RETRO REVIEW: JURASSIC PARK: THE VIDEO GAME (SNES, 1993) Based on The Movie Based on The Book.
Anyone who grew up in the NES/SNES days can attest that games based on licensed properties were with very few exceptions, notoriously awful. But this never took away from their allure, an undeniable curiosity would set in begging the question: Don’t you want to play the movie? Jurassic Park was one of those titles that I never had the chance to check out during it’s 16-bit heyday, but thanks to my SNES Classic which has had a few *cough* modifications *cough*, the other night I decided to finally have a go at it. The idea was to drink a ton of beer and with the help of a gamefaqs walkthrough, attempt to complete the entire game in one sitting.
The post which you are about to read is an account of the tragedy which befell me. It is all the more tragic in that I was drunk.
Right away, the magic of Mode-7 graphics provide a cool little rotating island that turns into the title screen. I always loved little touches like this and by pressing the play button above, you dear reader can experience it for yourself via the magic of YouTubes.
After hitting start, there’s a digitized voice that says “Welcome to Jurassic Park.” This doubles as both a pleasant greeting and warning of the horrors that await you. Walking around a bit you’ll find some ammo and guns and stuff lying on the ground but oh boy…you have to press a button to pick them up instead of being able to, oh I don’t know…walk over them. It really bugged me at first but then I realized it’s because you can only carry 2 different weapons at a time. Meaning it would really harsh your mellow if during the heat of battle a good weapon automatically flipped out for a bad one during your evasive maneuvers. It makes sense in general I guess, but is a detail that could easily be improved on if the game had been nice enough to include an inventory screen (not to mention the ability to button map your weapons). That’s right: You’ll never know how much ammo you’ve got stashed away or how many eggs and I.D. cards you’ve collected because this gun-heavy action adventure game failed to include an items menu.
Hive five there, Ocean.
Roaming around a bit reveals that the control isn’t very good as your character moves in a near Star Tropics level of stiffness. You’ll quickly realize that:
1. The enemies in this game are super fast.
2. You can basically throw diagonal aiming out the window.
3. You’ll want to throw your television out the window too.
Yo doodz, you guys seen a couple of kids running around here?
And just like that! Barely a few screens into the game a couple of Velociraptors hop out of the trees like some kind of nightmare surprise party and chow down on you real quick like. You haven’t even had enough time to sort out which weapons are the most ideal to carry around or gotten a handle on the controls before a dinosaur is pooping you out.
Time to try again, this time heading into the visitor center to take a look at the fancy first person stages.
Hey, these graphics are kind of neat.
OHHOLYFUCKWHY!?
Apparently these levels are compatible with the SNES mouse and pad that came packed in with Mario Paint but I never owned that game, I’m not some kind of nerd. These areas do actually allow you to pick up ammo and health just by walking over them and you can max out your weapons by exiting and reentering the buildings over and over again. Not that you can ever tell when you’re full though because again: No inventory screen. Honestly, this first person stuff is a nice addition for the sake of variety but we’re running on SNES hardware here which means getting any kind of real enjoyment out of it will require plenty of tolerance and understanding.
After finding an egg and an I.D. card on the roof there’s nothing left to do but head back outside and into the jungle again. The FAQ I was following told me that I needed to start collecting more eggs in an area to the west and after heading there, my buzz had settled in comfortably and my patience was wearing thin. Specifically with the aiming. After spending the next hour or so getting myself stuck in Raptors’ toothy grins and electrified to death by randomly placed electrifier things I’d just about had enough.
Then this happened:
…thank…you….
Which was as good a time as any to throw in the controller and resume playing some Balatro. In all fairness, Jurassic Park for the Super Nintendo has some good stuff going for it. The vibrant graphics in general are nice and detailed and the animation is pretty good. It’s just that visual pleasures aside, no inventory screen, the lack of a map and extremely “specific” controls made the entire experience a bit of chore to deal with.
Just because I finally could play this game, I guess I should have stopped to think if I should.
