The game starts off with Jurassic Park having already fallen into chaos. The dinosaurs are all on the loose and danger lurks everywhere. There is no story that plays out before the game begins so you will literally be tossed into the heat of the game. Your objectives, while not really explained at all, are not complicated in nature. You need to find the I.D. Cards of the various Jurassic Park employees and visitors from the movie (Ellie Sattler's is the only one not required to beat the game), collect all the raptor eggs, prevent the raptors from entering the visitor center, destroy the raptor nest, contact the mainland, escape from the island. Doesn't sound all that difficult right? Well the game really doesn't point you where to go so first time players will be spending ample time exploring which I don't see as bad thing to an extent. Of course it can eventually get frustrating as you wander the park and it's buildings trying to figure out where to go.
Graphically this game is a huge improvement over the NES version of the game.
Graphically this game is a huge improvement over the NES version of the game.
The dinosaurs all look impressive, the jungle looks lush, and Dr. Grant looks human. The game features two very distinct views. You have the sorta top down view as seen in the image above and then you have a first person mode that activates while you are in buildings which I'll get back to. I've heard some people say that the controls in this game have issues. That being said, the only issue I had control wise was during the first person segments of the game. The sound effects and music are all fine. Nothing spectacular, and nothing from the movie music wise really, but the music I think does it's job.
So I mentioned that the game has two modes, the top down and first person. The top down mode is what you will be in as you explore the island and collect raptor eggs. Enemies encompass a variety of dinosaurs with Velociraptors lurking seemingly everywhere. On a side note, I never understood in this game why the raptors are so numerous and such a major thing when the T-Rex was kind of the dominant dino in the movie. Continuing on... Other dinos to watch out for are the little Compsognathus, you know, the little compys that brutally killed Dieter in The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Oddly enough the compys are not seen at all in Jurassic Park, but were apparently housed on the island somewhere. You'll also encounter the stampeding Gallimimus, spitting Dilophosaurus, and charging Pachycephalosaurus, whom are also not in Jurassic Park, but are in The Lost World: Jurassic Park. There are also a few not sick Triceratops around and the T-Rex is also in the game. The most confusing enemy however to me is the presence of a large insect that darts around the screen in short bursts. Looks like a big prehistoric dragonfly or something. All of these dinos with the exception of the T-Rex and Triceratops can be killed.
Dr. Grant by default carries a taser on him. This weapon is great for wiping out compys, but that's about it. In addition to the taser Grant can find, but only carry one at a time of these weapons... The shotgun, rocket launcher, tranquilizer gun. In addition to one of those guns he can also carry chained bolas or gas grenades. Personally I never saw a reason not to stock up on the rocket launcher and bolas. The rocket launcher kills any dino besides the ones that can't be killed in one shot. The bolas does the same thing except it continues on so it can wipe out multiple dinos potentially in one shot. the only other notable weapon is the tranquilizer gun which can stun the T-Rex for a very short time. Along the way you can also pick up health packs to restore lost life.
The first person mode is where I find this game to really be the most interesting. The first time I played Jurassic Park I was amazed when I went into a building and all of a sudden this is what I saw.
I had no idea I was going to playing Doom with dinosaurs! Well it turned out that this was far from Doom with dinosaurs. While the first person mode is extremely interesting, it is not all that intense. The music is pretty ominous and all the buildings have a number of raptors and Dilophosaurus, but once you wipe them out they do not respawn at all. So once you clear out a building it's basically an empty building save for the number of ammo pickups and health that do respawn. Even if you leave and come back, no new enemies appear. Personally I find it amusing that one of the objectives of the game is to stop raptors from getting into the visitor center because once you clear the visitor center, no new raptors appear anyway...
As you explore the buildings using I.D. cards, night vision goggles, and basic navigation skills you'll encounter some control issues. The majority all circle around the movement of Dr. Grant in this mode. Some dinos are placed in a position that is slightly off the the left or right. Problem is if you want to shoot them you need to act like you are backing into a parking space because one move to the left or right could be too much. You may need to back up or move forward as well. The SNES mouse may help with this, but I do not own one so I cannot say for sure. Also Dr. Grant seems to get hung up on plants, walls, etc from time to time. Another frustration, though not control related, is that you'll be needing to enter several of the buildings multiple times. That'd be fine if the dinos returned, but they don't so you treck across the island dealing with all kinds of threats outside to basically walk through an empty building until you open a door that you didn't have a I.D. card for and a raptor jump scares you cause he was just out of your vision field. Long story short there is that it can get boring trying to find your way through a building you know is basically void of life minus you.
Now I don't want to spoil the ending, so all I will say is that I was underwhelmed by it. I was hoping that all the hard work I did figuring out all the tasks to finish the game would be worthwhile, but it was kind of underwhelming in the end. I'm a die hard fan of pretty much anything Jurassic Park so for me this game was still a good deal of fun any time the dinos showed up. I really wish they returned in the buildings though. Overall I think this is an okay Jurassic Park game. It is a big improvement over the NES and I think the flipping between top down and first person is really neat. That being said, I cannot deny that the game gets a bit tedious and I can see how a lot of people lose interest before the end. I'd recommend this game to any big Jurassic Park fan but outside of that, probably not too many people because I just can't see all that many people sticking it out till the end and here is why. The number one biggest flaw this game has is that it has no save feature at all. No save, no password system, nothing. If you don't know where to go, and what new player would without some kind of guide, this game can take hours to complete, which for a lot of people is a big problem. That being said once you know the game you can beat it in about an hour if everything goes well for you.
I hope you enjoyed this blog. I tried to do something different here with my reviews. I've got a lot more game reviews coming in the not too distant future and I may also look into doing some gameplay videos along with them so you can get a good look at the games themselves. If you are interested in seeing Jurassic Park on SNES being played, for now head on over to Youtube. If I do a gameplay of Jurassic Park I'll be sure to post it here! Thanks for reading!!!!
