Jurassic Park: Trespasser (PC)

Adventures in Jurassic Park, part 16.

Okay this is the last one, I promise. I couldn't finish my Jurassic Park 'week' without including Trespasser. It just wouldn't be right.

After a short intro showing our protagonist missing an answering machine message because she's busy being in a plane crash, I find myself surrounded by wreckage on a mysterious island. I guess I should get off this beach and go see if there's any abandoned science facilities full of guns and food nearby.

Awesome! I've found myself a plank of wood!

It seems that I have hold down the arm button to move her hand to an object, then press the grab button to pick it up. And then I have to do it again when I accidentally walk too close to a wall and she drops it.

Turning around is weirdly awkward, because once you've turned her head far enough to face her shoulder, she starts slowly turning her body instead. I can do small turns very fast, but if I try to do a 180 it's painfully slow.

Okay she's got a right arm, and a torso, but I can't see any legs when I run. Also her left arm seems to end at the elbow, though it's probably just the angle I'm looking from.


Oh, that tattoo is the health meter. It fills up as I take damage, but I regenerate health over time.

YES! This is more like it. Screw the small piece of wood, I want the shotgun.

You see those sparks flying off that barrel on the right? Direct hit! There's no crosshair on screen so I have to twist her wrist to line up the gun sights to make aimed shots.

Okay, I'll holster one pistol, and hold on to another. There's no reloading in this though, so I'm going to have to make do with the ammo in the guns.

Okay, I'm bored trying to push this door open with my hands. It's time to take a more... ingenious approach to get over this fence.

I cunningly drag the box down and use it for a step. Now I can just jump over!

Hey look, dinosaurs! I'd forgotten there were dinosaurs in this box puzzle simulator. I like the way they keep jumping up and down to reach the leaves. Very realistic.

Often coming across stuff like this will trigger a comment by the protagonist, or a clip of something she remembers from a recording by Jurassic Park's creator, John Hammond (voiced by Richard Attenborough). Weirdly she'll even make the occasional comment about how she's bored of listening to him talk... in her memory.

Oh well, back to the boxes. Okay, I think if I keep throwing my bat up here I can knock a couple off and stack them up to make steps.

What the fuck? I just.. where the fuck did this thing come from? By the time I knew it was there I'd already hit the floor. Ew, and now I get a first person view of it eating her corpse.

Okay, I'll just reload and be more careful next time. If I can spot it before it sees me I might be able to walk around it without it even knowing I was there.


LATER.

Oh CRAP, it's spotted me! And I've got my back against a wall. Wait, what happened to my weapon?

COME ON, just reach a little further! I must have dropped the damn thing by brushing it against that beam when I ran here. It really doesn't take much to get items to just fall from your hand.

YES! I got the bat! Hit it, smack it with that bat! No, stop waving it over it's head, just... maybe I can reposition my hand a little lower... well crap she's dead again. I need a better plan here.


LATER.

How do you like my plan B, you smug prehistoric git. I just hope there aren't many more of these things wandering nearby because I've only got 4 bullets left now.


LATER, ON THE NEXT LEVEL.

Damn, I think it saw me. Okay I think it's having a bit of struggle getting up this hill so I have time to think. I've still got a couple of bullets left, so... wait, where's my gun? What happened to my gun? Did I drop it again, or did I lose it when I finished the last level?

Well I can't just try to run past it, it's faster than me. I need to think of a way to... oh shit it's coming after me, RETREAT!

YES! Awesome! I'm back in the game. I'm going right back and I'm gonna kick that raptor's ass.

There's been a reasonable number of guns around so far, but they're not always in an obvious place.


LATER.

Man, at this rate I'm going to end up with a box covered in rocks and nothing left to throw. Screw it, I'll just shoot them down.

This is actually a cunning trap. The first time I ran down this monorail track, I jumped through these boxes, and fell straight down the hole annoyingly hidden behind them, landing dead on the ground below. And then a raptor came and ate the corpse. Damn raptors.

Aw crap, my rifle is too long. The barrel is resting on the dinosaur's back. I'm going to have to back up and get a little space here.

One shot, one car kill! The poor creature didn't even have time to react.

Oh fuck. Uh, yeah that's right, you go play with those raptors down there while I go run in the opposite direction. I actually emptied an entire magazine into the tyrannosaurs at point blank range, and I'm not sure it even noticed.

Clever girl.

Wow, she pushed her friend right through the floor. Okay, two bullets for you, and the other raptor I'll leave to the mercy of the level. By the time she bounces free I'll be long gone.

Oh come on, three of them? I can't fight that many. Screw it, I'll just make a run for it!

And then I immediately die from falling damage because I forgot to try to slow my descent.

The wreckage of a BioSyn corporation helicopter? The plot thickens! But I'm through with this for now.

It's obvious from the start that this game really shouldn't have been released in the state it's in. The dinosaurs bounce around in a way that most experts agree dinosaurs should not bounce, and just picking up and carrying a weapon can be a struggle at times, never mind using it to kill things. Plus once I just tripped and died for no reason at all.

But even hilariously broken, the game's still more fun than most of the other Jurassic Park games for me so far. Being able to save and load at any time helps make the glitches and weird controls bearable and I'm impressed with how close they got to making it all work six years before Half Life 2's physics puzzles or FarCry's open jungle levels. So it gets a shiny star.

Part 1: Jurassic Park (NES)
Part 2: Jurassic Park (GB)
Part 3: Jurassic Park (SNES)
Part 4: Jurassic Park (Amiga)
Part 5: Jurassic Park (Master System)
Part 6: Jurassic Park (Genesis/Mega Drive)
Part 7: Jurassic Park (Sega Mega CD)
Part 8: Jurassic Park Interactive (3DO)
Part 9: Jurassic Park: Rampage Edition (Genesis/Mega Drive)
Part 10: Jurassic Park II - The Chaos Continues
Part 11: Jurassic Park 2 (GB)
Part 12: The Lost World: Jurassic Park (Genesis/Mega Drive)
Part 13: The Lost World: Jurassic Park (GB)
Part 14: The Lost World: Jurassic Park (PSX)
Part 15: Warpath: Jurassic Park (PSX)