Review an old game

[Neurion]

I was going through some old games, and found a little childhood sweetheart of mine, Jurassic Park: Trespasser, so I decided to write a review and I enjoyed it a lot, so I advise anyone to review an old PC game they used to love.





Cast your mind back to 1998. Loads happened, but I was 7 so don't remember a lot of it. But I do remember the countless hours spent playing Jurassic Park: Trespasser.



As an enthusiastic fan of Jurassic Park, the idea of a game where I could walk around Site B and bash dino brains was just all too much for me. Admittedly, I never got through much of it, until recently. Truth be told, I was petrified of the game. The idea was good, but when you've trundled through a small part of Site B and carefully walked past two Brachiosauruses, scared that one may come and crush you, only to find that past them are 2 Veloceraptors looking for a quick meal, well, you can imagine my 7 year old self rushing to end the game out of absolute fear. The countless hours spent, were just doing this small part of the game then ending it again. One thing, as a 7 year old, I did spend countless hours doing in the game, was looking down to reveal two rather large breasts (the character you play is female), or 'boobies' as I called them then. Of coarse I had no idea what they were for at the time, only that men liked them, and then so should I.



Which brings me on to the HUD. There is none. The life gauge is a tattoo on her left breast, which is the mother of all excuses. I can imagine grown men with wives/girlfriends being caught looking at them to just reply "I'm checking my health!" Your ammo, should you choose to wield a gun, is announced by our heroine (her name is Anne).



After playing the game again, being a much less ignorant person and much more skilled in FPS's (I forgot to mention it is an FPS) I am absolutely in awe of the size of the game. It's huge, even by todays standards, and the breasts are as big as ever As times pass, you come to get a pre-conception of games past of being small and crappy in comparison to today's standards, but it shocked me when I got past the dreaded veloceraptors. The game is split into 'chunks' and if it were made today, then it would probably be a continuous environment, and there is a downside to this. For whatever reason, when you go into the next 'chunk' your weapons will just go away, which isn't especially helpful when on one occasion you enter a new 'chunk' to find a veloceraptor running straight for you. Now, I don't know if anyone has tried, but trying to fend off a veloceratpor with one arm isn't easy, which will bring me on to gameplay.



Everything is done with Anne's right arm. We never find out why only the right, but one can only assume it was damaged whilst crash landing on the island (as I forgot to mention this, Anne is a tourist on a plane, plane goes down on Site B, everyone dies but her, game begins) but this is quite annoying at times. When you hit the correct button (for some reason I've completely forgotten the controls even though I've just played it) Annes right arm will pop into view, and blimey its long. You can pick things up with this arm, such as weapons, crates etc. yet using them is a bit dodgy. The arm is always in a peculiar position, and doesn't seem to have an elbow either. It's also annoying that when you have to do a crate puzzle, you have to drop your weapon then try and remember where you put it. There are also moments when you realise that she is somehow related to Mr. Fantastic, as your arm will sometimes get caught somewhere and then extend to great lengths when you move away, another annoyance. This also makes using weapons difficult, and I died often because I couldn't quite get the aim right. A more standard use of weapons, like in Half-Life, would've been more appropriate. Also, for an island populated by dinosaurs, they are very rarely seen, and most seem to be veloceraptors, and those that aren't are quickly eaten by them. It would've been nice to have been able to observe herbivores, and it seems that most dinosaurs travel alone or in two's, which is very unrealistic. More dino's would've been nicer. Which brings me onto movement. They decided that each animal should naturally decide how to move, and there are no preset animations. This sounds impressive, but looks quite daft. A lot of the time the animals are making un-natural movements and body positions, and some veloceraptors seem to have taken into hip-hop dancing. Although, one thing I LOVED was that you don't automatically restart when you die, and you get to watch as you're being eaten.



The storyline is simple, you crash land on Site B and need a way out. The game features some scenes from JP: The Lost World, although they're not familiar. For example, you come across a beach with deck chairs and such and you hear a section from the film where the rich family are on the beach, but it looks nothing like in the film. Anne is played by Minnie Driver, and Richard Attenborough does some VO's for his role in the films, John Hammond.



I also did some research on the game and found out some things I didn't know. It was the first game to use an advanced physics engine, similar to the Source engine, however, it was buggy. Things dont seem to like touching other things. For example, sometimes you have to stack crates to get somewhere and they end up vibrating away from each other. But it was very revolutionary, and lead the way for the Source engine. For example, you had to throw rocks at things to make them fall and become accessible. A simple task, but something quite new at the time. It also had a unique sound system, where it could dynamically create the sound of any two objects colliding, at any speed. For example, throwing a rock at something, walking on different surfaces etc. It was set to have the most advanced AI in any game, with each animal having their own set of emotions, fear, happiness and hunger, meaning when you approach an animal, it may deal with you differently than another may, depending on how it feels. Throughout the game, you'll encounter many fights between dinosaurs, with carnivores feeding on herbivores, and carnivores fighting other carnivores, such as an encounter in the game of a T Rex fighting a pair of Veloceraptors. These things would have obviously affected their mood, and their attitude towards you after this had happened. Unfortunately, there was a bug where the animals would rapidly encounter mood swings and just freeze, and so they just set all the animals into 'angry mode'



The game was too far ahead of its time and it flopped, selling only 50,000 copies, and I had 2 of them IF the game was made today, it wouldn't have been as revolutionary, but it would have been possible.



I've realised I haven't mentioned graphics, which isn't totally important in a review of an old game, so I'll just say that it's OK for the time.



Anyway, I want to give the game a 6.0/10. The game is pretty boring, yet the bugs do offer some amusement.

[neo158]

I still have a copy of this game somewhere and I would agree that it was way ahead of its time. Yet, somehow, it has spawned countless other game engines and Physics APIs, such as, Unreal Engine 3 and the Source Engine as well as the Havok and PhysX APIs.



One thing you may not know is that there is still an active community here TresCom Forums who have provided various upgrades to the in game graphics, sound as well as adding extra levels and buildings to the game itself.

[Neurion]

One thing you may not know is that there is still an active community here TresCom Forums who have provided various upgrades to the in game graphics, sound as well as adding extra levels and buildings to the game itself.

I've been aware of TresCom, but never signed up.

[c0lin]

Should I be reviewing an old game within this topic or in a new topic? I'd like to continue the trend you've started. Of course a review that is not graphics biased or controls biased. Basically a review of an old game from the perspective of the time.

[mastic33]

Should I be reviewing an old game within this topic or in a new topic? I'd like to continue the trend you've started. Of course a review that is not graphics biased or controls biased. Basically a review of an old game from the perspective of the time.

I think a dedicated thread to 'old' game reviews would be awesome

[Zeppelin]

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Really interesting.

[Neurion]

Should I be reviewing an old game within this topic or in a new topic? I'd like to continue the trend you've started. Of course a review that is not graphics biased or controls biased. Basically a review of an old game from the perspective of the time.

Well, my idea was to start your own thread, but you could turn this into the official 'old game review' thread, else the forums may get over run by reviews of old games