Welcome to Jurassic Pak Watch

I don’t have to explain to anyone what a phenomenon Jurassic Park was when it was released. And as a kid crazy about dinosaurs? It was a perfect storm. I saw Jurassic Park twice at the cinema, the Triple Cinema  when it was still standing, and then again at the Drive-In. I bought Jurassic Park comics, dinosaur figures, got Jurassic Park meals at McDonalds because they were giving special plastic cups with dinosaur profiles on them. It only stands to reason that I would play the games.

Even though I was a Nintendo kid, I have much more history with the Genesis Jurassic Park which I played a whole bunch at a friend’s house. However, I rented the SNES game and I was pretty excited about it. I remember thinking it looked great in Nintendo Power, I enjoyed overhead games, and hell – it was Jurassic Park. The thing is, at the time it seemed imperceptable.

Well, imperceptable to a degree. We had some idea what to do, but without a manual you don’t know exactly what to do – it’s never communicated very well in the game. However, you can start making headway once you start exploring. So while I made headway, an evening rental wasn’t enough at the time.

See, the gameplay in the SNES Jurassic Park takes place on the island – both the “overworld” and building interiors. The overworld is overhead and the interiors are in the first person.

Surprisingly, the overworld segments are more difficult than the interiors. You can instantly die from falling rocks, charging Triceratops, or the jaws of a Tyrannosaurus. Pick-ups on the overworld seem to be finite, and dinosaurs can respawn. They can attack you from any angle and are pretty active – it’s dangerous on Isla Nublar. Travelling across the island is often convoluted as well, paths being far more roundabout than you expect.

The interiors on the other hand are a breath of fresh air. Blow up a dinosaur? It stays dead, it will never come back. And the ammo and healing? Leave the building/change floor and come back and all of the loot has respawned. Also, since we are in specific interiors there are a lot of unique elements in named rooms (like the Visitor’s Centre Kitchen for instance) that help in navigation. So they’re not as easy to get lost in as some 3D maze sections in other games. The biggest inherent issue is that the field of view is way too small, as seen through night vision goggles. As well, the dinosaurs are very exploitable – they won’t move until you’re close enough to activate them, so square up a rocket from a distance and clobber them.

You begin to unravel the game when you identify that certain doors require certain key cards. TAKE NOTES!!! I cannot stress this enough. The backtracking in this game can be very tedious and you can relax the amount and streamline everything by writing stuff down. Write down where you found cards, eggs, ammo, computer consoles, nightvision batteries, EVERYTHING. Keep an inventory on paper or a text document or you will not be having a great time with this.

And I will say it’s bewildering that even though some of the rooms have unique elements every single computer console in the game looks the same and has the same menus and options – although functionality changes between computer.

It’s funny that the ingame hints are so useless. You will get popups from various other JP characters warning you about this or that dinosaur, or telling you how many eggs you have to find. The problem is, the tips are pretty banal and are repeated constantly. They also appear as a huge block over the action. They are transparent (turn solid when paused) and easily dismissed, yes, but they could have taken any number of less obnoxious methods to convey their useless repetitions.

I don’t mind a take notes kind of game though, and with the relaxed pace of owning the game versus the deadline of a rental I could take the time to explore the Island and unravel this game. And once you’ve familiarized yourself with the lay of the land it’s not really that bad. It’s graphically appealing, the dinosaurs are detailed and the Island looks lush. The soundtrack is also pretty ace, with nice music. If you use the cattle prod weapon you can even make ill record scratches to go along with it – mad kudos.

I can appreciate the overhead segments of the game because of the decent dinosaur variety and the general deadliness of it. It actually gets really tense when the music changes and you know the Tyrannosaurus is nearby. I generally don’t carry darts – the one weapon that will slow it down – so I’d never outrun it if I stumbled too close. The overworld does become a bit tedious when you consider the amount of backtracking you can end up doing in this game, but there is something cool about clearing out interiors and using them as safe havens as you cross the overworld of Isla Nublar.

I think it would be possible to distill this game down to a very efficient sequence of collecting and performing key tasks once you’re familiar with it. Honestly, once you’re pointed in the right direction things start falling into place really quickly. It just gets tedious if you backtrack again and again, so for your own sake plot your travels with efficiency in mind.

But it plays well and that helps loads. I would say pick up multiple bolas and rockets from respawnable building ammo stocks early in the game. The bola is bar none the best weapon in the game – it is a wide attack that explodes dinosaurs and keeps travelling to explode MORE dinosaurs until it hits a wall. The best overhead and first person weapon. You often have to respond quickly to Raptors jumping out of trees in the overhead so the bola works wonders. Navigating the world is responsive and Grant can react quickly enough to deal with threats as they make themselves known. In fact the only bit of poor control is making fine adjustments in first person – I haven’t tried the mouse, maybe that helps?

Finally, this is a one sitting game – no passwords or battery save here. This game can be completed pretty quickly but for a first undertaking it can take multiple hours which can get tiresome without a break. This is why I approached it in a few undertakings, so each new attempt went more quickly. That helped.

I’ve been ranty in this article, but the game is good. It’s just flawed, you know? It’s a decent play for fans of Jurassic Park and it’s certainly not the worst licensed game out there. It has a lot of flavour and is a good game that’s worth spending a little while in. Good, but not great.
We could have done a lot worse, I suppose. Jurassic Park being as huge as it was, it’s lucky that we actually got a handful of unique, and yes – good – games in its wake. I appreciate that the SNES game is completely different from the Genesis game, they both offer something unique. If you want to play JP on the SNES, I recommend reading the manual beforehand because it outlines the big missions of the game. Pop it in your SNES, and hold onto your butts!