An alright dinosaur adventure game
User Rating: 7 | The Lost World: Jurassic Park (Classics) PS
I remember playing this game as a child, in fact it is the only T rated game I ever was allowed to play until I was old enough to distinguish the difference between T and E. The overall concept of the game is pretty fun and well done, you control various dinosaurs and people over the course of the game and must make it to the end of the 2d linear map, and to do this you must kill other dinosaurs that get in your path, and also jump across obstacles and such. The game gets pretty difficult at times, and you can only generate life by eating other dinosaurs or a health pack if you are a hunter. If you die in a level you must restart the entire level which is annoying, but you do get codes to go ahead levels. The hunter is a little easier to play as but the platforming is much harder and the shooting controls aren't the smoothest. You also do a lot of swinging with your grapple hook. You sometimes feel like you can be overwhelmed at certain parts and it just gets to be too much, while other parts seem more luck based on getting past. The game is pretty short as well, since you mainly only control 5 different characters who you play no longer than an hour of gameplay as considering you are a fairly decent gamer. So thats around 5 hours or so of gameplay at the most. There are a few fun levels that stick out more than others like running from a giant T-Rex-like dinosaur while you are the smallest dinosaur in existence, or the final double T-Rex fight. I didn't really like controlling the T-Rex or human prey since the T-Rex all you really do is hold down the forward while biting down to eat your enemies the entire level and just feels like a tank to control. Controlling the T-Rex is just a big disappointed and feels like a mindless chore since there isn't much strategy involved in his levels. The prey is also pretty mindless since all her levels consist of running from T-Rexes mainly, aside from the final level consisting of fighting two T-Rexes.
The graphics are decent but a little choppy looking and the soundtrack is actually pretty intense with a full orchestra. The sound effects are pretty well done.
The replay value is horrible, because the game is so linear and once you beat the game there is really nothing more you can do. Sure you unlock things like artwork with codes but that is all boring, and I suppose you can go back to every level and collect the DNA, but some of the DNA is just too difficult to get, especially with the flawed placement design. And really all you unlock is artwork and galleries, so there is really no point of replaying. But still, for a dinosaur game this is decent, sure its nowhere near as fun as Operation Genesis, Carnivores series, or Dino Crisis, but it is better than most of the other Jurassic Park/Dino Hunting games available.
