There's not much point searching for depth in the characters, as each sticks closely to their designated archetype but their personality seems to fluctuate from scene to scene, depending on the demands of the story. At one point you control both sides of an argument at the same time, essentially bickering with yourself in a scene that goes nowhere and illustrates nothing. The same is true of dialogue scenes where you'll get to converse with the characters, though as your control hops from one to the other, sometimes within the same scene or even conversation, there's never room to identify with any character, or even feel like you're making meaningful decisions. Even here, there's little mental effort required as the game often explicitly tells you what needs to be done. Other challenges are little more than sequences of buttons and actions that must be performed in a specific order. The most demanding, arriving in Episode 2, involves using a turntable to remove maintenance trolleys and mount three cars on a rollercoaster track in the correct sequence. Puzzles are inevitably limited, both in number and scope. It looks like a game, but never feels like one. There's no inventory to manage, so all you're really doing is triggering information about the environment or telling characters to open the only door available to them. You don't have to look very hard, as everything of interest has a big question mark attached, which turns into a magnifying glass so you can click on it. ![]() The one closest to Telltale's usual style involves panning the camera around a location, looking for things. There are three basic scenarios you'll have to deal with, but the combination never clicks. The gameplay is never the equal of the inspiration though. The first of four episodes is the strongest, sticking closely to Spielberg's formula and striking the best balance between the terrifying ferocity of its inhabitants and the sheer awe and wonder they evoke. Sadly, the game never quite grasps the opportunity to add anything meaningful to the franchise. Lord of the Rings: War in the North, this is not. We see relatively little of the park in the first movie, so there's plenty of room for our new characters to get into scrapes without tripping over the adventures of Alan Grant, Ian Malcolm and the others. Needless to say, they're all stuck on the island when the dinosaurs get free, and must be rescued by our third group of characters, a trio of wise-cracking mercenaries sent in to scoop up any survivors.Ĭompared to other attempts to crowbar new stories into existing movie plots, this one fares better than most. Meanwhile, specialist dinosaur veterinarian Gerry Harding has brought his rebellious teen daughter to the island, taking advantage of the park's spectacularly lax attitude to child endangerment in an attempt to steer her away from a life of petty theft, smoking and sullen back chat. It's her job to retrieve the can for her employer. Nima is a Costa Rican thief-for-hire with a personal vendetta against Hammond's In-gen corporation. The stolen embryos prove central to the fate of our cast of characters. That story starts by flitting daintily around the events of the first film, in particular the fate of those stolen dino embryos hidden in a can of fake shaving cream by doomed IT nerd Dennis "Nuh-uh-uh, you didn't say the magic word" Nedry. There's a little more to it than that, but with an over-reliance on such a problematic gameplay mechanism, the effect is much as you'd expect: this is a game that feels more like interactive storybook than a fully-fledged video game in its own right. ![]() The Jurassic Park movies have inspired a lot of different gameplay styles, covering everything from fighting games to lightgun shooters and even management simulations - but in adding "adventure game" to the list, Telltale Games has opted to rely on a lot of QTE.Īt points, the game is nothing but an elongated sequence of button-matching reaction tests. ![]() Used excessively, it's a fiddly distraction that detracts from the on-screen narrative and reduces player input to pre-school levels. Used sparingly, it can work wonders, straddling the divide between cut-scene and action and lending a cinematic lustre to moments that would otherwise be entirely passive. ![]() Like the genetic science John Hammond so cavalierly roped into servicing his quest for glory, the Quick Time Event is a tool often misused by game developers. Or what about the part when Laura Dern is chased out of the electricity substation by raptors and has to dash across open ground to the safety of the visitor's centre by pressing left and right at just the right time? Remember that bit in Jurassic Park when the T-Rex attacks the cars, and the kids are inside, and Jeff Goldblum jumps out of the car with a flare and distracts the dinosaur by pressing up, down?
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