Jurassic Park II: The Chaos Continues

If I had to sum this game up in one sentence, it'd be: “Ocean atones for Jurassic Park One.” While I still can't say this game ranks up there among the upper echelon of great games, I can at least say that it's been improved enough to be enjoyable. By: Catfish_82

The most notable and enjoyable improvement was the addition of another player. That's right, JP2: The Chaos Continues is a two player! The missions in JP2 are more broken up. You really don't get the sense of doing one thing to accomplish another like you did in the first. However, unlike JP1 where your goal was to get off the island, this time your goal is to bring it back online (remember it is a theme park after all). But the dinosaurs will give you a hard time. Also making it's presence felt, is the evil Biosyn Corporation. As anyone who read Jurassic Park or saw the movie knows, they were ultimately why things got out of control in the first place. They've decided to take over Jurassic Park, and you must stop them. Another nifty feature is the stock. Like I previously stated, your goal is to stop Biosyn and bring Jurassic Park back online. And to that end you can't just go around mindlessly killing everything like you did in the first one. You're not supposed to kill anything beyond the Raptors and the T. Rex other wise your breeding stock will die out and JP will close forever. To prevent that, is your supply of non-lethal weapons, a stun gun, tranquilizer darts, and gas grenades. To dispose of the raptors, you've got your standard rifle, a machine gun, and the shotgun. Anyways, onto the review.

Play Control / Gameplay: 10/10

The control was very fluid and very responsive. And it's a good thing too; because I can't count the number of times raptors in this game ambush you. You'll need responsive controls to get out of many a sticky situation.

Characters: 9.5/10

I know I shouldn't rate them that highly, but I can't help it. The dinosaurs are so streamlined and their movements so fluid that I can't help it. The dinosaurs have a lot more color to them, and while all the ones in the first game are still here, there are even a few from the book that didn't make it into the first JP. I was thrilled to see the Pterosaurs. I have no complaints with any of the humans either. Both Alan Grant and the Biosyn agents look good. However, the -.5 deduction comes from the two-player mode. I can't remember the guy's name, but I do know he has absolutely no relevance to the story, either book or movie. He's just in there.

Graphics: 10/10

The graphics are awesome! The jungles, the buildings, the cliffs, the volcano, they're all just so well rendered and visually appealing. Like I said earlier, everything is so streamlined and fluid that I had to give it a 10.

Sound: 8/10

The music is very good as well. They use the standard Jurassic Park theme for when you're outside in the jungle. But there's different music to accompany buildings (slow and creepy), the cliff (heart pounding), etc. The dinosaurs sound a lot more bird-like; they have calls, but still make that screeching sound when you kill them. Overall the music and the sounds were quite fitting.

Replay value: 5/10

If JP2 does have any true shortcomings, it's in this department. There are several missions that even on easy mode are quite hard, and require a good bit of trial and error. As far as the replay value, I'm not too sure. On one hand, it has more replay value than JP1 (where once you beat it, you wanted to lock it in a chest and then bury that chest at sea so you never had to look at the game again), but there really isn't much motivation to come back to it over and over again like you would Super Metroid or Chrono Trigger. I think this is due to the story. I'm not trying to take away from the Jurassic Park story, but I mean come on, you're trying to bring an amusement park back online and that's it. I think it's the same reason why the Disney line of games (from the same era) didn't do so hot.

So overall, I'd say this is a decent little game. It's not groundbreaking or mind-blowing, but it's a good little waste of time. It's akin to the B Horror movie. Occasionally you just get a hankering to see Halloween or Nightmare on Elm Street, this game is just like that, something that you occasionally like to play.