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Between reviving beloved franchises like Sam & Max and Monkey Island and coming out of the blue with the delightful Back to the Future: The Game, Telltale isn't pulling any punches in its campaign to reclaim my childhood. So far, they've done justice to every property they've tackled. Their latest nostalgia blitzkrieg is Jurassic Park: The Game, which takes place at the familiar dinosaur park but introduces all-new characters and attempts to follow up on some of the loose ends of the film's plot. In keeping with the spirit of the movie, this is a faster-paced, darker game than Telltale's usual oeuvre, with a unique interface and control scheme to go along with the different tone and pace. Unfortunately, the effort is held back by an engine that feels ancient and a general lack of awe that keeps the game from ever matching the best moments of the film.
Fans of the 1993 Spielberg movie (or the Michael Crichton novel it's based on) will remember one Dennis Nedry, the portly computer programmer who compromises the park's security in order to steal valuable embryos for a rival corporation. In doing so, Nedry turns a tightly-controlled zoological environment into a deadly dino free-for-all; one that comes back to bite him in his (considerable) rear end when he is stalked and killed by a venom-spitting Dilophosaurus. The embryos, encased in a fake can of Barbasol shaving cream, rolled away from Nedry and were buried under a pile of mud, never to be seen again.
Or were they? Jurassic Park: The Game picks up the trail of the Barbasol can, telling the story of the mercenary sent to retrieve the embryos from the island, as well as an assortment of other characters who have been left behind after InGen CEO John Hammond and company escape. In addition to Nima the mercenary and her contact Miles, you'll play as Gerry Harding, a staff veterinarian accompanied by his daughter Jess (because what's Jurassic Park without children in peril?) as well as Dr. Laura Sorkin, a geneticist on a mission of her own, plus Oscar and Yoder, two guns for hire brought in by InGen to rescue everyone else. Needless to say, the rescue does not go smoothly and before long everyone is trapped on Isla Nublar with a host of ever-hungry dinosaurs. Each character also has their own various motives, some of which are more secret than others, and some of which aren't terribly conducive to everyone's survival.
Jurassic Park is, like other Telltale games, divided into episodes, though all four episodes are being released as a single product this time rather than spaced out over a course of months. That’s probably a good idea in this case, since it's easy to forget the details of an overarching narrative when there's a month or two between releases. The urgency of the story—RUN HERE! FIX THIS! WATCH OUT! QUICK, HIDE BEHIND THAT! GET OFF THE ISLAND BEFORE YOU GET EATEN!—plays out better in a few consecutive sittings, making the game feel meatier, though it's still only about six or seven hours long.
The game does a great job of hooking itself into the Jurassic Park mythos, feeling like a natural extension of the film rather than a cheap cash-in. The writing is solid if not remarkable, with likeable, fleshed-out characters and a script that's far more serious than Telltale’s traditional work. There are weak points in the storytelling, though. Character motivations can sometimes flip with little provocation, and the protagonists can be awfully talkative during life-or-death situations, which takes the bite out of some of the action-y bits. (Maybe there's a better time for long-winded exposition than when raptors are clawing at your heels, guys? Huh?)
While there are a few laughs, Jurassic Park is naturally heavier on drama and suspense than, say, Strong Bad. The story takes the time to delve more deeply into some of the themes briefly touched on in the film, exploring the ethics of bringing what is essentially an endangered species into existence. While most of the game is a fast-paced series of close shaves and narrow escapes, the inclusion of such issues lends some literary gravitas that is certainly welcome. Dr. Sorkin in particular feels the weight of ethical responsibility and strives to reverse the lysine deficiency installed by the original engineers as a failsafe to prevent the dinosaurs from surviving on their own.
The actual gameplay is a fairly radical departure from what we've previously seen from Telltale. In fact, it all seems fairly derivative of Heavy Rain's pattern of exploration bookended by blink-or-you'll-die Quick Time Events. The button prompts also ape the physicality of Quantic Dream's opus: opening a door involves moving the mouse/thumbstick left or right, while kicking a dino in the face (a fairly common occurrence, actually) may involve mashing a button or timing your press just so according to the onscreen prompt.
The QTEs feel appropriate for the most part, but can be frustratingly inconsistent—imagine your character running and leaping about in a cinematic without any input required from you, only to have an action prompt pop up halfway through the scene to complete one of the jumps. Take more than a split second to react and—whoops!—you're dead. The punishment for death is jumping back to the last checkpoint, which is never too far away and so isn’t overly frustrating, though your rating for that scene drops, if you care about that kind of thing.
In general, though, the Quick Time Events make for some involving and suspenseful action. They may not reach the intensity the film, but they work well enough. There are even a few truly clever moments that play against the expectations of the genre, like a scene where a character, dazed from a hard fall, must struggle to gather her senses. The player has to guide a moving dot on-screen to hover over a target using the mouse or thumbstick. Normally this isn't much of a challenge, but in this one case, the dot moves so wildly that it's literally impossible to succeed, meaning the character remains dazed. The forced failure emphasizes the desperation of the moment to nice effect.
Continued on the next page...
Jurassic Park: The Game
Platform: iPad, Mac, PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Genre: Science Fiction
Developer: Telltale Games
| Territory | Date | Publisher |
 Worldwide |
November 15 2011 | Telltale Games |
Posted by Lucien21 on May 19, 2012
A game that requires 65 million years more development.
Bought this just before Xmas in the Steam sale. 50% off which is just as well. Was Telltale's first foray into the action genre worth the... Read the review »
You got the point on everything.
This is not a bad game, and I like the sperimentation in it (I expecially loved the fact that you cannot walk - it’s so boring to walk in adventures that I usually double click through exits).
It has flaws, but there are also very good things like the writing and the rythm.
Excellent and absolutely fair review.
Agree on all points. Quite a fun ride, with good story and cast, but lacks that little something that prevents it from being great.
I especially miss some good music score to complement John Willams’ work.
Telltale should really stop upgrading their engine and build one from scratch - one that can produce more constant frame-rates and more fluid animation.
But still.. I think dino models turned out better then I’ve expected from this engine.
As more or less a hardcore adventure fan, I was somewhat sceptical when i heard that Telltale wanted to make Jurassic Park as an interactive movie with QTE action, rather than as a traditional adventure game.
But since i love pretty much everything else they have made, and is a big fan of Telltale, I decided to keep an open mind an give it a try.
And it was better than i feared - But only just!
The problem is not the story, the acting, the graphics or the music, that all works okay, and is IMO the best about this game.
The problem is also not the “puzzles” part, even though they all are extremely easy. But that works okay in the context of this game.
That it is meant to be more of a fast paced interactive movie then a actual game, is also not the main problem. That can work very well if it is made properly.
No the main problem is the QTE system itself.
Waiting for a button to apear on the screen, and the press the same button on the keyboard really really fast (in some case you apparently only have about a picosecund to react), is simply not my idea of a fun game!
Now if there where some logic to the buttons, and you had to figure out for yourself what button to hit or something similar, then it would be another question. But it is purely a matter of eye-to-hand reaction time, and nothing else!
(That there are some places where you are actually better of just pressing random buttons, because there is no penalty for pressing the wrong button, doesn’t make it better)
Another thing that also bothered me is that you die so often. The problem is that after a while I simply stopped caring about it, and this also meant that i lost all interest in the characters, and for a interactive movie loosing interest in the characters is somewhat of a showstopper.
I realize i might not be the core audience for this type of game, and unless someone makes a much much better QTE system than this, then i never will be.
Iznogood echos my thoughts perfectly. This could be the prettiest and best written game in a generation and I still wouldn’t like it because of the core gameplay. I can’t stand QTEs in small doses, let alone a whole game of them.
Izonogood, did you try Heavy Rain? I thought I wouldn’t like QTE but I was really surprised with how fun it was in Heavy Rain. The two main reasons why (IMO) it was fun in Heavy Rain, but not in Jurassic Park:
1) In Heavy Rain the story always goes on. Failing the QT events just means it will go on in a different direction than it would have if you succeed. Therefore, you have a lot of motivation (you want the character to succeed in what they’re doing) but you do not feel the need to succeed in every single QT event because it does not stop your game.
Not feeling indifferent about characters dying (like in JP where you see it happening again and again) I felt much more tension during the gameplay in Heavy Rain and the QTE system actually kept me on the edge of my seat.
2) The actions themselves are far better connected to what is actually happening on screen.
I agree on everything said.
Specially on the quick actions (that gives less than 1 millisecond to react), and have no connection whatsoever to whats going on (for example you have to go up, and you have to press right-left arrows…. ?)
About dying, yes… but at least you get to see all the different “wrong choices” and their consequences, how every dino “hunt” their dinner (gooore LOL).
Maybe what its said about the engine getting older… is right. But I think everything looked good, voice acting was really nice and I enjoyed very much the story. Lots! As a true fan of the original JP, I´m very satisfied with the whole experience and would totally recommend it!
I finally got to play this game. I won’t nitpick the review; I thought it was pretty fair. However, I hope the 3 star review doesn’t scare people off as I thought this game was an absolute blast to play. I enjoyed the engine a lot and I thought it really fit the property by trying to recreate an action/suspense movie.
I thought the story was great and really fit the movie (and, more so, the novel) well. In many ways, it was a much better sequel to the movie than the actual sequel (to the novel or the book).
And, I may be weird here, but am I the only person who actually enjoys the QTE gameplay? I liked it in Heavy Rain and I liked it here. Certainly, I wouldn’t want it in every game, but I think it fits this property well. It sounds like it was not very intuitive on the keyboard, but I played on a gamepad. On the gamepad, I thought the movements fit the on screen action well.
The puzzles were of course easy but when, if ever, was the last time you got stuck in a Telltale game? I am happy to see Telltale experiment with the genre instead of making more mediocre point and click games.
Anyway, this game is a ton of fun and most definitely will get the heart racing (and might put a big grin on your face). I, for one, would love to see them make a sequel (though I doubt that will happen from the lukewarm reception it seems to have received).
Nice review, not tried it yet but hope to at some point. “Inconsistent musical cues and sound design” - this seems to be a recurring theme of TellTale Games, I was really disapointed with the music in the BTTF games, so I’m worried this will ruin the experience for me (as a big music person)
Awful. Just… Awful. This isn’t a videogame sorry. It’s a cartoon where you can die. Steer clear.
This game is extremely upsetting.
To be honest I was quite shocked to see the game actually got mediocre reviews while though in my personal opinion, if judging the game completely based on aspects of a regular video game and not on the Jurassic Park setting, Jurassic Park: the Game truly deserves abysmal scores.
I cannot understand how in this current time, after so many great games that showcase top-quality in story, gameplay, music etc., the shameful effort of this game got away under critics’ eyes.
The gameplay was, on the surface, universally agreed as the weakest point. However not only was It simplistic, it was also filled with errors. A lot of times I completely pressed the wrongs keys and the game did not at all detect that. In addition, the puzzles were countable on 10 fingers throughout this $30 price-tag game. When they did came out, it was a much needed rescue for players who were drowning in the torturing commands of the game on smashing the keyboard.
I was so dismayed to see few critics praised the music. In few major scenes the composer completely went off the rail with the intention and atmosphere the director wanted to convey. The lack of unison was so palpable that the music further made the emotional scenes incoherent.
Which lead to the pivotal failure of JP: the Game, the writing. The story was absolutely annihilated by decisions of ridiculous characters that vacillates between truly contrasting personalities. There is a humongous difference between constructing a twisted character who originally starts off “good” to fool the audience, and stunningly failing in providing a consistent personality that adapts to critical situations. The decisions of every single character, possible except for Gerry, and the subsequent outcomes played out exactly like a cheap B-horror flick that makes you scream at the screen. I have not seen such banal motif in such a long long long time, and to see it in a supposedly high-value production like this game, I was left aghast. The Troodon was the quintessential example. This new “species” demonstrated unfathomable incompetence in game design and character concept of the developers. Similarly was the whole mosasaur sequence.
Reviews seemed to condone the developers’ fiasco in these three cornerstones of any video game. I personally cannot understand how this game got better grades.
The only thing that kept me pressing buttons until the very end was the material. Even so I had to take a 2-week break to lessen my frustration.
Here’s praying another developer will do justice to such fascinating classic material for the upcoming movie Jurassic Park 4.
I paid $7.91 for this. If you really have to play the game, do not pay higher than this price.
i liked this game alot. it completely evokes nostalgia and that feeling of the film from so long ago.
i have mixed views on the qte’s but sometimes they work really well and it feels immersive… other times as everyone said they are just a nuisance. it forces you to watch the cutscenes on the edge of your seat ready to press whatever which can get annoying.
anyways regardless of that, the game was a fun experience. i actually really liked the graphics and felt they brought back the original movie quite well… but i can see what you mean about them being a bit primitive. regardless i enjoyedd the game alot.. almost as much as back to the future
