π Received: February 7th, 2020 π Written: October 23rd-27th, 2023 π
(As played on Super Game Boy)
Year: 1994 | Developed and Published by: Ocean SoftwareHello, gamers and readers alike, welcome to my blog and thank you for taking the time to tune in today, I really appreciate it. π
When the $63 million-budgeted movie adaptation of the late Michael Crichton's bestselling 1990 novel Jurassic Park came out in 1993, it was a colossal hit as it left a profound impact and continues to be universally praised even to this day. Just like he had done with Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial before it, director Steven Spielberg changed movies forever with his Jurassic Park as it was the highest-grossing film of not only that year but for a short while the highest-grossing film ever made, pushing the boundaries of special effects (mostly comprised of the late Stan Winston's life-sized animatronics, a tiny fraction of the running time featured groundbreaking state of the art CGI). Its popularity led it to become a multimedia franchise, so much so that Crichton was pressured by many a folk (Spielberg among them) to pen a sequel (which he had never done before or since) which came out in 1995 with The Lost World for which it would receive a loose film adaptation two years later (also directed by Spielberg but to lesser results).
Image from Wikipedia
1995 also saw the debut of the Canadian basketball team, the Toronto Raptors, created and named after the fastest known predators following the popularity of Spielberg's 1993 film adaptation of Crichton's Jurassic Park. It's worth noting that in life the late author measured in at a height of 6-foot-9, making him one of the tallest authors in known recorded history (a factoid which made him feel ostracized when he was younger). Rest in peace, Mr. Crichton.
Images from GameFAQs
Coded by FrΓ©dΓ©ric Zimmer, Fernando Velez, and Pierre Adane, the Game Boy follow-up Jurassic Park Part 2: The Chaos Continues would be released in North American shores on December 1994 with a European release following suit sometime in 1995. There was also an SNES take by Ocean sharing the same name, but it differs significantly compared to the handheld edition, and as such this review will only cover the Game Boy game.
Left: Idling by the Jeep Wrangler | Right: Shooting at a leaping procompsognathid
In the sidescrolling action run and gun game Jurassic Park Part 2: The Chaos Continues you take control of Sam Neill's paleontologist character Dr. Alan Grant once again for he can walk left and right, duck down, jump up in the air with the A button* (with the altitude gained depending on how hard you pressed the button) which can also be used to swim upward while in the water, by pressing or holding down the B button* you can fire an unlimited amount of rounds from your shotgun (across from you, above you, and diagonally),
* Should you change it to the Type A control setting when playing it on the Super Game Boy, those functions will be used by the B and Y buttons respectively
Left: Tossing a gas grenade at a Triceratops | Right: Made it in one piece
and with the Select button you can change between the shotgun and the gas grenade which can be tossed at an angle. The main objective of each dinosaur zone is to collect all of Jurassic Park's magnetic cards scattered across the playing field, for obtaining all of them in each segment will open up the security grille which you must get to after acquiring the last magnetic card. Also scattered about are the first aid kits which will replenish your lost health by one (with the health capacity being four), and should you search thoroughly you'll find an icon of Grant which will not only add a new life to your count
Left: Shooting harpoons underwater | Right: Collect Jurassic Park's magnetic cards along the way
but also completely refill your health in the process. There for you to contend with throughout your excursion are the dinosaurs of different varieties for you must either shoot them down (should you be equipped with the shotgun) or have them knocked out cold (should you be equipped with the gas grenade). At the end of each zone is a big dino-boss to deal with, where access to the next zone is guaranteed only if you best them in battle until their health capacity is completely drained.
Left: Duck | Right: Shoot upward
Jurassic Park Part 2's visuals were worked on by Christophe SΕur, Sylvain Dessoly, and Philippe Dessoly, and considering the handheld's hardware limitations and monochromatic status it is such an incredible game to look at. Truly impressive all around with a strong penchant for detail with a comparatively reduced amount of whites in favor of light and dark grays. The Triceratops levels at the start has got a smooth backdrop with faintly silhouetted palm trees amidst a heavily shaded rocky foreground,
Left: Branch hopping | Right: Leaf jumping
the Pteranodon levels has got a solid sense of line scrolling with the clouds in the background as you're scaling up the trees by jumping on its branches, the Cephalosaure levels have got nicely drawn water with a solidly designed gradient cloudy sky and when you swim underwater later on there are pipes in its walls with the occasional bubble pillar, and the last set of levels leading up to the Raptor and Tyrannosaurus Rex Zones have got a clearly metallic architecture about it with the bolts and vents in its walls with the effective use of the lamps that project its lights in such a symmetrical manner that they're effective in their simplicity. Grant is solidly designed with his recognizable fedora,
Left: Shooting diagonally | Right: Jumping up cliffs
has got a subtle recoil animation when he shoots from his shotgun, and is fluidly animated with his walk cycle as well as when his knees bend smoothly when jumping in the air and when he crouches down. I like how depending on how many hearts you had when you cleared the level he had a different animation, where he either triumphantly holds his gun upward or takes off his fedora and wipes the sweat off his face should you have finished with just one heart. The various dinosaurs you have to deal with are drawn and animated solidly as well like the the frequently appearing procompsognathid, the small Pteranadons,
Left: Levitating leaf | Right: A perfectly situated magnetic card for the taking
the different prehistoric fish, the Triceratops, the Dilophosaurus in one part of the second Cephalosaure level with its frills, and in the final set of levels the swift Parasaurolophus. The bosses are all large and finely detailed, like the giant Triceratops, the tall and slender Raptors, and the Tyrannosaurus Rex (even if it is odd seeing her attempting to reach down in such a quick pace). The Tyrannosaurus Rex also appears during the pursuit levels as she is partially present in the left side of the screen as she towers over you and animates quite nicely.
Left: Shooting at Pteranodons big and small in this zone | Right: What, we're not supposed to be dealing with the Pteranodons until the third movie... unless you count the Michael Crichton novel in which case there was a segment devoted to these aviators
Once again Jonathan Dunn acts as composer, who is the only constant between the two Game Boy Jurassic Park games (much like Patrick Phelan was the only connective tissue between Gremlin Graphics' Zool: Ninja of the Nth Dimension and its sequel Zool 2 developed by The Warp Factory) amidst new staff. In lieu of creating a new soundtrack, Dunn had opted to slightly remix and reassemble most of the themes heard from the first game with an added punch to them so they don't sound like complete carbon copies in the sequel.
Left: Being chased by the Tyrannosaurus Rex | Right: Occasional platforming is a must
The title theme (which is also used in the Raptor level near the end) has got a very catchy beat and rhythm, the Triceratops theme is as head bopping a number as it was in the first Jurassic Park game with its composition influenced by Martin Galway's iconic Comic Bakery theme from Imagine Software's Commodore 64 version of Konami's MSX classic, the Pteranodon theme is relentlessly pressing and impending with an ever-present sound of danger to it, the theme for when you're being pursued by the Tyrannosaurus Rex in a couple levels sounds
Left: Collect all the magnetic cards here and you're rewarded with a life | Right: Healing item for the taking
intimidating, and the Cephalosaure theme sounds engaging and complements the water-based environs. Whenever you gather the last of the magnetic cards the current background music will be replaced by a bouncy and action-packed escape theme, the boss theme is relentlessly hectic, and the ending theme is a nice reprieve once Grant flies out of Isla Nublar by helicopter. The sound effects have been lifted from the first Jurassic Park game, like with the chime sound for when you procure a magnetic card or healing item and the pause jingle, and they sound solid without affecting or obstructing the quality of the game's music.
Left: Be aware of your surroundings here, for there are fish that leap out of the water | Right: As well as big biters too
After clearing the Pteranodon levels and after clearing the Cephalosaure levels, you will find yourself being pursued by the Tyrannosaurus Rex who has managed to escape where your ultimate goal is survival, though if you manage to reach the end of those two individual levels with all the magnetic cards collected you will be rewarded with a life. As these are automatic scrolling levels you will have to find proper footing and progress through the proper path while also contending with the oncoming procompsognathid lest you meet a dead end in which case you'll be forced to start over from the beginning. Since there are no checkpoints in any of the levels, losing a life will not only have you recommence it from the start but you'll have to gather the scattered magnetic cards again from scratch. There are only two continues, using one up will pick your progress back up in the current level you were at.
Left: Sometimes these biters will sprout from the water between a couple of spiked balls | Right: Crossing the wide gap by making a huge jump
When Jurassic Park Part 2: The Chaos Continues came out the reception wildly varied between the SNES and the Game Boy versions, with a good number of people remarking that the handheld edition was the superior of the two. The Game Boy version generally got positive reviews, but it didn't come without its criticisms as some lamented its acute sense of brevity and reduced level of challenge. There was also disappointment expressed by some at the shift in direction from top-down action fare to the sidescrolling run and gun formula,
Screengrabbed while watching Solaris104's Atari XL/XE Longplay on YouTube
Before The Lost World entered the public subconscious there was another game that acted as a sequel to Jurassic Park, believe it or not, albeit not of the official capacity. Released exclusively on the Atari 8-bit computer and programmed by Ludo Falis, Jurassic Park II was one of two games developed by the Slovak demo crew Satantronic (the other one being Magic World) which was released in native Slovakia in 1995 (courtesy of JRC Interactive), came out in Poland and Czechia in 1997 (courtesy of Sikor Soft) and 1998 respectively, and eventually made its way to North America in 2002 (courtesy of Video 61 & Atari Sales). In it you take control of a character forced to search around for helpful items needed to survive and to eventually leave the open-ended island environment after being taken down by a Pteranodon which takes roughly twenty minutes to play through. Considering the antiquated hardware he had to work with, Ludo Roba's visuals are pretty solid and Gabriel Takacs' music is catchy.
The first Jurassic Park on the Game Boy was my first exposure to Ocean Software as a child during the mid '90s as well as my introduction to the series before having watched Steven Spielberg's film or read Michael Crichton's novel, but at the time I never got farther than the second mission and wouldn't see it through to the end until I got older. I certainly think it's a well-intentioned game with evident production values that are commendable, but the trial and error aspect when it came to locating the right door after procuring the access card and turning on the terminals in the correct sequence sapped a lot of enjoyment from the experience for me to the point that it felt monotonously repetitious and arbitrary due to the slow pacing compounded with the constant sense of backtracking that lacked any real polish to it. A disappointing mess of a video game adaptation, in my opinion.
"What have they got in there, King Kong?"
It wasn't until I was a teenager when I stumbled upon a random website with a compendium of video game screenshots that I learned of the existence of Jurassic Park Part 2 and learned that it was a sidescroller, but it wouldn't be until February 2020 that I decided to give it a try
especially upon learning about its ties to Mr. Nutz. With a sequel there's always room for improvement, and on the whole I felt very satisfied with The Chaos Continues. π
Left: Fell down on another raft | Right: Splash
The difference between playing Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park Part 2: The Chaos Continues was night and day, and I had a lot of fun playing the latter as it had more polished gameplay and felt like it had a much tighter focus than the former did. In the first game you had to reserve your ammo as you had a limited number to use up so as to not run out, but in this sequel you don't have to worry about that for your ammo was unlimited therefore you can fire to your heart's content. One of the things that dragged down the first game for me
Left: Swimming in the depths | Right: Platforming upward
was its slow walking pace, to be fair Dr. Alan Grant is not particularly a fast walker here either but I felt in this case it was more conducive to the carefully thought-out level designs with a fun sense of play control. I liked that you could fire ahead of you and above you while on foot, if only there was a way to remain stationary while shooting diagonally but I can't really complain when the game is very fun to play. There is a nice sense of nonlinear open-ended design when it comes to searching for all the magnetic cards scattered about in most of
Left: Hey, it's a Dilophosaur, let's ask her how Dennis Nedry is doing... or not | Right: Underwater boss battle with the ability to breathe underwater without fail
the levels, though luckily the areas aren't so spacious that it would be easy for you to become lost. There is the occasional enemy respawning of the dinosaur enemies if you scroll a bit behind you only to scroll right back to where you were, but it's nothing you can't handle while firing from a distance. Jurassic Park Part 2 had a considerably smaller staff than the first Jurassic Park Game Boy game did, turns out all Ocean needed was to inject French blood into the license to create a genuinely enjoyable Game Boy Jurassic Park game. π In all seriousness, it feels more focused this time around which I feel helped the proceedings a lot.
Clooooooooooouds π
Amazing! Incredible!! Adane and Dessoly have got it made!!! Complete respect! π«‘
Left: Once more, the Tyrannosaurus Rex is in pursuit of Grant | Right: Shoot any meddlesome procompsognathid as you're getting away from her
The first Jurassic Park peaked fairly early on when it came to big dino action, with the stampeding Triceratops at the end of the first mission and at the end of the second mission having to do a safety escort while contending with the Tyrannosaurus Rex, but after that? Nothing, just contending with the frequently recurring dinosaur enemies until the end, leaving you a bit wanting. Jurassic Park Part 2 makes up for the first game's shortcoming by having boss fights at the end of each zone as you battle against the larger-sized dinosaurs, they're not particularly difficult once you've got their pattern figured out but they do fill in the void nicely when all is said and done.
Left: Effective lampshade | Right: Peering down
Having said all that, just because I enjoyed this game it doesn't necessarily mean that everyone did, for everyone has got different tastes, sense and sensibilities, experiences, thoughts, and whatnot. Despite the rampant dino action it's a fairly relaxing game to play as there's a nice flow to the game where the real challenge comes from obtaining all the magnetic cards and making it in one piece (it almost feels like a safari game with the occasional dino hunting at play), but in those cases where you mess up you at least have yourself to blame if you lacked coordination or did not pay attention. Jurassic Park Part 2 is leagues more to fair to play than its precursor in my book. π€
Left: Taking care of the Parasaurolophus | Right: The last levels feature conveyor belts
Where I feel this game might test people to the limit are the self-scrolling levels with the Tyrannosaurus Rex pursuits and the first Cephalosaure level. They are very manageable to play if you have the proper footing and concentrate on the correct path, but I will warn you that they are very lengthy and require you to pay absolute attention otherwise you have no other recourse but to start those over due to the lack of checkpoints. Now despite the occasional nonlinearity and reasonably manageable difficulty, this is a short game through and through as it would take roughly forty minutes or so to play through on your best day.
Left: Wait for the flame to dissipate π₯ | Right: "Shoot her! Shooooot heeeeeeeer!" π
Compared to the one-plus hour it takes to beat the first Jurassic Park, it admittedly is a stark contrast and I can understand some being disappointed at the brevity. And yet despite that, or in spite of that, I felt that for Jurassic Park Part 2 it hit the sweet spot because of how fun it was for me. As for the genre change, it didn't really bother me that much, but again I can understand why some would've taken umbrage with it at the time with how commonplace it must've felt, but at the end of the day it all simply boils down to semantics.
Left: Shooting at that spiny dinosaur | Right: Phew, barely made it
If the fact that Ocean rendered this game a sidescrolling run and gun venue or the fact that it's short doesn't bother you all that much, I think you'll enjoy it based entirely on the fact that it feels polished, is a worthwhile Jurassic Park license, and in my opinion is among the best licensed titles that Ocean Software developed during their career. π
Speaking of games with playable characters being able to breathe underwater forever without ever worrying about the prospect of drowning...
I also consider Occean's SNES platformer based on Barry Sonnenfeld's The Addams Family to be among their best licensed games that they worked on which I think is a very likable game. π I've not played many of their licensed titles, but even if I had I would still place it somewhere up there due to its simple yet fun gameplay, endearingly nuanced sense of level design, family-friendly macabre charm and atmosphere, myriad of secrets, a fair challenge level, and overall enjoyable experience which makes it my favorite of the three SNES Addams Family games. If only the other two weren't so brutal with their difficulty. π
But my favorite Ocean Software video game is and forever will be Mr. Nutz, the one video game of theirs that is not based on a preexisting license. π₯° I love it, I love how adorable this game is, I love how challenging yet fair it is to play, I love this game's sense of nuanced level design, I love Philippe Dessoly's gorgeously detailed visuals, I love RaphaΓ«l Gesqua's music and how it breathes life into this game, I love how it rewards you for your thorough exploration, I love what absolute nonsense it becomes after a while and how it revels in its lack of sense. It holds a special place in my heart, and no one can take that away from me. π
Left: Face to face with the Tyrannosaurus Rex | Right: Grant wins! Extinction!
Of Ocean's Jurassic Park games they made for the Game Boy, I consider this one to be the only worthwhile of the two to play for its sense of polish made the proceedings very enjoyable and goes to show that with enough time and care afforded to them they could produce a good video game acting as a sequel to the biggest movie of 1993. Recommended if you own a Game Boy, or if you'd prefer to hold out for Carbon Engine's Jurassic Park: Classic Games Collection, it's like the adage goes, "Variety is the spice of life", and life finds a way.
My Personal Score: 8.0/10
● At the end of my review for Tamsoft's SteamGear Mash, I mentioned how I was only in the beginning stages of my newer review in September before my Surface Pro stopped working and I had to get a new one (didn't even get any screenshots from it at that point). This was the game I was going to talk about, shortly after having covered Ocean's first Jurassic Park Game Boy game. Maybe it was for the best to not talk about this sequel right away (no need to rush), what with me having to acclimate myself to the newest Surface Pro model that I'm currently using and which I'm getting more used to working with over time.
● Something I found eye-catching is that this game has a 1992 copyright by Amblin Entertainment and Universal's names even though the movie came out in 1993 (and it is not the only Jurassic Park video game license to have that distinction from what I've looked up). Sure, it was in production in 1992, but the movie's final copyright was the very year it was released, 1993. Even Ocean's first Jurassic Park license bore the 1993 copyright by the licensors' names. π€¨ A bit bizarre, really.
● Interestingly during the briefing sessions, loading more words is done at the press of the B button as opposed to the A button like it would normally be on the Game Boy.
● Not Jurassic Park-related (outside of sharing the same distributor Universal, I guess), but recently on Peacock I finally caught up with John Carpenter's 1987 film Prince of Darkness, the middle installment of his "Apocalypse Trilogy" preceded by The Thing which concluded with In the Mouth of Madness, and I thought it was a very well-crafted movie with an interesting hook and premise to it (some of the themes it explores are startlingly relevant today, with the line "only the corrupt are listened to, and people only want to be told what they want to hear" sticking to mind which feels demoralizingly true nowadays π). The cinematography by the late Gary B. Kibbe (RIP) in his first collaboration with Carpenter as director was compellingly angled and lensed, the soundtrack by Carpenter and Alan Howarth is darkly and spiritually enthralling (I've been listening to that meditatively and provocatively ponder-some opening theme on YouTube since watching the film), the late Victor Wong and late Donald Pleasence (RIP both, screen legends) both have a magnetic and captivating screen presence (especially when they share the screen), Jameson Parker and the late Lisa Blount (RIP, I was sad to learn she died twenty-three years after this movie came out) made for good leads with a very nice and believable chemistry, Anne Howard has a genuinely creepy possessed face, there's a character named "Lomax" (which is funny when there's a Psygnosis platformer featuring a Lemming with that name π€), and Alice Cooper appears as a homeless vagabond under the influence. I was a little disappointed by Dennis Dun, though, it's nothing to do him as an actor as he's trying his best with the material he's given, but I honestly found him to be rather annoying here, which is shocking because he was a real highlight in his first collaboration with Carpenter Big Trouble in Little China the previous year. There's also a handful of lines of dialogue he spews that made me feel a bit uncomfortable, I realize some of it was intentional while a good chunk of it is owed to the uncontrollable circumstance of the time period the movie was made in, but it didn't make those lines feel any less distasteful to me in how flippantly they were delivered--I think it's safe to say that Carpenter is a stronger director than he is as a writer, but that's my opinion. That cliffhanger ending before the credits, though, it's so good, and the movie more than makes for whatever shortcoming it's got with its increasingly moody and haunting atmosphere. On the whole, while I didn't think it matched the level of either The Thing or In the Mouth of Madness, I thought Prince of Darkness was a very good Carpenter movie and one I'm glad I caught up with.
● On Wednesday (10/25/23) I caught up with two movies on Peacock: Rick Rosenthal's Halloween II (I did technically see bits and pieces of it, but on TV on a commercial-having channel) and Tommy Lee Wallace's Halloween III: Season of the Witch. Halloween II I thought was a well-made movie, I thought it was smart for it to make a quick recap at the beginning with what I rightly presumed was archived footage from the first movie (I recognized that darkened shot of Laurie Strode at the foreground with Michael Myers approaching from the background from a TV spot, I figured there was no way they reenacted all that to the exact degree... especially with the knowledge that Jamie Lee Curtis wore a wig here), there was an inescapable atmosphere that rendered the proceedings rather creepy though not necessarily scary (or at least not as scary as it aspires to be), the kills were nasty, many of the actors I felt did a very good job (especially Lance Guest whom I really liked, Nick Castle was right to cast him as the lead in The Last Starfighter, and while I thought his interpretation of Michael Brody was horribly written in the late Joseph Sargent's Jaws: The Revenge, it wasn't Lance's fault, he was just working with bad material... I used to hate that movie for existing, but after having watched it from beginning to end years ago and not just what was in-between, I've unlearned to hate it and now just feel sorry for it, but that's neither here nor there) and the late Donald Pleasence's Sam Loomis is such a compelling hero of a character and reminds me what a national treasure he was when it came to film (I enjoyed him in John Carpenter's Escape from New York too), Carpenter and Alan Howarth's music carried the film and ratcheted up the atmosphere and later suspense after Myers finds Laurie, it's got a cool pumpkin title sequence, Dean Cundey's cinematography is typically excellent, and I largely enjoyed it, but who in their right mind would want to work at a poorly funded hospital with faulty light fixtures that apparently has a small staff count? That's just a disaster waiting to happen, and it does! Makes for a movie scenario, but in real life it would never fly (nor should it). There are babies, too, but the movie treats them like an, "...anyway, moving on!" which makes me hate what happens to the staff even more. π Overall, good movie, would gladly watch again in the right frame of mind.
● Halloween III, the one that did not have Michael Myers in it, was an interesting iteration and I liked the fact that it did something different, even if it may not have worked out for everyone. If the biggest problem people had with it was, "WhErE's MiChAeL?"... maybe it's true, maybe we have been bred and preconditioned to have unrealistic expectations at all times, I knew what I was walking into here. For what it was, it was intriguing, Tom Atkins made for a compelling lead (despite his questionable moral compass) even if his moustache and build reminded me of Tom Selleck if he was blond, Atkins and Stacey Nelkin had a cute chemistry until they got separated for the last time, Carpenter and Howarth's synthesizer soundtrack was dark and brooding in an atmospheric manner, Dean Cundey's warm photography shone with the bright colors, I'd opine that the deaths were even nastier than the ones in the second Halloween (Marge Guttman's death was truly horrifying I actually jumped π±), that "Silver Shamrock" jingle is so easy to get stuck inside your head (damn you, movie!), the late Dan O'Herlihy's Conal Cochran (RIP) was a fascinating villain who I shouldn't even like yet his charisma made him charming and endearing (he even takes defeat like a good sport) despite his otherwise reprehensible actions plus he gives the proper pronunciation to the name "Samhain" (sorry, Donald, Dan's got that one over you), and it ends with the most horrific implications imaginable (but that's purely with intent given the direction the movie was going in). It's an interesting movie in every sense of the word, and I have to give it credit for that because for what it was trying to do it was mostly good. So, as far as Halloween movies I've seen from beginning to end in their correct aspect ratio, there's Halloween II, Halloween III, and Steve Miner's Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (which was... solid enough, I guess). I haven't really watched John Carpenter's classic Halloween, I feel it's been discussed and covered so much that it's practically been spoiled all over, but I'm not opposed to the idea of watching it someday, I just want to watch under the most preferable of circumstances so as to have an effective experience (no commercials, no interruptions, complete immersion, not to mention have it presented in the correct aspect ratio, I'll accept nothing less). Have I mentioned how much I love Dean Cundey's cinematography? π₯ From 1.85:1 (like Robert Zemeckis' Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park) to 2.35:1 (the Halloween sequels I watched in the same day, Zemeckis' Romancing the Stone, Spielberg's Hook, et al), the look he gives these films is so iconic it's *chef's kiss* ππ
● Also irrelevant to this topic, but all antisemitism is evil and should not be condoned ever.
Thank you for reading my review, please leave me a comment and let me know what you think (neither spam nor NSFW is allowed); hope you have a great day, be a kind human, and take care! π
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