I <3 Jurassic Park!

[Zadoc]

Nope, not the movie, and I am not talking about the highly acclaimed Genesis version either!

Released: March 3, 1994
Platform: Super Nintendo
Publisher: Ocean
Developer: Ocean
Genre: Action/Adventure

Jurassic Park is one of those gems lost in obscurity. I am sure there were plenty of reasons to explain why – The game was suffering from being a movie license. The Blue Sky developed version of Jurassic Park on the Sega Genesis was getting more press and better reviews. There were many other stellar game for the Super Nintendo on the market at the time. Whatever the reason, the SNES iteration of Jurassic Park just never translated into a hit. What a shame.

It had it all

Usually, a game licensed from a movie or TV show is enough to send me to the hills. The world has had enough Catwoman, A-Team, ET and (insert license here) games to fill up a desert landfill one hundred times over. However, with Jurassic Park, the license screams video game! Ocean saw the popularity of the move not just as a way to cash in quickly on a license and then move on to the next project, they saw it as a way to develop a compelling game and to apply to world of Jurassic Park to a video game; and they did just that.

At the beginning of the game, the player takes control of the hero of the Spielberg film of the same name, Dr. Grant. Grant has several objectives. He must get safely off of the island, but before he does that, he must restore power to the facility, collect dinosaur eggs, and evade predators and fight off dinos all at the same time.

Searching for dino eggs gives the game a real "quest" kind of a feel. This is done outside in the wilderness of the island, and this world is a top down view shooter with a platform feel. Dr. Grant will navigate through an unforgiving environment and solve puzzles and collect ammo and new weapons along his way.

Grant’s mission to reestablish power will take him into a whole new realm! When entering buildings, the scenery turns to first person. It was truly a treat in 1994 to explore the facilities of Jurassic Park in glorious sprite based 3D! The core of the first person experience is exploring and shooting. Many gadgets, such as night vision goggles, aid Dr. Grant on his mission.

The only real fault of this game is lack of a save feature. This led me to starting over from the beginning on a number of occasions. Still, Jurassic Park is skillfully executed. No other game, at the time or since, really creates the feel of exploring the island, walking through the abandoned structures, or the fear and anxiety of lurking dinosaurs.

If you haven’t played this game, don’t get the rom, but the cartridge. It can be found with box and booklet for one to five dollars on Amazon or eBay.

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[thetoxicone]

I've never played the snes version, I'll have to try it sometime if I see it cheap locally.

[DigitalSpace]

SNES Jurassic Park was good in my book. The lack of a save feature of any kind definitely kills the appeal, though. This is one game you have to save for a day when you have nothing better to do but play through it and figure out what you need to do to beat it.

[Daltone]

Jurassic Park 2 was pretty good too, although totally different.

[64Bits]

I was just thinking about the Genny version the other day, and how much I miss playing it. I have never played the SNES one though.

[theshizzle3000]

Both Jurassic Park games are quite enjoyable. I had forgot about the SNES version until you brought it up. Its amazing to see that there are examples of movie-to-game ports that don't completely suck.