Jurassic Park

"Point and Click...not a bad attempt"

Graphics - 8/10

For a game this old, the graphics at the time, were simply amazing. Giving you movie like quality, Jurassic Park never gave up the detail for frame speed, and it all flowed smoothly across the screen. Placing you in the middle of an empty park, the graphics fit, from the movement of your character {through first person} to the actual onscreen movement of the animals as they attack, or retreat away from your probing directions.

The Sega CD also gave a nice first person battle selection, with solid pixels on any television. Allowing you to pan in a 360 degree motion, with little or no break up. The only true problem with something this smooth, is that everything flows together too nicely, allowing for mistakes when searching for something that you need to pick up in order to fulfill your quest further into the game. All in all, Sega did a wonderful job in putting this together, making it a much better visual game that it's counterpart on the Genesis.

Sound - 8/10

Haunting. That is the only word that can describe something this good. Allowing you the sounds of a home theater system quality, every sound effect comes through the speakers as if you were actually there. In some places, you can't tell the difference, no matter what you're doing, or clicking on, it sounds that real. More than once, you'll probably need to turn off the sound for a minute, just to make sure something really isn't creeping up behind you.

The sound effects also made the audio portion of this game. Everything sounds as if it were really being used, from the tranquilizer gun's that make a soft, solid puff, to the closing of doors, and the chirping/hooting sounds of the spitters, you'll be hard pressed to find a game with better audio quality for this time frame. With each passing step, the world will open up for more sounds and music to hear. All of it is worth listening to, so keep the volume up, and CD player on pause.

Gameplay - 7/10

Hard in some places, easy in others. You'll find that this type of mis-matching of difficulty, is rather annoying when you're working on one particular place for more than an hour, only to blaze through the next four objectives like there is no tomorrow. But, for a point and click game, where time is really nothing of the essence, you have all the time in the world to do this right?

Wrong.

You're on a timer folks, and you have about 12 real time hours to get all of your objectives done, before you're pulled off the island, and the game is over. This objectives include such things as turning on the park power, to collecting the dinosaur eggs, to fixing certain parts of the park, to avoiding the bad guys that show up. Somewhere along the lines, I think this storyline is a prelude to Lost World...they just didn't know it yet.

The gameplay itself can be rather enjoyable, as long as you complete what you need to complete in order to proceed further into the game. Most gamers, that aren't used to this, will probably lose interest after the first couple of hours, those of you who enjoy point and click adventures, will find nothing but enjoyment with this game, and will probably blaze through after only a few hours, completing the game in quick time.

The control of the game is rather easy to pick up on, and anyone who hasn't played a point and click game, will pick up on this before they really get into the mechanics of the game such as the battle options and item usage. It's a nice 'starter' game, not that point and click games are really all that hard to begin with. Definately worth the time to play.

Overall - 8/10

Sega CD made a blockbuster with this game, and perhaps, in my own opinion, had they kept up with games of this quality, they may have cornered the market on CD games before the PSX came out of nowhere, and obliterated Sega with the massive amounts of games. You really can't find a game for the Sega CD that beats this one in terms of Audio and Visual, it's got them both in movie quality.

For those of you who can find the game, and have a Sega CD, get this one, it's a definate keeper. For those of you who are game collectors, such as myself, and just want a piece of Sega history to add to your collection next to Phantasy Star and Dallas, this game is also for you. But, for those who have Sega CD, and hate point and click games that have some hard challenge, avoid this one...you won't like it.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/24/00, Updated 07/24/00