonder has faded, and in its place lies a withered jumble of archaic controls, cheap level design, and altogether frustrating and regrettable design.
The game begins with the player's choice of either Dr. Grant, or a Velociraptor. Both characters play differently (Dr. Grant uses guns and grenades, and Velociraptor eats people) and even have their own unique levels. They also both get their own story sequences and level descriptions, which is a nice touch. Both characters do, of course, go through some of the same places, but even those are changed drastically thanks to the inherent differences between man and dinosaur. I always thought it was kind of interesting even as a kid to play as Dr. Grant, because levels have a slower, plodding pace. You have to conserve ammo by switching weapons, and only using the big guns in emergencies. Dr. Grant also has the ability of jumping slightly higher than the average human, but not to the ridiculous heights possible as the Velociraptor, so he has to spend a lot of time climbing ladders, and bouncing on spring-board tree branches (it's a video game).
Velociraptor, on the other hand, does whatever she wants; somewhat of a problem when what she wants doesn't coincide with what you want, which is often. Really she suffers mostly from having too many different abilities, and too few buttons to which they can be mapped. Velociraptor can bite high, bite low, kick, jump, high jump, execute two different forward jumps and whip her tail. Most of these different combinations are performed by holding different directions on the d-pad, but the game is really sensitive and the game constantly does its best to misinterpret your input. I seem to remember being able to somersault through the air, but for the life of me, I can't manage to get the game to let me do it. Not that it would help out a lot in the first place; jumping willy-nilly is only going to end in tears.
Velociraptor's other weakness is the game's level design. It's often impossible to distinguish between short drops and bottomless pits. The level designers also apparently found it amusing to put spike pits near jumps that would be impossible to make without stepping into the spikes and receiving damage. And Velociraptor's ability to leap and hop through levels can make this especially annoying. Not only that... the camera doesn't always follow you as fast as you're moving, so you have to stop and let it catch up so you don't hop into a pit of spikes or down a deadly chasm. Most of these things don't really affect Dr. Grant, and therefore his adventure feels more complete, but it's still awesome playing as the Velociraptor.
All in all, it's still OK for a movie game, but with its stiff controls and irritating level design, it pales in comparison to more contemporary side-scrollers, such as the likewise dinosaur-based “Dino Run.” But at the time, most side-scrollers suffered from many of these problems, so it was just a genuinely great game. And it still remains the second best Jurassic Park side-scroller (just a bit behind its predecessor Jurassic Park: Rampage Edition). Although with rivals like SNES's Jurassic Park 2: The Chaos Continues, and the dreadful Playstation The Lost World, it doesn't really have a lot of competition on that front, but then that's not really the point.
Entry tools
About this entry
- No one has blogged about this entry yet.
- This entry has been recommended 0 times.
Post a comment