Dr. K's Waiting Room

Released: 22 November 2023
Originally Released: 10 August 1993 (Jurassic Park), 28 September 1994 (Rampage Edition)
Developer: Carbon Engine
Original Developers BlueSky Software
Also Available For: Mega Drive, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S

The Plot:
After sabotage releases the genetically engineered dinosaurs of the Jurassic Park theme park, palaeontologist Doctor Alan Grant and an opportunistic Velociraptor battle to escape the island.

The Background:
In 1993, Michael Crichton’s bestselling cautionary tale about a dinosaur theme park turned into a hazardous environment was adapted into a critical and commercial blockbuster that spearheaded many CGI techniques we still see in Hollywood. Bolstered by an aggressive merchandising campaign, Jurassic Park (Spielberg, 1993) was accompanied by numerous toys, comics, and multiple videogame adaptations released on different consoles. While Ocean Software developed games for Nintendo’s consoles, SEGA partnered with BlueSky Software for their Mega Drive adaptation, consulting palaeontologist Robert Bakker and museums to bring the dinosaurs to life. The developers used Silicon Graphics computers, stop-motion techniques, and materials used to make the film to create the sprites and environments, as well as pulling elements from Crichton’s novel for additional levels. Jurassic Park sold 250,000 copies in its first week and impressed with its visuals and gameplay. Bolstered by this success, and the strength of the film’s merchandising, SEGA commissioned a revamped version for the following year, one that received mixed reviews for, while it improved many elements, it was also seen as a bit of a rehash. Both games were essentially lost media for decades until they (and five others) were finally re-released on modern consoles to celebrate the movie’s 30^th anniversary, alongside modern quality of life features, to largely thankful and positive reviews.

Gameplay and Power-Ups:
Unlike the games of the same name released for Nintendo’s hardware, the two Jurassic Park adaptations released for the Mega Drive are sidescrolling platformers almost akin to a run-and-gun. Although the Rampage Edition is technically a very different game, to me it’s more of a do-over than a sequel so I’m lumping these two together as many of the features and gameplay are the same in both. Both titles see players picking between three difficulty settings (“Easy”, “Normal”, and “Hard”) and selecting a playable character. Yes, while Nintendo’s games stuck you with Dr. Grant and his surprising arsenal of weapons, SEGA let you play as the unexpectedly athletic palaeologist or a Velociraptor. Both characters explore the same locations, though the ‘raptor has less stages in Jurassic Park and must also contend with park security trying to stop her in both games. The controls for both are the same between versions: Dr. Grant fires his current weapon with A (able to fire upwards and diagonally in both), jumps with B, and switches weapons with X. Unlike in Nintendo’s games, Dr. Grant’s weapons all consume ammunition in Jurassic Park, even his taser shot (which increases in power the longer you hold X). In the Rampage Edition, Dr. Grant has an infinite supply of weak tranquilizer darts, though these permanently put down every regular enemy. Dr. Grant can also sprint to clear gaps, clamber up ledges, climb ladders, ropes, vines, and chains, and monkey his way across overheard wires and handholds (when you can spot them). The ‘raptor is geared more towards melee and fast-paced running and controls a little differently between versions. In both, she bites with X, kicks with her taloned foot with A, leaps high with B, and dashes ahead if you hold up on the directional pad. Pressing down an X in Jurassic Park lets her eat Procompsognathus to regain health (a necessary mechanic as she’ll constantly lose health as you play), down and A launches a flying kick, and up and B sees her leap even higher! In the Rampage Edition, you still eat Compys but this doesn’t seem to restore health, holding X sees the ‘raptor continuously bite, a tail swipe had been added to her melee attack, and she performs a ludicrous spin jump by double pressing B.

Both games see you start with three lives and incorporate a password system and rudimentary island map before stages to show you where you are on Isla Nubar. While you thankfully don’t need dinosaur eggs in either game, Jurassic Park closely mirrors the Nintendo titles and the movie in its locations and players collect eggs, test tubes, and other items for points in the Rampage Edition. Dr. Grant acquires similar weapons to the Nintendo titles in both games: in Jurassic Park, you mainly fire different coloured tranquilizer darts, but you can also grab gas grenades, flashbangs, concussion grenades, and rockets. It’s worth noting, however, that none of these weapons, even the rockets, kill the dinosaurs; instead, they’re rendered unconscious for a short time. This isn’t the case in the Rampage Edition, where Dr. Grant cuts down dinosaurs with a shotgun, submachine gun, grenades, a flamethrower, and a rocket launcher! Dr. Grant can also ride certain dinosaurs, such as the stampeding Gallimimus to rush through the savannah and the hulking Triceratops, normally a docile creature unless provoked, to crash through walls. The ‘raptor kicks these walls down and also opens doors, just like Dr. Grant, though she gains a special power-up in the Rampage Edition. Consume three lysine crates and the ‘raptor enters a brief “Raptor Rage”, becoming invincible and killing enemies with a touch. Like some of the Nintendo titles, Dr. Grant also uses a motorboat, a mechanic far more enjoyable in the Rampage Edition. In Jurassic Park, you collect fuel cannisters to keep the boat moving (though there’s no gauge showing your fuel level) and must either speed up or slow down to avoid being killed when going over the waterfalls. In the Rampage Edition, there’s no need for fuel and no fear of falling to your death. Similarly, the hypersensitive fall damage handicap has been removed from Dr. Grant in this game and your health is restored with each new stage.

While Jurassic Park is a fairly standard platformer, requiring little more of Dr. Grant than to hop to platforms, subdue dinosaurs, and avoid falling to his death or getting skewered on spikes, things get very troublesome very quickly. You’ll be moving crates to reach higher areas, climbing electrified cables, crawling through vents, and dodging falling boulders. By far the hardest thing about this game is the fall damage, which chips away at Dr. Grant’s health from small drops and even slides, and that Dr. Grant instantly dies if he falls into even shallow water. This is rectified in the Rampage Edition, though you must still avoid electrified water (hopping to crates to avoid being fried) and quickly clamber up ladders to avoid drowning when the cargo ship floods. When in Jurassic Park’s pumping station, players must press up to activate switches and open or close passages and turn valves to shut off steam, while the ‘raptor pounces between tunnels to avoid drowning. Dr. Grant must also attack swimming Brachiosaurus’ to cross gaps in Jurassic Park and watch for crumbling and temporary ground in both games, as well as contend with aggressive Pteranodon’s carrying him to their nest in the Rampage Edition. Stages like this and the Raptor Rapids are technically easier for the Velociraptor but are deceptively difficult in different ways. It’s frustratingly easy to get lost in both stages, which are a maze of foliage and rushing water, respectively. While the checkpoint signs point you in the right direction, it’s not always clear which way you need to go, especially as Dr. Grant doesn’t act as your end goal like in Jurassic Park. Similarly, the Velociraptor has less stages in Jurassic Park and traverses environments a little differently. When in the visitor’s centre, for example, the ‘raptor doesn’t need to enter the ceiling vents until later in the stage. The Rampage Edition allows players to pick which stage they wish to challenge and allows Dr. Grant to fly about on zip wires, while both characters hop to weighted and moving platforms in this version and engage in far faster, more arcade-style gameplay.

Presentation:
Both games have very similar presentation and a few things in common. Like the Nintendo games, neither uses the classic Jurassic Park theme and each stage is accompanied by generic-ass music, with the Rampage Edition leaning more towards rock and Jurassic Park featuring more recognisable dinosaur sounds. Both feature more detailed title screens, with the Rampage Edition adding more animation and background effects, and the Jurassic Park font is used for the menus and pause text. No other characters from the movie appear in either game, not even Lex and Tim Murphy, and both games utilise a combination of text and still or partially animated sprite art to advance the story between stages and relate the ending. Dr. Grant is a relatively detailed and lively sprite in both; he has an idle animation where he looks around anxiously and whips out his gun and he hops and climbs about with more vigour than Sam Neill showed in the film. Like in Nintendo’s games, all that’s left of him is his hat when he’s eaten and you see his skeleton when he’s zapped, which is a nice touch. The Velociraptor is a larger sprite, meaning she’s a much bigger target, and is suitably unwieldy despite how fast she is and the strange amount of platforming she does. She snaps and grooms herself and echoes her rivals in the way she eats her prey. I did like spotting enemy ‘raptor eating carcasses, Compys popping from eggs, and the odd blood splatter throughout the Jurassic Park facilities. Jurassic Park closely replicates locations from the films and follows a similar stage pattern to the Nintendo games, taking players through the park, a river, a volcanic region, and ending up at the visitor’s centre. Unfortunately, Jurassic Park’s graphics are really unsightly a lot of the time and the game performs poorly when there’s a lot onscreen, leading to annoying slowdown and garish visuals as the oddly prerendered backgrounds glare at you.

The Rampage Edition corrects this, featuring far more detailed and lively backgrounds. Sure, we see a volcano erupting in Jurassic Park and some rudimentary smoke effects, but the Rampage Edition has far more depth and detail to its backgrounds. The sprites, which have been slightly redesigned, also stand out a lot better thanks to a black outline, though this effect also made them appear more amateurish to me. Stages are much longer in the Rampage Edition and often feature a maze-like structure, especially for the Velociraptor, and destructible elements, such as walls, pipes, and floors. You don’t get to revisit the visitor’s centre or any of the bunkers in the Rampage Edition, but there is a long stage dedicated to the cargo ship, which features a rudimentary rain and lightning effect on deck and far better water effects than in Jurassic Park. While I preferred the waterfalls and rapids in Jurassic Park, the Rampage Edition impressed with its Aztec-inspired ruins, which see players hopping up blocks and sliding down pyramids, and dense aviary, with its Pteranodon nest and obscuring foliage. While the volcano and odd colour palette applied to Jurassic Park’s rapids were off-putting, the visitor’s centre made up for it. Like in the film, it’s partially under construction and you must head up into the vents to bypass dinosaurs, pass through the incubator room, and end up in the main foyer, with giant banners and dinosaur skeletons on display. Similar bones appear in other stages, such as Triceratops skeletons and even human remains, which was a surprise, and there was an interesting curve effect applied to the pumping station stage. While Jurassic Park features a large Tyrannosaurus rex sprite, it recycles the same animations over and over and, though the T. rex is only seen once in the Rampage Edition, this game performs far better than its predecessor. There’s no slowdown, no sprite flicker, and more enemies and obstacles onscreen at any one time. While this can be chaotic and hazardous for the Velociraptor and cause some of Dr. Grant’s stages to feel endless, the performance upgrade, better visuals, and more action-orientated focus makes it an easier title to pick up and play.

Enemies and Bosses:
Like their Nintendo cousins, these SEGA titles include only a handful of dinosaurs but the majority of them are ripped directly from the movie. This means you’ll be fending off tiny, voracious Compys (gobbling them as the ‘raptor to keep her health up in Jurassic Park), blasting spitting Dilophosaurus’, and tangling with aggressive Velociraptors, who pounce, clamber up ledges, and often attack in packs (in Jurassic Park’s canyon stage, I even saw one “play dead”!) Triceratops also appear, though they’re docile unless provoked; Dr. Grant can even climb over and ride them. These beasts can trample the ‘raptor and whittle her health down in streams but can be killed just like anything else she encounters. While human opposition is unique to the ‘raptor in Jurassic Park (and they wield similar weapons as Dr. Grant, including a taser and grenades), both characters contend with them in the Rampage Edition. Poachers, mercenaries, and park staff dog your progress, tossing grenades, blasting along in their own motorboats, camping out up high, and easily overwhelming even the ravenous Velociraptor when she’s caught between numerous enemies and projectiles. Pteranodons also appear in both games, swooping from the skies and annoyingly carrying Dr. Grant away in the Rampage Edition, and Triceratops will wander about at times, but that’s about it for enemies, unfortunately. There are, of course, other hazards to worry about. The explosive boxes and crates from the 8-bit Nintendo games return to mess up your day and you must be quick to avoid sliding into spikes, drowning in water, or being immolated by boiling lava. While the Velociraptor must worry about bottomless pits, Dr. Grant must be careful not to drop from almost any height as he’ll take damage or die, something made more aggravating by platforms having unreliable hit detection and the graphics not making it clear which platforms are solid or not.

Like the Nintendo games, both titles are sadly light on bosses. There are technically only four boss battles between the two games, and one of those is pushing it. When playing Jurassic Park as Dr. Grant, the T. rex will crash through or appear as a hazard in a couple of stages. When she does, she’ll bite a chunk off your health or eat you whole if you get too close, so you must carefully navigate around her or stun her with your more powerful shots to slip past, which can be tricky when the environment gets in the way. Sadly, that’s it for the T. rex in the first game as she doesn’t appear in the final stage or as a big boss battle. Instead, Dr. Grant is faced with two invincible Velociraptor at the finale. Instead of wasting your time and ammo trying to kill them, target the pins holding up the dinosaur skeletons to make them collapse on the two dinosaurs, like at the end of the movie. Similarly, the Velociraptor only has one boss in Jurassic Park (though one aggravating guard in the visitor’s centre ceiling vent was a close second) as she faces Dr. Grant in the same area. Players must avoid Dr. Grant’s smoke grenades and taser and attack the boulder on the right, which again causes the dinosaur bones to collapse, scaring Dr. Grant off and allowing the ‘raptor to escape to the mainland. In the Rampage Edition, Dr. Grant doesn’t encounter the T. rex until the final stage; this time, you’re in a motorboat, racing through a flooded cavern. The T. rex chases from the mid-background, snapping her jaws and trying to eat you, so fend her off with your shotgun or other weapons until the stage abruptly ends and Dr. Grant escapes. The Velociraptor battles a lazy red hued palette swap in the cargo hold of the docked ship. This ‘raptor has all the same abilities as you but primarily attacks with its spin jump. While it’s difficult to gauge if you’re doing any damage, just stay back and strike whenever you see an opening, eventually putting the red ‘raptor down and again allowing your ravenous dinosaur to escape to civilisation.

Additional Features:
Though you collect items for points in the Rampage Edition, there is no high score table and nothing to gain from finding all the items in each stage. Both games allow you to alter the difficulty for an added or lesser challenge and toggle the music (and sound effects in the Rampage Edition) but, sadly, there are no two-player options here. This is disappointing as it would’ve been cool to at least feature a one-on-one duel mode to pit Dr. Grant against the Velociraptor. You also don’t get anything for beating the games on their hardest difficulty and there are still no options to play as other characters, something that could’ve at least been addressed in the Rampage Edition since it improved so many other aspects. As you’d expect, the Jurassic Park: Classic Game Collection includes each game’s soundtrack, various borders and filters, and the life-saving rewind and save state features that make both games a breeze. It also includes fourteen total Achievements, with two earned for each of these games. Sadly, the criteria are the same for both: simply beat each game twice, once as Dr. Grant and once as the Velociraptor, and you’ve done it.

The Summary:
I was hesitant about playing these two games. I picked up Jurassic Park: Rampage Edition for my Mega Drive library some time ago but never sat down with it beyond a quick mess about in the aviary, a confusing and cluttered stage that told me I’d need to put more time and effort into the game. Thankfully, playing them is far less intimidating with the quality-of-life features included in the Jurassic Park: Classic Game Collection, easily allowing me to rewind past mistakes and power through tricky sections. Still, the difficulty curve is readily apparent in both games. These are obviously games designed to cash-in on the movie’s popularity and encourage repeated rentals. Unlike the Nintendo games, however, these two are much more user friendly and adopt a far simpler gameplay style. This is further refined in the Rampage Edition, which is a full-on run-and-gun at times and focuses almost entirely on fast-paced, action-orientated, arcade action. I much preferred this pace and found the Rampage Edition the better experience overall, but I think a mash-up of the two would be the perfect compromise as Jurassic Park features far more recognisable locations from the movie. Adding the Velociraptor as a playable character was a fun and interesting way for SEGA’s games to stand out, but I did find her to be clunky and awkward at times. It’s weird how much focus is placed on platforming as the ‘raptor, even in the Rampage Edition, where you’re also blasting through as an untouchable predator. I’m glad I didn’t have to search all around for eggs, but a little more depth would’ve been nice; many stages just seem to randomly end and the lack of boss battles was very disappointing. Still, I liked a lot of the visuals (even if Jurassic Park’s were painfully garish and unsightly at times) and the light puzzle elements. Ultimately, I’d say the Rampage Edition is the better of the two but, really, we needed one game that combined all the best elements of both (and the Nintendo titles) to create the definitive old-school Jurassic Park adaptation.

What did you think to the Jurassic Park videogames released on the Mega Drive? How do you think they compare to each other, and Nintendo’s releases? Which of the two was your favourite and were you glad that they were ported to modern consoles? Did you enjoy playing as the Velociraptor? Were you a fan of the Rampage Edition’s faster pace? What is your favourite Jurassic-inspired videogame? How are you celebrating Dinosaur Day this year? Whatever your thoughts on SEGA’s Jurassic Park videogames, and dinosaurs in general, leave them below, support me on Ko-Fi, and check out my other dinosaur content!