When Jurassic Park: The Game was finally announced for the X-box 360, Playstation 3, and PC, JP fanboys everywhere nearly shat their pants. A JP game has been in heavy demand for quite some time now. But when it was quickly announced that the game would NOT be a first person shooter, fanboys thought "Ok..... I'll still rent it!" And when gameplay footage was finally released fanboys said, "WTF is this crap?"
I'll admit that I had similar thoughts when viewing the trailer. The graphics and sounds were absolutely horrible. And when I heard it was like a Telltale game, I was even more disgusted. (I didn't know what a Telltale game was at the time until I saw gameplay of Heavy Water, and it's basically like one 8 hour cutscene with lots of quick-time events.)
But I still saw JP on the shelf for considerably less than the average game and I said "Sure, why not?" I'm a huge JP fan at heart and it really inspired my childhood. There were a lot of questions I wanted answered and so I popped it into my Xbox and started playing. I put my Turtle Beach headset on and heard the epic JP score begin. A smile quickly appeared on my face. And then the monstrous T. Rex roar came into earshot and that smile quickly became a stupid grin.
I expected to be mildly entertained by this game but I was absolutely enthralled. From the beginning when you find the Barbasol can and Nedry's rotting corpse to the fantastic and heart-stomping finale. It all sent my heart racing for its life. The story is well paced and you don't spend too much time talking to people before the action quickly picks up. And there is a LOT of action in this game. But when you are talking, it's not really much of a lull. There's a lot of expository that JP fans will love to hear. Topics that were skimmed over in the first movie take center stage in the JP Game. (Example: The Lysene Contingency.)
It's human characters are phenomenal. Granted, two of the main characters may feel annoying in the beginning, but this quickly changes once the peril starts. More characters will pop up at the beginning of Acts 2 and 3, and you'll care even more about them. Each character goes through his or her own arc. Friends become enemies, enemies become friends, and an incredibly heroic death ensues. It's quite possibly the greatest death moment I've ever played in a video game. I saw one review that said the betrayals felt forced and random. I personally believe this reviewer was inebriated while playing the game. The betrayals are shocking but make perfect sense given the characters and their previous actions and motives.
But what is a JP game without the REAL stars of the show? THE DINOSAURS! And believe me, the dinos don't take second stage. The ever-popular Tyrannosaurus is the main attraction, which is nice to see after Jurassic Park 3 replaced him with a Spino... Spino... what-was-it-called? But the T.Rex has a great supporting cast as well, and they all have their moments of glory. The Dilophosaurus and Raptors return, as well as newcomers like the nocturnal Troodon and the nightmarishly terrifying Mosasaurus, which marks the debut of marine dinosaurs in the Jurassic Park franchise.
The quick-time events never get old. You get rewarded by playing a scene out perfectly without missing a beat. But pulling this off is quite hard. You'll miss.... and die.... a lot. In any other game dying a lot will make you hurl your controller at your screen. But here, you will actually purposefully die. Why? Because the deaths are glorious. They are often brutal and sometimes downright hilarious. Sometimes they come completely out of left-field, and you'll be left screaming "OOOOHH SNAP!!" The game is only a T rating, mainly because of the lack of any real blood or gore. But what the game does instead is leave what's happening to your imagination. And that's more horrifying than any visual experience.
I doubt that sites like IGN or Game Informer will give a crap about this kind of game. This isn't a gamer's game. A review for something like this should be done by a film critic and not a video game critic. That's because this game resembles a movie far more than it does a video game. And not just any movie. It shares the styles of Spielberg's original classic far more than does The Lost World or Jurassic Park 3. But people who play non-stop First-Person shooters are going to think this game is unbelievably boring. However, if you're a fan of role-playing games, or fantastic story-telling and cinematic experiences, I recommend you pick up this game. And ff you're a Jurassic Park fan, then why the hell aren't you playing this NOW!? It's a-whole-nother entry into the Jurassic Park saga.