Score: 5
"Maybe I've glitched out, but.."
date: September 13, 2009
I like the idea, I'm a HUGE Jurassic Park fan and I've been craving a new movie for forever, so I wanted to like this game of course. Since you've put so much work into the game, you deserve a detailed review.
Anyway, here's why I think I glitched out: Whenever I go to 'hunt', the hunt mode ends INSTANTLY, before I've had a chance to shoot at the dinosaurs. Also, it doesn't seem to matter which dinosaur I choose to hunt, another will appear instead. I'm not sure if that stuff is just glitchiness or what, but it made the game unplayable.
That aside, I'll comment on the four major aspects of the game that I managed to experience.
----
Story: This was great, I was really getting into the game during the prologue because it advanced the story from the films and books, and because it was just interesting.
However, the gameplay seems -completely- contradictory to the story in that your objective is to HUNT dinosaurs, not to sneak around trying not to get eaten and recover files. Hammond would have SUCH a fit over that, don't you think? He doesn't want -anyone- harming them. But yeah, the game isn't called 'Jurassic Park: Evidence Extraction', it's called 'Jurassic Park: Track Hunter', which seems absolutely opposite of what the story told you was your mission. You're supposed to be there to extract files, not hunt Hammond's precious babies. HE sent you on the mission after all. But nope, the game is based around hunting. That really threw me.
----
Visuals: They were pretty good from what I was able to see. The depth of shading is shallow, but everything still manages to be detailed and somewhat more immersing than the average flash game (well, the ones that don't use photos as their backgrounds, I'm talking pure animation/drawing skill here).
The dinosaurs look great too - although I'd probably change the color of the raptors' eyes so they stand out. It almost looked like they didn't have eyes at first because they blended in. Speaking of blending in...
One thing I really didn't like was how everything in the menus was this muddled grey/black/red hyper textured slate. Sometimes you could barely see that a menu button was there because the texture and colors blended too well. The 'Go Back' button on several screens is hard to notice for example. I mean, I like the idea that it's kind of scary looking, but it also became a bit obtrusive. Everything else was great though.
PS - I'd suggest giving credit to the website you took the T-Rex skeleton logo from. ( http://www.jplegacy.org/ ) I used to frequent there, so I know they made it and not you. :P
----
Gameplay: It's a bit too one dimensional. You just click an arrow over and over going through empty, redundant environments (but they still look good) until you come across a dinosaur, which you then attempt to hunt. I'm ASSUMING hunting isn't supposed to end a fraction of a second after you begin it, leaving you unable to even aim at the dinosaur. That happened to me constantly, and was baffling.
----
Music: I had to crank my volume up to even notice that there was music at all for the intro, and there could have been more ambient noises or suspense going on during the gameplay.
The prologue music was good though, calm, cool, and mysterious. Very much like the sort of feeling you get from the original movie before the terror begins. It's like '..what is waiting for me..' Love that.
----
In closing, the game has some issues, and it seems weird that it's based around Hunting, when that's not remotely your mission and it's even a bit of a betrayal of Hammond, who hired you. Maybe tweak the story to make sense of that. At least explain -why- you're hunting them. I mean, it's not a matter of self defense, you're actively seeking the dinosaurs out to kill them. Why?
So that needs some work, some gameplay/visual issues need fixing, and I'd ask you to consider giving the Player -more- to do than just clicking an arrow and then shooting a dinosaur. Have some stuff to check out in the environment, make it more exploratory and interesting! There's lots of potential here. :)
September 16, 2009
Author's Response:
Ill see what i can do :) Thanks for the info. and appreciate you taking your time.
