Jurassic Park will forever hold a special place in my heart. It's pretty common for children to develop an obsession for dinosaurs as they learn about them and when I was younger that film only increased the craze. Anything involving Jurassic Park became important to me. I can quote the movie all day long, I read the novel from which it was adapted, collected many of the toys, watched and enjoyed both of the film sequels, and of course played the video games. While many games were developed for the franchise, two in particular always stood out to me as enjoyable and that was The Lost World: Jurassic Park (because you got to play as the dinos) on Playstation and Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis on the first Xbox. Operation Genesis was the last Jurassic Park game released on consoles and eight years have passed since the notorious logo has graced a cover. Californian developer Telltale games has since acquired the license to create episodic gaming content which was announced in 2010. Originally the content was meant to be released in separate episodes as DLC but ended up in a full packaged multi-console release titled Jurassic Park: The Game. It can also be downloaded like the original plan. Despite my love for the franchise I was a bit hesitant about the announcement of the game and yet eager to see how it would turn out.
Having trudged through the four episodes in a single playthrough, I don't believe Telltale's attempt is quite ready for extinction but there are a number of features about the game that if improved or done differently would have made it more satisfying. The story takes place during and after the events of the first film with an all new cast and follows a plot that centers on the lost shaving cream/embryo canister and the rescue of the remaining survivors on the island. While I can't say that the story is going to please everyone, I was entertained with it enough to continue playing with a sense of intrigue. The game begins with a female mercenary/spy employed by the same company Dodgson worked for to brief Dennis Nedry (the fat guy/Newman) on obtaining the embryos. Since Dennis never makes it to the docks she joins with an associate to locate Dennis and the embryos somewhere in the park. The story also follows the Park's veterinarian and his daughter (both related to Sarah Harding from The Lost World), a chief scientist, and a couple of InGen employed mercenaries tasked with the rescue mission. Though it could be argued that the characters are uninteresting, I personally enjoyed the interactions between them and the differences in personalities. The plot is not as entertaining as the film but I would have definitely been entertained had it been produced for a TV show or even a live-action film.
It's more along the lines of Jurassic Park III entertaining than it is Jurassic Park but certainly worth experiencing at least once. There were little things I found annoying like several references to cigarettes and smoking which I understand were used for character development, but so overused that it became obnoxiously frivolous and got me to thinking that maybe Telltale took one too many smoke breaks while making the game. There is also so much centering on the main cast that it makes the game and its locations seem very small and not at the level a Jurassic Park game should be. There are still plenty of dinos ranging from the classic T-rex, Triceratops, and Velociraptors to some new ones like the Herrerasaurus, Mososaur, and a particularly plot-driven pest I won't spoil since the game goes to so many lengths to obscure it in the first episodes. The visuals are certainly outdated compared to what gamers have been used to lately. Some of the dinosaurs look just like their counterparts from the films (minus some details) but the characters are cartoonish with some looking more exaggerated than others. The environments are so small that I found it a little ridiculous how much detail they were lacking. A few areas come right from the film but there is so little on screen at a time that they always come off as a very watered down version that you wouldn't recognize if they weren't mentioned.
This feature review concludes on the next page, please click Page 2 below to find out our final thoughts on Telltale Games' Jurassic Park: The Video Game.
