Jurassic Park: Classic Games Collection Review: Not Quite A Walk In The Park

There’s quite a few licensed movie games still lingering in the depths of classic gaming’s libraries. Old Star Wars games, some Indiana Jones, and there’s always that god-awful E.T. game for the 2600. Then we get to Jurassic Park and there’s been a handful of them that are now part of a digital collection spearheaded by Limited Run Games, making use of their Carbon Engine to keep things running.

Classics Unearthed

There’s five games in total for this collection, featuring the original Jurassic Park for the NES, the Game Boy port of that same game, the SNES Jurassic Park game, Jurassic Park: Rampage Edition for the Sega Genesis, and, lastly, Jurassic Park 2: The Chaos Continues for the SNES and its Game Boy edition. There’s a couple changes to these classics in the form of in-game maps, saving and loading functionality, and even a Rewind feature that lets you simply rewind your most recent gameplay in case you make a slip-up. I definitely approve of any game that adds ease-of-use features like this, they’re simple, they do the job, and help ease some of the pressure.

First and foremost, looking at the NES Jurassic Park game, it’s the most playable of the bunch, I’d argue. It has you playing as Dr. Alan Grant during his entrapment inside the dinosaur-infested Jurassic Park. This entry is a top-down shooter where you’re trapped in a park full of dinosaurs, with some variety in the dinosaurs you’ll see, and different attacks to keep in mind. The tunes were pretty decent as well, so really this is probably the one I’d recommend the most. The graphics aren’t awful, but playing through this had me notice a particularly problematic issue with the collection as a whole.

See, I couldn’t find any in-game instructions for these games, and for someone that hasn’t played any of these before, you’ll be subject to either guesswork, or looking up guides, because nothing is explained. No story explanation, no mechanics training, nothing. Most of my time playing through this was blind wandering. It wasn’t necessarily a hard game, just an aimless one. I’m still not sure why the Game Boy version was loaded on here as well, since you have the much superior NES version, but if that’s what you remember, that may fare better.

That said, the SNES version took what I did like about the NES one and made it more infuriating. Again, the lack of tutorial or instructions at all is a real deal breaker here, as I couldn’t figure out what I needed to do to survive in this iteration of Jurassic Park. The enemies early on were too much for me to get around, making me wonder if there’s some ability or button input I was missing that would help me. It was rather baffling to me, as this top-down shooter format worked so well for the NES version.

Danger Ahead

Next on the list of revisits, we have Jurassic Park 2: The Chaos Continues for the SNES. This was probably my least favorite of the bunch. Starring Dr. Alan Grant again, you’ll be running and gunning your way out of Isla Nublar and make it to a helicopter evac in the Visitors Center. It’s mostly a generic run and gun game, and while it featured a short cinematic opening, the gameplay was such a downgrade that no padding could make up for what was a very tedious and uninteresting game. There’s a mechanic where you have to use non-lethal weapons for dinosaurs and lethal weapons for humans, but it adds an unnecessary level of extra difficulty to an already difficult game. Add in vapid graphics and little else will be around to compel you to revisit this one. As a side note though, the Game Boy version of Jurassic Park 2 actually held my interest for a bit. Sure it was graphically on the lean side, but the music wasn’t bad, the gameplay was simple and manageable, and not nearly as punishing as the Genesis version.

Jurassic Park: Rampage Edition, despite being one of the more well-received of the bunch in the past, was the one that I really just couldn’t get into. I saw where there were some neat ideas, but ultimately, it was just a chore to play. The first level is just you trying to blast pterodactyls to keep them from depositing you back at the start of the level. Worse still is that enemies respawn off-screen. Sometimes I’d have enough room with the Rewind function to dodge out of the way, but I still struggled to make any progress through that level, even with the extra help. I did enjoy a bit of the novelty of playing as the Raptor, though I had a real hard time with the controls. He has another spinning jump he can do after a normal jump that I had trouble lining up for platforms. It came across as janky, and if it wasn’t for a strong reliance on vertical platforming, I feel I would’ve had much more fun playing as the Raptor.

Better Left Parked

All in all, I’d have a very hard time recommending the Jurassic Park: Classic Games Collection to anyone that isn’t a die-hard fan of the series or someone with a lot of nostalgia for these games in particular. Most of the entries are sparse in content and not all that fun to play, with the NES Jurassic Park game and the Game Boy version of Jurassic Park 2 being the only ones I was able to stomach for very long. Sure, it’s kind of cool that there’s save states, a rewind button, and in-game maps now, but it really doesn’t do much in relieving these overall tired and unfun games. Still, if nostalgia is your friend, you might want to check out the Jurassic Park: Classic Games Collection.

Final Verdict 3/5

Available on: PlayStation 5 (Reviewed), PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox Series X|S; Publisher: Limited Run Games; Developer: Limited Run Games, Ocean Software, BlueSky Software; Number of Players: 1-2; Released: November 22nd, 2023; MSRP: $29.99

Full disclosure: A copy of Jurassic Park: Classic Games Collection was provided by the publisher.