Jurassic Park: The Game is a title that has gotten mixed reviews since its release. On one hand, it is made by Telltale Games, a company known for its many excellent titles and its adept ability at re-introducing the mainstream market to the point and click adventure game. Telltale’s library of work includes their single-handed revival of Sam and Max, a graphical re-imagining of the classic Tales of Monkey Island, and Back to the Future. Their Back to the Future game was excellent, and even brought back Christopher Lloyd! On the other hand, Jurassic Park: The Game is not an adventure game like the games Telltale is famous for, and considering that adventure games is all they have really done, a departure seems a bit risky from the get go. Jurassic Park is instead an interactive movie, much like Heavy Rain. while Heavy Rain received critical acclaim, this is a genre known for, well, rampant, rampant hate. Can this game overcome the hate, and redeem the genre?

The graphics, well, kinda help. The animations are decent at best, and honestly the characters in the beginning seem a bit off. The movement is okay, and the facial expressions are done well;  the characters do a good job of conveying emotion. However, the characters just don’t seem to look right, and this will likely agitate for at least a little while, but the feeling does pass fairly quickly. The animation was also jerky occasionally, and those moments were rather distracting, though it might have been a bad 360 port. A few times though, it was definitely the game. These problems faded off once the story really got going, but it still makes the game hit and miss, and honestly, for an interactive movie, the graphics and the character animations should have been one of Telltale’s biggest priorities. Credit must be given for the facial expressions, though. The game is able to show, without words, that a character is clearly conflicted about the actions they are going to take, and the scenes work when they need to despite the shortcomings.

The sound is without a doubt, exceptional. This is in part, because Telltale Games was smart enough to reuse much of the music from the series. The theme of Jurassic Park fills the game, constantly remixed to change the mood, and other tracks are used to capture each respective scene perfectly. The voice acting is well-done, and does a good job of capturing emotion as well. This is a game that feels like it was done by professional actors, and feels more like a movie at times, which I suppose is part of the point.

The story is also a high point, and likely the single best part of the experience. This game really feels like a sequel to Jurassic Park, more so then “The Lost World”. The story itself revolves around a set of Dinosaur Embryos lost in one of the scenes from the original movie, and the first episode includes two set-pieces from the film. Nedry’s crash-site is revisited, along with the Visitor’s Center where the final battle between the T-Rex and the Raptors took place. The story is clearly made with love and affection towards the films. The “You didn’t say the magic word” bug that locked everyone out even reappears! This is a game designed to provoke nostalgia in anyone who watched all the originals, and it does a great job of doing so.

Not only that, but the developers should be applauded. The prologue is genuinely tense, dinosaur attacks are terrifying and watching dinosaurs fight each other is awesome; for the most part. There are a few failures, and some scenes that fall flat, the story is mostly well written and well realized in game form. The characters, while stereotypical, are smartly written and occasionally funny. Sure, there are a few characters who are annoying, but they tend to exist just long enough for a dinosaur to eat them. The game’s script does falter at times, and that tends to occur when it remembers that it’s a game; the characters tend to go out of their way to give the player hints as to what to do next, sometimes it is subtle, other times it is completely obvious. It is those moments that really distract from the story being told, and act to only hurt the experience.

Jurassic Park: The Game makes for a great concept, and while the graphics are mostly decent and the story is one that should have been an official sequel, there is one part of this game where the entire experience really falters, and that is when it comes to the interactive part of the interactive movie.The gameplay just doesn’t work, it is comprised entirely of Quick-Time-Events, which for those not aware, is simply pressing a button at the right time in order to advance to the next sequence of events. Unlike Heavy Rain, there are no real ‘walk around and explore’ times, which I suppose works in its favor. It is rare for the player to look around while trying to find JUST the right event to trigger. Any exploration is done by a slight panning around, and pressing a button corresponding to a magnifying glass.

Of course, the main part of the game is the ‘press button rapidly before you die’ sections, and these are for the most part well done. Button presses are used to keep the player involved, and add genuine tension. I found them fun, and was on the edge of my seat during them. Unfortunately, there are still a few that are more annoying than tense, and the game sometimes adds unnecessary ones that really serve no purpose outside of reminding players that they are playing a game. While there is something to be enjoyed in a few of these sequences, the action comes of as a bit too jerky and can sometimes be a bit goofy.

Final Call: Once I gave Jurassic Park: The Game a chance, I found myself pleasently entertained. It wasn’t perfect, but it used the QTEs well, and there’s nothing more awesome then repeatedly firing off a tranq gun into a T-Rex’s face. Heck, even slowly sneaking to the car while myserious sounds and stomps followed you in the background worked well. The big problem with this genre is that Jurassic Park: The Game isn’t really a game, and while it never pretends to be, it only really just barely pulls off being a good interactive movie. It is flawed, and it does come across as a low-budget Heavy Rain, but I don’t regret my time with it. Here’s hoping The Walking Dead games they are working on will be a mass improvement.

Rating:

For related articles

adventure game, back to the future, jurassic park, Jurassic Park The Game, jurassic park the game review, Review, sam & max, Telltale Games Game Reviews