Jurassic Park (Mega Drive)

Jurassic Park is a 1993 action-adventure platformer developed by BlueSky Software and published by SEGA. Art for the game was done by Doug TenNapel, who would later go on to create Earthworm Jim. The game gives the player the choice to either play as Dr. Alan Grant or a velociraptor. The game was made as a tie-in for the film, which was based of a 1990 novel.

Basics
Each player starts with 3 lives. Players have a health system. When all health is lost, the player loses a life and must restart the level. If all lives are lost, the game is over.

Dr. Grant
Grant has access to long-range weapons which are used to kill enemies (dinosaurs), with the goal of making it to the Visitor’s Center to escape via helicopter from the remote island.

Velociraptor
The Raptor can jump much higher and run faster than Grant, but can only attack at close range, making attacking enemies much more risky. The goal for Raptor players is to eliminate Jurassic Park’s security personnel and corner Dr. Grant at the Visitor’s Center. The Raptor only plays 5 stages.

Development
Acclaim Entertainment and Activision had both bid for the rights to develop the game for the Mega Drive, but lost to Sega themselves. Doug TenNapel was the lead artist for the development team. Animators for the game consulted experts on the film how the game’s dinosaurs should look. Developers also consulted paleontologist Robert Bakker, who dissected a supermarket chicken to show the similarities of dinosaur & chicken anatomies. The paleontologist also appeared in an advertisement for the game. To reflect dinosaur discoveries at the time, developers took trips to museums and zoos; to observe the habitats and movements of bird species & reptiles, such as alligators.

The game was the first by Sega to use the Silicon Graphics computers at the company’s new facilities, such computers were used to make the computer generated dinosaurs for the film. The 3D models for the game’s dinosaurs were created using stop-motion photography while a team of developers acted out Dr. Grant’s moves, which were later digitized. Many dinosaur models used for the film were sent to the game’s development studio so they could also be filmed and digitized while in motion. A $75,000 velociraptor puppet from the film was also used in production. The game uses artificial intelligence, so dinosaur enemies react uniquely each time.

Elements from the original 1990 novel were also worked into the game, including the presence of procompsognathus and pteranodons, along with the Jungle River attraction. The game uses the film’s original planned ending, in which Dr. Grant eliminates velociraptors at the Visitor’s Center by manipulating a Tyrannosaurus rex’s skeleton. The volcano level is not in either the film or novel, making it an exclusive element to this version of the story of Jurassic Park. By June of 1993, the game had been worked on for 15 months (1 year and 3 months). The game’s development was kept secret until that month, when the game was revealed at the Chicago Consumer Electronics Show. It was the first film-based game to give the player the option of playing as an antagonist of a protagonist.

Release
The game launched onto systems in North America on 10 August 1993, and was the first game on the Mega Drive to utilize Sega’s new rating system, the V.R.C. (Videogame Rating Council). It received the rating of G.A. (General Audiences), meaning the game was appropriate for any age.

Reception
The game was a commercial success, with 250,000 copies sold in the first week of release in the United States alone, setting a record-breaking 13.8 million dollars in revenue.

Critical reviews of the game were mixed to positive, with Electronic Gaming Monthly giving the game a 8/10, and Computer and Video Games giving it a 65/100.