Jurassic Park
1993
- shooter
- platform
- action
- science fiction
- horror
- survival
- single player
The story
Jurassic Park is a SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive game based on the first movie. The game was playable as either Dr. Alan Grant or a Velociraptor (presumably the The Big One). Grant is the default character but can be changed using the 'Player' option on the game's main menu to swich to the raptor.
What it’s like
Chunky 16-bit sprites move across side-scrolling jungle and facility backdrops in muted greens, greys and rain-dark blues, with dinosaurs drawn large and blocky enough to read at a glance. The chiptune soundtrack is thin and looping, with the film's famous theme lending a little familiar warmth, and the sound of gunfire and roars stays small and tinny. The feel is brisk and repetitive, closer to a tense arcade run than a slow mood piece: short bursts of platforming, dodging, and shooting, with stretches of quiet backtracking between them. Its vibe is scrappy, dusky unease, best suited to an evening session with a controller in hand or a nostalgic retro-gaming hour. Violence is cartoonish and bloodless, with dinosaurs defeated in small puffs rather than gore, but the threat is constant and the difficulty can frustrate. Switching to the Velociraptor changes the perspective entirely, turning hunter into hunted and giving a different, more predatory rhythm. It suits players who enjoy old-school Genesis action, dinosaur fans who want to play as a raptor, and anyone curious about how 1990s licensed games translated the film into pixels.
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