Jurassic Park: The Game

Return to Isla Nublar

What the hell kind of zoo is this?!

—Nima Cruz

Jurassic Park: The Game is a 2011 video game from Telltale Games in the style of games like Heavy Rain. It plays like an Interactive Movie, as you don't actually control your character - rather, you guide them through quick-time events during the action scenes. During the puzzle/exploration scenes, you can look around for points of interest, switch between characters/locations, and talk through dialogue trees.

The events of the game itself are set during and right after the events of the first film, following head veterinarian Dr. Gerald "Gerry" Harding, his daughter Jess, and several mercenaries as they attempt to escape the island. Notably, the lost Barbasol can filled with dinosaur embryos is a major plot point.

The game received mixed reviews, with the phrase "Like Heavy Rain with dinosaurs," being used as both a positive and a negative description.

Tropes used in Jurassic Park: The Game include:

• Action Girl: Nima.
• Adult Fear: Many of the death scenes involve Garry being forced to watch his teenage daughter Jess getting eaten, crushed or stomped.
• Always a Bigger Fish: The T. rex reprises its role in eating Raptors to the protagonists' benefit.
• Amusement Park of Doom: This time it even has a roller coaster.
• And I Must Scream: D-Caf's fate.
• Animal Wrongs Group: Dr. Sorkin. She frees the dinosaurs of their lysine dependency, allowing them to survive off the island without help (though at the time she had no idea they could breed). When she finds out the island is going to be bombed, she first tries to use the other characters as hostages to stop it, then tries to release the park's Mosasaur into the ocean to save it. She's also responsible for many of the deaths in the game, having kept the lethally venomous Troodon a secret after Hammond ordered her to kill them.
• Anyone Can Die: Out of the game's eight characters, only two or three (depending on your actions) survive the game's events.
• Ascended Extra: Gerry Harding, who was a minor character in the movie.
  • Interestingly he was a major character in the book. So he got Demoted to Extra and is now an Ascended Extra.
• Asshole Victim: The game has a disturbing tendency akin to the movies to have almost everyone who dies either start as this or become a raging asshole shortly before they die. Oscar seems to be the only exception, see Heroic Sacrifice below.
• Badass Beard: Oscar.
• Badass Normal: Oscar kills a Raptor with nothing but a combat knife!
  • Gerry, while attempting to force the gate on the Triceratops paddock closed, takes a direct hit from the charging alpha female. The enormous steel gate is knocked off its hinges and lands on top of him-- and yet he's still vigorous enough to crawl out from underneath, scoop up a wounded Nima, and run to safety whilst evading both the angry Triceratops and a hungry T. rex. Is this guy Made of Iron or what?
    • And according to Sorkin, Gerry was the first person ever that managed to outrun a pack of raptors.
• Bittersweet Ending: If the player makes Nima save the embryos instead of Jess in the final episode, the T. rex eats her.
  • Or the player fails to save Gerry in the final scene.
• Bad Vibrations: It just wouldn't be Jurassic Park if you couldn't track the T. rex with a seismograph.
• Bilingual Bonus: Nima and, to a lesser degree, Oscar, frequently speak in Spanish.
  • There's an achievement for "correctly" getting a Spanish sentence on the first try.
• Bloodless Carnage: People are stomped, crushed, eaten, and mauled, but there is never any blood or gore. One can find blood spattered all around certain areas, but never in the death scenes.
• Body Horror: The Troodons' method of breeding.
• Bring My Brown Pants: This line:

Billy (after Oscar startles him): Dammit, Oscar! I only have one pair of pants!

• Cat Scare: Early in the game, with some birds flying out of a bush. Also later on when Gerry and Jess are getting ready to leave the maintenance shed, there are horrible metallic banging and screeching sounds...which are caused by a toucan sharpening its beak on a barrel.
• Chekhov's Skill: Jess was sent to stay with her father on the island after getting caught shoplifting. This skill allows her to throw a monkey wrench in Yoder's plans in the fourth episode.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Hammond is shown in a much worse light in the games, closer to the novel's portrayal. However, most of the criticism comes from Dr. Sorkin and Nima, who both have personal issues with InGen.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Oscar has one that overlaps with Nima's: He was one of the mercenaries InGen hired to evict Nima's tribe from Isla Nublar twelve years before so they could begin constructing the park.
• Deadpan Snarker: All of the mercenaries (especially Yoder), Jess, and Dr. Sorkin.
• Death by Irony: Immediately after Dr. Sorkin frees the Mosasaur, it eats her.
  • Miles gets one as well; after he throws Nima to the Dilophosaurs, they decide to attack him first. Most likely because he'd already been sprayed by their venomous spit.
• Death World: Isla Nublar becomes this very quickly in the game.
• Despair Event Horizon: Yoder snaps after witnessing the brutal death of Oscar and the horrific Fate Worse Than Death of D-Caf, his two comrades and best friends. This--combined with greed, a desire for vengeance on Dr. Sorkin, and a large amount of stress--is likely what caused him to betray the other survivors.
• Dirty Coward: Nima suggests to Miles that they need a distraction when they're surrounded by Dilophosaurs. Miles' response is to push Nima right in front of one.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Dr. Sorkin's assistant, David Banks. We hear his voice in episode one, but in episode two he's died offscreen with little explanation.
  • A Telltale Games employee said he was originally going to appear in episode two, but what they had planned for him would have upped the game's rating to M.
  • "I told him not to get too close to the quarantined animals." Said animals are troodon...that sums it up.
• Dull Surprise: Some of the facial animation of the human characters tend to fall in this category.
• Dwindling Party
• Enemy Mine/We ARE Struggling Together!: With the exception of the vetinarian and his teen daughter, all the characters are anti-heroes with various conflicting agendas, and only end up temporarily working together to avoid becoming dino chow.
• Everything's Better with Dinosaurs: Well, for the player, anyway. For the characters, not so much.
• Evilutionary Biologist: While Dr. Sorkin herself isn't one per se, her plans for the Mosasaur are those of one.
• Face Heel Turn: Yoder has one and turns on the other characters when all of his team is dead.
• Famous Last Words: Gerry invokes this when Nima assures him that her plan for escaping the Marine Facility will work.
• Foreshadowing: Dr. Sorkin wanted to turn Jurassic Park into an animal preserve. Its a subtle hint to The Lost World.
  • Nima: You're in the company of killers. You're no safer here than you were in the jungle.
  • After watching the Triceratops herd, Jess tells Gerry that she would like to see one fight a T. rex. Guess what happens that night?
  • The scene where Billy retrieves the canister while the T-Rex is nearby.
• "Friend or Idol?" Decision: Nima is confronted with this choice late in the game. She can either save Jess from falling and becoming T. rex chow, or retrieve the embryo canister. One choice turns out well, the other... doesn't. Though considering Nima's motivation behind receiving and delivering the embryos, it's more like Friend Or Daughter Decision.
• Full Name Ultimatum: When Jess is revealed to have stolen Dr. Sorkin's cigarettes, Gerry gives her a good chewing-out, beginning with an angry shout of "Jessica Marie Harding!".
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: The Troodon.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: For good scars, there's Gerry Harding, who has clawmark scars on his left forearm. For evil scars, there's the Raptor pack leader that Oscar manages to strike with his knife, giving her a huge scar over her left eye.
• Gory Discretion Shot: Several instances, most particularly when one of the main characters comes across Nedry's remains and one of the team-members the main characters come across and discover that the Troodon have laid their eggs within his comatose body.
• Guns Are Worthless: Though not for lack of trying, no dinosaurs are ever killed with guns. The only firearm-related fatalities in the whole game are Bravo Team, after Vargas starts hallucinating due to a Troodon bite and begins shooting at his own men.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Oscar manages to get the power plant's blast doors open so the others can escape, but gets killed by the Raptors in the process.
• Iconic Logo: Everything at the park has this on it, though with the dinosaur swapped to fit the area of the park.
• Interface Screw: There are quite a few quick-time events that are impossible to succeed at in the game, and the game doesn't even dock you points for them.
• Interface Spoiler: The Achievements list on the 360 version - which is completely readable from the start of the game, unlike a lot of 360 games - gives away quite a bit of the plot, such as the Troodon and a fight against Yoder.
• Interquel: Set somewhat during and shortly after the original film, but set before the events of The Lost World.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Oscar and Yoder. Well, Yoder before his Face Heel Turn, anyway.
• Karmic Death: Several characters actually. One of which you can decide.
• Kleptomaniac Hero: Jess is a literal example. She was spending her weekend on the island with her father after committing shoplifting. Throughout the story, she kept on stealing things from other characters, including a pair of binoculars from Hammond, a pack of cigarettes from Dr. Sorkin, and the can of shaving cream containing the dinosaur embryos from Yoder.
• MacGuffin: The embryo container.
• The Many Deaths of You: Unless you want to become dino chow, you'd better be quick on those buttons, as there are many ways to die horrible (and in some cases, darkly amusing) deaths. The developers even stated that dying and watching the numerous death scenes would be half the fun.
• Matchlight Danger Revelation: Twice.
  • In Episode 3, Jess sneaks away from the group to a dark hallway for a quick smoke break. She turns on a lighter, revealing a Raptor just inches from her.
  • In Episode 4, Billy sees a suspiciously dark hallway and slowly approaches it. He lights a flare, and reveals that a whole pack of Troodon is just inches from him.
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: Despite being somewhat smaller, the Troodons are even more frightening than the Tyrannosaurus and the Velociraptors.
• Noisy Guns: Every time a character waves a firearm, it rattles like a Yahtzee cup full of dice.
• Nonstandard Game Over: A particularly nasty one can occur at the very end of the game. If you make Nima pick the canister instead of help Jess, and fail the last quicktime event as Gerry, you'll be treated to a cutscene involving a traumatized Jess, all alone on the departing boat, as the T. rex roars in the background.
• Noodle Incident: From Yoder:

Look, were are NOT leaving without D-Caf! I mean, we agreed, right?! Oh, man. I will NOT let you turn this into Nicaragua again!

• Nothing Is Scarier: The viewers are only able to hear or see the eyes of the Troodons until the last episode of the game.
• Oh Crap: Almost every time one of the characters sees dangerous dinosaurs heading in their direction. Invoked directly by Miles when he notices the Dilophosaur behind him.
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Dr. Sorkin. For a geneticist, she also has remarkable knowledge in toxicology, and a considerable skill in computer science, as she is able to easily undo one of Nedry's logic bombs.
• Papa Wolf: Gerry will do anything to protect Jess, and will react badly in the event that she dies.
• Point and Click Game
• Precocious Crush: Jess seems to alternate between having one on Billy and Oscar. It ends after Oscar dies and Yoder betrays everyone.
• Press X to Not Die: Pretty much all of the game, excepting the times when Telltale lets you stop, catch your breath, and look around.
• Ptero-Soarer: One inexplicably flying kicks the helicopter, causing the first crash.
• Quick Time Event: When you are not solving puzzles, the rest of the game is almost entirely this.
• Raptor Attack: Comes in original or extra-venomous.
• Recycled in Space: Heavy Rain with dinosaurs! The developers actually called it this in an early interview.
• Science Marches On: Dr. Sorkin's journal handwaves a lot of the differences between recent scientific discovery and how the dinos were portrayed in the movies. They basically just excuse it as being the fault of splicing in the frog DNA and advise that we try not to worry about it.
• Sea Monster: A really huge (and really terrifying) Mosasaur shows up late in the game.
• Smug Snake: Billy becomes a pretty big one after his Face Heel Turn.
• Soundtrack Dissonance / Stylistic Suck: During Oscar's fight with the lone Raptor, an original (and intentionally cheesy) song in the style of a 60s/70s acid rock ballad plays over the intercoms. Hear for yourself.
• Stock Dinosaurs: Averted and played straight. T. rex and Triceratops appear, and even get a classic dinosaur fight. Parasaurolophus and Pteranodon also make appearances. Averted with the Herrerasaurs, Troodon, and, debatably, the Mosasaur. Velociraptors and Dilophosaurs are a special case, as they're only Stock Dinosaurs because of the movie this is based on.
• Super-Persistent Predator: The T. rex brings down several large herbivores and keeps right on chasing those pesky humans, often seconds after having swallowed one. The Raptors do this too, bringing down a Parasaurolophus that should have fed the whole pack, then still chasing the humans into the tunnel system.
  • Lampshaded by Nima: "Do these things ever stop eating?"
  • Spectacularly averted in the first T-Rex appearance, though. Confronted with several humans and a full-grown triceratops, the T-Rex completely ignores the humans until one accidentally grabs its attention by running right up to it. Even then, when said person proves a more difficult meal than expected, it quickly turns its attention back to the triceratops. The danger through most of the scene is avoiding being crushed by two enormous dinosaurs that barely register the characters' presence.
• Too Dumb to Live: Yoder, you definitely should have stayed still.
  • Miles qualifies as well.
  • Laura Sorkin, you shouldn't have released the Mosasaur.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: No human is ever killed (onscreen) by another human (although certainly not for lack of trying); though they come close a few times. Only dinosaurs actually do anybody in.
• Voodoo Shark: The journals reveal that all of the discrepancies between the dinosaurs from the movie and the fossil records are because of Henry Wu using frog DNA to fill in the gaps. Including giant, featherless Velociraptors, Tyrannosaurs with vision based on movement, and venomous pygmy Dilophosaurs.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Dr. Sorkin becomes when she finds out InGen's plans regarding her animals.
• Wham! Episode: Episode 3 ends with Oscar's death, our heroes discovering that D-Caf has become a Troodon nest, and Billy going insane from said events.
• The Worf Effect: Even the Raptors flee from the territory of the new, super-scary dinos for this game, the Troodon.
  • This may actually count as Genre Savvy on the Velociraptors part as the Troodons are highly toxic and a single bite seems to be lethal without treatment.