Looking at the title screen, I prepared to rant about why games should not be made based off of movies. Normally these type of games have poor graphics and redundant game play.
I was ready to put an extra helping of ranting on because Jurassic Park is one of my favorite movies of all time.
Well, Telltale games came through and proved me wrong, which seems to be happening more and more lately. Other games based on movies should take note: this is how you do it!
The game starts off shortly after Dennis died in the first movie. You mainly follow a woman who was hired to meet up with Dennis and secure the can of shaving cream with the dinosaur embryos inside. After a quick, yet in-depth tutorial, I was off on my first little puzzle.
Trying to get past the guard and onto the island, I had to figure a way to obtain a badge. Straining my brain for a few minutes I decided to have my cohort call the guard shack and keep him busy. While the guard was distracted I reached in the window and grabbed two id badges.
After a few quick discussions I was heading into the jungle. In Jurassic Park, a lot of your challenges involve hitting a certain arrow key at the right time. This is where I hit the only major issue with this game.
Later on you have to hit a sequence of buttons in about a 1.4 second window. The problem is that it takes your brain about a second just to analyze the first key you need to hit. So it does get frustrating sometimes if you’re like me and have the reflexes of road kill.
Not long after hacking through some jungle I ended up at the scene where Dennis was killed. I’ll take this moment to give a round of applause to Telltale games for accuracy. Everything was exactly like the movie. So came the time to begin my investigation and I spent a good twenty minutes searching around for the Barbasol can. Upon locating it, I was ambushed by dinosaurs and had to go through some life and death button sequences. There was plenty of death, as Jurassic Park forces you to be at the ready at all times.
Throughout the game you will take over the perspectives of other people. From an Ingen employee stranded, to the mercenary force sent in to rescue them. Another thing that impressed me was how well the characters were developed. Every character had a unique personality that blended in really well with the tone of the game. Telltale games really did well with the people as well as the dinosaurs.
The graphics in Jurassic Park are great. Smooth edges and soft textures allow you to be afraid of the dinosaurs rather than bad graphics. Movements and scenery are accurate at least 99 percent of the time.
The audio is about as realistic as you get without sticking your head in a dinosaur’s mouth. When a tyrannosaurs roars, it isn’t a little hum, it’s a deafening sound that nearly blew out my ears. Occasionally though, the music will override the talking and you miss some information. The voice acting is really well done and only adds to the realism of the characters.
Whether you’re a huge Jurassic Park fan like me, or just someone who enjoyed the movies a little, this game should be on your list. Other companies could learn how to properly make a movie-based game from the folks at Telltale Games. This game was executed to perfection, minus a couple button timing issues.
If this game isn’t on your list of games to get, then you’re missing out. I give Jurassic Park a fossil-solid 4.5 Gin Gems.