I went ahead and bought the Jurassic Park game anyway.
Though I said I would wait until after Christmas, I changed my mind and bought it anyway.
Here's what I have to say about it. It is way better than some say it is. Note, I'm only linking to the RPS thing there, because they are pretty much the only remaining video game news/blog site that I still remotely respect, aside from maybe PC Gamer, but even RPS seriously trashed this game, calling it "insultingly terrible." In this case, I simply do not agree with them. At all.
Before you play the Jurassic Park game, here is what you need to know about it. Roughly half the game is made up of QTE sequences. Anything even the slightest bit action-y is going to involve them. The other half of the game is either talking to other people using a dialog wheel, or looking around the environment point-and-click style, or some combination of the two. You don't actually control the explicit character movement like you would in, say, Sam and Max or something, but I didn't miss it, and it makes sense anyway since you're usually controlling up to three or four people at once anyway.
Aside from your usual graphics whore comments like "Game looks great for 1993" or whatever retarded crap, the biggest complaint seems to be about the QTEs. So yeah, I'll just go ahead and say it straight up: If you don't like QTEs, don't even bother with this. If, however, the mere thought of a QTE doesn't immediately send you into an irrational, frothing rage, then it might be worth your time.
Okay, let's talk about QTEs here. Some people Many people Apparently everyone but me seems to think that if a game has QTEs in it, then that game is just inherently bad. Period. Full stop. Case closed. 'Nuff said. This is why people didn't like Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy (well, that and the fact that the story jumped the rails about halfway through). This is why people didn't like Heavy Rain. And, now, this is why people don't like the Jurassic Park game.
Yeah, people are comparing this game to Heavy Rain. While that's somewhat accurate, I would say perhaps a more accurate comparison would be to something like Star Trek: Borg. That's also a game that reviewers savaged when it came out, but that's yet another instance where I don't get the hate for it, at all. I thought Borg was awesome, personally, but what the hell do I know? The only real difference between Borg and Jurassic Park is that Borg uses FMV (another thing that people seem to think innately ruins any game that comes into contact with it, which is not true) and Jurassic Park uses CGI. JP is also more action-based and thus QTE heavy than Borg was. Aside from that, however, they're the same basic play style.
Honestly, I don't get it. People like watching movies, right? People also like playing video games, too. However, when something comes along like Jurassic Park here that is more like a blend between the two, rather than distinctly a movie or distinctly a game, people just seem to completely lose their shit over it, as though such a combination is somehow intrinsically bad and evil. It makes no sense to me. I think the sticking point is that it's called "Jurassic Park: The Game." Maybe we need to come up with a new term for this kind of interactive cinema other than "game." Maybe that would resolve a lot of the confusion and frustration from people who perhaps blindly went into this with the "I expect this to be Call of Duty with dinosaurs, and if not automatic EPIC FAIL" mindset, so that they would stop pissing and moaning so much and just leave the genre for people like me who actually enjoy it. But then, sadly, the gaming community (at least the so-called "hardcore" gamers as opposed to the dreaded "casuals" anyway) seems to be made up mostly of twitch-kiddie shooter fans these days, and they just don't like stuff like this (or anything else that isn't a shooter, apparently). And whenever they don't like something, they are extremely vocal about it as though the very existence of the thing physically assaults them or something, even though nobody is holding a gun to their head and forcing them to play it. And, accordingly, reviewers are going to tend to cater to that. Even more sadly, it seems like most devs are as well.
My only real complaint is that it was too short. But even then, when I stop to think about that, if people are willing to pay $15-$20 for a movie (or more), then is it really so unreasonable to pay twice that for something that lasts at least six times as long? (But then, I personally don't think it's very reasonable to expect people to pay $20 for a frickin' movie, but people pay it anyway, so whatever.)
With all of that said, however, I do think it was pretty poor form on the part of some TellTale employees to review their own game on Metacritic. Although, I do think it is incredibly ironic that it was Gamespot of all places that apparently broke this story, given their own lack of review integrity. Also, if you read a lot of the low user review scores on Metacritic, they're giving the 0 scores not because the game is actually that bad, but to "teach Telltale a lesson" or whatever crap. As such, you can safely and completely ignore the incredibly far too low overall user review average score when trying to determine how good the game is. I would personally give it around a 7-8 at least (and that's on a 1-10 scale, mind you, and not on the "7-10 scale" used by most professional reviewers these days).
Here's what I have to say about it. It is way better than some say it is. Note, I'm only linking to the RPS thing there, because they are pretty much the only remaining video game news/blog site that I still remotely respect, aside from maybe PC Gamer, but even RPS seriously trashed this game, calling it "insultingly terrible." In this case, I simply do not agree with them. At all.
Before you play the Jurassic Park game, here is what you need to know about it. Roughly half the game is made up of QTE sequences. Anything even the slightest bit action-y is going to involve them. The other half of the game is either talking to other people using a dialog wheel, or looking around the environment point-and-click style, or some combination of the two. You don't actually control the explicit character movement like you would in, say, Sam and Max or something, but I didn't miss it, and it makes sense anyway since you're usually controlling up to three or four people at once anyway.
Aside from your usual graphics whore comments like "Game looks great for 1993" or whatever retarded crap, the biggest complaint seems to be about the QTEs. So yeah, I'll just go ahead and say it straight up: If you don't like QTEs, don't even bother with this. If, however, the mere thought of a QTE doesn't immediately send you into an irrational, frothing rage, then it might be worth your time.
Okay, let's talk about QTEs here. Some people Many people Apparently everyone but me seems to think that if a game has QTEs in it, then that game is just inherently bad. Period. Full stop. Case closed. 'Nuff said. This is why people didn't like Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy (well, that and the fact that the story jumped the rails about halfway through). This is why people didn't like Heavy Rain. And, now, this is why people don't like the Jurassic Park game.
Yeah, people are comparing this game to Heavy Rain. While that's somewhat accurate, I would say perhaps a more accurate comparison would be to something like Star Trek: Borg. That's also a game that reviewers savaged when it came out, but that's yet another instance where I don't get the hate for it, at all. I thought Borg was awesome, personally, but what the hell do I know? The only real difference between Borg and Jurassic Park is that Borg uses FMV (another thing that people seem to think innately ruins any game that comes into contact with it, which is not true) and Jurassic Park uses CGI. JP is also more action-based and thus QTE heavy than Borg was. Aside from that, however, they're the same basic play style.
Honestly, I don't get it. People like watching movies, right? People also like playing video games, too. However, when something comes along like Jurassic Park here that is more like a blend between the two, rather than distinctly a movie or distinctly a game, people just seem to completely lose their shit over it, as though such a combination is somehow intrinsically bad and evil. It makes no sense to me. I think the sticking point is that it's called "Jurassic Park: The Game." Maybe we need to come up with a new term for this kind of interactive cinema other than "game." Maybe that would resolve a lot of the confusion and frustration from people who perhaps blindly went into this with the "I expect this to be Call of Duty with dinosaurs, and if not automatic EPIC FAIL" mindset, so that they would stop pissing and moaning so much and just leave the genre for people like me who actually enjoy it. But then, sadly, the gaming community (at least the so-called "hardcore" gamers as opposed to the dreaded "casuals" anyway) seems to be made up mostly of twitch-kiddie shooter fans these days, and they just don't like stuff like this (or anything else that isn't a shooter, apparently). And whenever they don't like something, they are extremely vocal about it as though the very existence of the thing physically assaults them or something, even though nobody is holding a gun to their head and forcing them to play it. And, accordingly, reviewers are going to tend to cater to that. Even more sadly, it seems like most devs are as well.
My only real complaint is that it was too short. But even then, when I stop to think about that, if people are willing to pay $15-$20 for a movie (or more), then is it really so unreasonable to pay twice that for something that lasts at least six times as long? (But then, I personally don't think it's very reasonable to expect people to pay $20 for a frickin' movie, but people pay it anyway, so whatever.)
With all of that said, however, I do think it was pretty poor form on the part of some TellTale employees to review their own game on Metacritic. Although, I do think it is incredibly ironic that it was Gamespot of all places that apparently broke this story, given their own lack of review integrity. Also, if you read a lot of the low user review scores on Metacritic, they're giving the 0 scores not because the game is actually that bad, but to "teach Telltale a lesson" or whatever crap. As such, you can safely and completely ignore the incredibly far too low overall user review average score when trying to determine how good the game is. I would personally give it around a 7-8 at least (and that's on a 1-10 scale, mind you, and not on the "7-10 scale" used by most professional reviewers these days).