Review

Jurassic Park: The Game

It’s no secret that I am a big fan of Telltale Games; I’ve stated it every time I’ve reviewed one of their titles. They have a knack of taking a license, ranging from popular films to comic book series, and turning it into a pretty good adventure game. So I was excited when I learned they were given the rights to produce games based on two of Universal’s classic movies, Back to the Future (BTF) and Jurassic Park. While I had a great time playing BTF, I can’t say the same thing for Jurassic Park. This is a shame, as it could have been something great!

Jurassic Park: The Game (JP), takes place during the first film (and sometime after). Remember Dennis Nedry? He was the guy who tried to smuggle out dinosaur embryos in a shaving cream can in the first movie. Apparently, he was supposed to meet up with two contacts before leaving the island. Since he never showed, his contacts Miles Chadwick and Nima Cruz, ventured into the park to find him. Of course they didn’t know that he’d shut down the park, releasing all those nasty dinosaurs you saw in the movie. This is where things get interesting…or at least they should. Telltale gives us an interesting location, gun toting mercenaries, and dinosaurs. There are even new dinosaurs (like a giant sea creature) that have never been in the series before. Then there is the great soundtrack that comes straight from the films. As soon as the old theme song kicked in, I was taken back to when I was a kid watching the original film for the first time. All of the excitement and wonder I felt came rushing back. With all of these elements combined, I should have been on the edge of my seat the entire time. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. As much as I wanted to get into the story, it just didn’t hold my attention all the way through.

To be fair, the story isn’t at all bad. With a few tweaks, the story could be used for a prequel/sequel film and I did have fun playing it. The issue is that this is a video game first and foremost. I feel that the developers didn’t approach it that way. Most, if not all the appeal of adventure games revolves around the story. The gameplay aspect is still important, but a good story can usually carry a title pretty far when it comes to this genre. This doesn’t hold true with JP due to the way the gaming mechanics are implemented. Trying to make JP more of an interactive movie than a game ultimately hurts the game. The otherwise, good story is lost due to the way you play this title.

Before I get into the effects of the gaming mechanics, I need to explain how they work. Over the course of the title, gamers will have to solve puzzles, outrun dinosaurs, and fight off bad guys. How gamers go about doing those things is where the movie to game translation comes in. Take puzzle solving, one of the staples of this genre. While there are puzzles in JP they don’t involve figuring out how to use collected items like normal. During a puzzle segment, you are able to click on floating magnifying glasses within the environment. Doing so will usually make your assigned character say something about what the magnifying glass was placed on (clicking on one that hovers over a dinosaur will make your character talk about that particular animal). Sometimes one of them will give you a hint about what should be done next, while others will just give background information (a conversation starter when more characters are around). Then there are “action” buttons that are laid over items. They function a lot like the floaty buttons found in Heavy Rain; dragging, pulling, and/or pressing these buttons will cause your character to do the same thing within the game world. If I want to pull a lever, I click on the button associated with the lever and drag it downward, in the direction of its arrow. My character will then pull the lever down. In order to solve most puzzles, you have to figure out the correct order of actions that need to be taken. For example, I had to convince a scientist to leave the island because of the dangerous dinosaurs on the loose. This scientist felt that it was their duty to stay and help protect the large animals. In order for me to convince her to leave, I had to first get some background info on them. Clicking on different characters and items in the environment (in the right order) would give me the info I was looking for. After that, I was able to gain their confidence by pretending I believed that the dinosaurs should be free and not made into amusement park attractions. Once complete, the automatic save logo popped up and I was able to move along with the story.

While these ideas sound nice on paper they don’t always translate into good gameplay in Jurassic Park. Most of the puzzle solving is done by randomly clicking on the magnifying glasses. You don’t know whether you’re going to get more information about what’s going on (which is helpful if you are interested in the story) or if it’s going to simply move the game along. Sometimes moving the game along means you just missed information that would have shed some light on a particular character’s motives. On the other hand, getting random information during certain segments seems out of place and causes hiccups in the story’s pacing. I don’t think it’s a good idea to learn about a person’s life story when we are trying to locate a missing character. Especially, if the only reason we’ve stopped running was because the pack of hungry dinosaurs hasn’t found a way to reach our position…yet. I can understand having interesting dialog during the characters’ down time, but making them have a long-winded conversation when they’re in a hurry seems forced. There wasn’t a good balance between the optional story and the required story elements. A lot of adventure titles suffer in this regard. What makes things worse for JP is the fact that you really don’t know what will move the story forward most of the time, which leads to the up and down pacing.

Telltale created a different way of moving about; no more clicking a point in the environment and watching your character walk to that spot. At times when there are multiple places to explore at once, you’re given the option of picking where to go via a pop up window mechanic. Clicking this button will bring up a menu showing different windowed views of each searchable area. Clicking on one of them will take your character to that destination (an animation will show them walking over to it). The last gaming element comes in during action sequences (like running from dinosaurs). These are all handled by quick time events (QTE’s). Arrows will pop up on the screen, signaling you to press the corresponding direction in the right amount of time in order to succeed. Some actions like running or climbing require you to press direction over and over in quick succession.

The window traveling is a neat feature; no more clicking around your screen to navigate. Your character will always be standing in the right spot to search areas for clues and whatnot. Some of the puzzles that use this feature are pretty cool. One could argue that you have even less control over characters than normal adventure titles. While that may be true, it doesn’t hurt JP’s gameplay at all. What does hurt are the QTE heavy action segments. To be perfectly honest, no game should have these anymore. They don’t make the game more engrossing, actually they do the exact opposite (if having a floating button throw a temper tantrum onscreen to get you to press it doesn’t take you out of the game, I don’t know what will). Heavy Rain was a cool game but if it wasn’t for the story, I wouldn’t have cared that I could sorta “feel” my character picking up a cup or starting a car. These rapid actions are not fun and they do not realistically translate into physical human actions anymore than the “press X to open this” does. As it stands with that title, and JP, I feel like I am watching a movie that keeps stopping every five seconds to ask me if I want to see the rest of the scene.

The action segments can feel tedious to complete (especially on a keyboard). Throw in the fact that the game sometimes stutters during these scenes (by the time the button pops up its too late), resulting in cheap deaths, and you can see my frustration. One cool aspect is the fact that if you keep dying during a scene, the game will lower the difficulty (sometimes subtracting how many button presses are required to pass). This is good thing as it helps with the stuttering issue and the fact that the game doesn’t always warn players that they’re about to take control of a scene. Sometimes you can tell because the JP coin, displaying your score will pop up. You are ranked after every scene; gold (no misses), silver (some misses) and bronze (a bunch of misses). If you do poorly you can go back later and replay segments. That won’t persuade gamers to go back through JP, but it is a nice addition.

Jurassic Park had a lot of things going for it. The license should resonate with anyone who thinks dinosaurs are cool (just about everyone playing video games). The story is a good one and the musical score is awesome. There are even new dinosaurs not seen in the films. The gameplay is what severely limits the fun that gamers should have had with this title. As it stands, it feels like an animated movie that keeps accidentally getting paused. And if it’s paused for too long (you die during a segment) you have to watch the scene from the beginning all over again. Which is a shame; I really wanted to like this game/movie!