Jurassic Park Classic Games Collection Review

When Jurassic Park first came out, in 1993, I was at exactly the right age to enjoy Steven Spielberg's reanimated dinos and delight in that intense T-rex scene – just about the right amount of violence and spectacle to satisfy an eleven-year-old boy. Despite loving the movie, however, the tie-in Jurassic Park games eluded me, so it was with no small amount of curiosity that I delved into Limited Run Games' Jurassic Park Classic Games Collection, offering seven 8-bit and 16-bit era games in one convenient place.

Now, some games stand the test of time, and some don't. And, more than 30 years on, we can confidently say that the retro titles bundled in the Jurassic Park Classic Games Collection do not hold up well to scrutiny. Comprising ropey old platformers that are stupidly difficult from the off, slow-paced top-down shooters that almost entirely lack direction, and a shabby sub-Contra side-scrolling shooter, the Jurassic Park games featured here are hardly the type of thing to induce glassy-eyed nostalgia. But, then again, I never played any of these when they originally came out, so who can say?

Where I can see value in certain retro titles that struck a chord upon their release, and in some cases still do, the Jurassic Park Classic Games Collection harkens back to a time when the majority of movie tie-ins were hastily cobbled together, cynical pieces of marketing. Many bore little relation to the films they were inspired by, hence Dr. Alan Grant jumping around trees shooting dinosaurs, or going up against a military company brought in to capture rogue dinos. All respect to Sam Neill, who played Grant in the original film (and reprised his role in JP III and the risible JW Dominion), but he's not really a gun-toting action man.

There's certainly a degree of merit to the Jurassic Park Classic Games Collection (although 'Classic' might be stretching it a bit) in providing a nice bit of games preservation, but this is at best a mixed bag. You won't find any extras or behind-the-scenes bonus material either, which would have helped provide context for the featured NES, SNES, Game Boy, and SEGA Mega Drive/Genesis games here. Instead, you're presented with each game essentially 'as-is', albeit with individual save states and the ability to rewind the action when you inevitably make an misjudged jump, or you're ambushed by a raptor, or whatever. There are new in-game maps, however, which do prove immensely useful.

Nonetheless, the sad truth is that these are seven fairly poor games, with a fair bit of overlap. You have the 8-bit and 16-bit versions of Jurassic Park for the NES and SNES respectively, as well as the Game Boy version, but they're all essentially the same game. Then there's Jurassic Park 2: The Chaos Continues, a side-scrolling shooter for the SNES which released in 1994 to decent reviews (though, playing it today, I can't fathom why). Jurassic Park for the Mega Drive/Genesis is joined by Jurassic Park Rampage Edition, enabling you to play as Alan Grant and a marauding Velociraptor. Rounding out the package is Jurassic Park 2, a version of the messy MD/Genesis platforming titles released for Game Boy.

As a series of products from the once-prosperous and prolific Ocean Software, the Jurassic Park Classic Games Collection is certainly an interesting batch of curios. But where some compendiums of retro classics comprise games that remain eminently playable after tens of years, these, regrettably, are not. That said, if you harbour fond memories of falling to your death innumerable times as Dr. Alan Grant, or being shot to death as an escaped Velociraptor, then you'll probably revel in the curated library of seven old games collected here. Everyone else, however, would be advised to approach this with the same level of caution you'd give a hungry T-rex.