Recent Posts51
General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog
« Last post by broodwars on August 30, 2026, 09:34:02 PM »Moving on, here's the one game in the set I not only have played before, but used to own and would regularly beat as a kid: Jurassic Park (SNES).
I don't know how I did it back then, because this is one of the most confusing, cryptic games I've played in a while.
I'll give the SNES version this much: it's certainly the most ambitious of Ocean's Jurassic Park games. Instead of a level-based structure, you have a small open world populated by dinosaurs and dungeons shaped like buildings. Outside, it's a top-down shooter. It's an Ocean Jurassic Park game, so you're looking for dinosaur eggs as well, and you're required to find all of them to beat the game. Inside, you're playing 3D Doom at 5 frames per second as you wander through absolute labyrinths looking for keys and consoles to interact with.
I remembered next to nothing about the actual progression of this game, other than that I needed to start by entering a utility shed to get a keycard before going into the visitor's center.
Pity I forgot that there are 2 utility sheds, the 1 you want is pretty well hidden, and I spent an eternity in the wrong one looking for a keycard that wasn't there. That then made me think my memory was bad, so I went to the visitor center...where I spent an even longer eternity looking for anything I could interact with and kept running into warnings that I needed keycards I didn't have in order to proceed. What a comedy of errors.
Once I started pulling up guides to point me in the right direction, things went more smoothly, but I can't stress enough what an absolutely cluster**** navigation is. Ocean had a love for mazes that bordered on the psychopathic. All of their JP games featured them, and none more than this one, and you're expect to remember where locked doors are and what keycards you need to open them later. The entire back half of the game expects you to crisscross the entire map 4 times over the course of clearing 1 dungeon, as you obtain keycards on the boat that allow you access to an area of the visitor center you need to reach to give yourself security clearance so you can explore the rest of the boat.
Then there's taking out the raptor nest, an absolute nightmare of identical corridors and walls you can very easily glitch through to get stuck in the void. At least the game is kind enough to remember what dinosaurs you've killed, as only certain raptors in the overworld respawn. And the collection does have a master map of the overworld that is quite handy, though sadly NO maps for the interior mazes that would be VERY helpful.
Where it isn't kind, and this is a big benefit of the collection, is with the game's save system. It doesn't have one, and it can easily take 3-5 hours to beat this game if you don't know what to do, and you're expected to do them all in one sitting. Again, I don't know how I routinely managed this as a child. Because the collection has save states, this game is way more playable now than it was back then.
I don't know how I did it back then, because this is one of the most confusing, cryptic games I've played in a while.
I'll give the SNES version this much: it's certainly the most ambitious of Ocean's Jurassic Park games. Instead of a level-based structure, you have a small open world populated by dinosaurs and dungeons shaped like buildings. Outside, it's a top-down shooter. It's an Ocean Jurassic Park game, so you're looking for dinosaur eggs as well, and you're required to find all of them to beat the game. Inside, you're playing 3D Doom at 5 frames per second as you wander through absolute labyrinths looking for keys and consoles to interact with.
I remembered next to nothing about the actual progression of this game, other than that I needed to start by entering a utility shed to get a keycard before going into the visitor's center.
Pity I forgot that there are 2 utility sheds, the 1 you want is pretty well hidden, and I spent an eternity in the wrong one looking for a keycard that wasn't there. That then made me think my memory was bad, so I went to the visitor center...where I spent an even longer eternity looking for anything I could interact with and kept running into warnings that I needed keycards I didn't have in order to proceed. What a comedy of errors.
Once I started pulling up guides to point me in the right direction, things went more smoothly, but I can't stress enough what an absolutely cluster**** navigation is. Ocean had a love for mazes that bordered on the psychopathic. All of their JP games featured them, and none more than this one, and you're expect to remember where locked doors are and what keycards you need to open them later. The entire back half of the game expects you to crisscross the entire map 4 times over the course of clearing 1 dungeon, as you obtain keycards on the boat that allow you access to an area of the visitor center you need to reach to give yourself security clearance so you can explore the rest of the boat.
Then there's taking out the raptor nest, an absolute nightmare of identical corridors and walls you can very easily glitch through to get stuck in the void. At least the game is kind enough to remember what dinosaurs you've killed, as only certain raptors in the overworld respawn. And the collection does have a master map of the overworld that is quite handy, though sadly NO maps for the interior mazes that would be VERY helpful.
Where it isn't kind, and this is a big benefit of the collection, is with the game's save system. It doesn't have one, and it can easily take 3-5 hours to beat this game if you don't know what to do, and you're expected to do them all in one sitting. Again, I don't know how I routinely managed this as a child. Because the collection has save states, this game is way more playable now than it was back then.
