The only good Jurassic Park game I can think of is a title released on Gameboy after the first movie. Then Capcom released the wonderful Dino Crisis for Psx. While the game was not related to Spielberg's movies, it took more than an idea from them. There is no need to say that Dino Crisis would have never existed without Jurassic Park.

While in the U.S. the third episode of Jurassic Park has already cashed 148,000,000 $, Savage Entertainment is developing Jurassic Park: Survival, a game for Ps2 published by Universal Interactive Studios.

Making good use of their cinematographic licenses, Universal Studios have the project to become one of the most important publishers for PS2. Starting from this fall we'll see a good number of titles like the awaited Crash Bandicoot: Wrath of Cortex, The Mummy Returns, The Thing and we could soon hear of a Ps2 adventure of Spyro, the cute little dragon. As you may have noticed, many of these titles are related to popular movies. The Thing for example, is inspired by the movie of John Carpenter, whose story is perfect for another science fiction Survival Horror videogame settled in the Antarctic continent.

All this could sound exciting to many players, but the truth is that usually videogames inspired by movies are bad games. And this happens for several different reasons. First of all, they share the story with the movie. While this could seem an advantage, in reality it steals something fundamental in the development of a videogame, the creation of an original story. Creating a story for a videogame is something different from creating a story for a movie. A cinematographic screenwriter should have the ability to interest and amuse the player but he doesn't have to think about the (physical) interaction of the player with the story. Just to make an example, the story of a masterpiece like Metal Gear Solid was put through many little changes throughout the development of the game, in order to create a perfect mix of gameplay and storytelling. And this leads to another problem. Videogames coming from movies usually lack in gameplay structure. They often consist in the find-the-key-see-the-excerpt-from-the-movie thing, nothing more (yes I know, this is the structure of too many successful bad games out there).

The Story

Well, things could be different with Jurassic Park Survival. While the release of the game follows the release of Jurassic Park III, the story is not directly related to the one featured in the movie. You take the role of a researcher, David Espinoza, sent to a secret third island where dinosaurs are freely breeding. The U.S. government sent a group of researchers to control the situation in the island and avoid the possibility of overpopulation. A group of terrorists takes control of the island and kill the researchers with the purpose to steal the precious DNA of the animals. David Espinoza and many other researchers try to fly off the island on board of a helicopter, but the terrorists immediately shoot them down. But David is a tough guy, and survives the crash. He decides to save the remaining hostages, fighting the terrorists and moving into a jungle populated by big, dangerous dinosaurs.

What's interesting in the story is the fact that dinosaurs are not the only enemies you'll have to face during the game. If you remember the movies or the original wonderful books written by Michael Crichton, men are the only real "evil" force. Dinosaurs are dangerous and eat humans like popcorn but they simply follow their behaviour. And the only animals in the movies that really seem vicious are the raptors, which not by chance act like humans (I suggest you take a look at the first Jurassic Park, when in the opening scene Robert Muldoon and the raptor look each other in the eyes).

The Gameplay

Jurassic Park Survival: will feature twelve different levels, like it happened in action games like the Tomb Raider series. To tell the truth, the use of levels in an adventure game instead of a unique big environment (like the base in Dino Crisis) doesn't thrill me very much. It usually leads to a fragmentation of the story that if it's perfect in a game like the wonderful Ape Escape, in games that are supposed to carry out a deep and intriguing story is a big limit. Anyhow, it's not clear how this levels-based structure will work in Jurassic Park: Survival; after all this could give the game a longer replay value respect to all the other Survival Horror titles.

What's sure is that each level will be enormous. The exploration will be a fundamental moment in the game. From what we have seen in the screenshots, the jungle is nicely detailed with rocks, trees and mist rendered in real time by the engine of the game. David will be able to walk, jump and perform many other moves that could resemble what we've seen in the last survival horror from Sony, Extermination. In other words, the character will be freer if compared to the usual Survival Horror hero with his feet "glued" to the floor.

Battles against men, and first of all against dinosaurs, will be obviously important (Davis will find many different weapons during the adventure) but sometimes fighting a T-Rex in a direct clash is not the best way to save your skin. Hiding, moving in the shadow and avoiding security cameras will be important in this game. You know, a touch of Metal Gear Solid is always welcome.

The game will also feature a gameplay mode in which you'll be able to drive ATV's (All Terrain Vehicles) to avoid natural hazards, dinosaurs and enemies.

Eight different species of dinosaurs are featured in the game. T-Rexes, Spinosaurs, Raptors, Truodons, Compys, Pteranodons, Spitters and Triceratops are all here to grace our 128-bit console.

Graphics

The game is still under development. As reported by Ps2 Official Magazine, there are still serious slowdown and draw in issues in the game. If you take a look at one of the screenshots with the T-Rex you can notice draw in problems in the claw and in the tail of the dinosaur, which seems to vanish into a building. The environments are huge and looks quite good, but at this point of the development, the trees and the textures look a bit poor. The truth is that it's not easy to render in real time a tropical jungle, especially when everything, trees, ground and water, should react to the dinosaurs' size and mass.

It's difficult to figure out what the game will look like when the development is completed. Anyhow, the dinosaurs' models look wonderful. They are built with about 1,500 polygons and if you consider that all the environments are rendered in real time, this is surely a big number. The skin is designed with great care and the eyes are marvellously defined.

On the other hand, the main character still looks a bit flat. He is wearing the usual Bruce Willis-like vest but he seems poorly characterized if compared to the other survival horror characters. Regina will probably remain the most fascinating dinosaurs' killer on a gaming console.

Concluding...

Jurassic Park: Survival will be a deep, intriguing title if the developers are able to keep up the good work they are doing. The mix of action, espionage, hiding, racing (the possibility to drive ATVs) and the wonderful dinosaurs should provide a richer experience than the usual survival horror game. The real question is: will the developers be able to create a survival horror title or at the end we'll have a tedious Tomb Raider's clone?

Jurassic Park Survival will be released in U.S. this fall, on November 14th. And be sure, I'll be one of the firsts to play and review this title.