I love Jurassic Park. I read the novels, saw all the films, played the games on Genesis, Sega CD, SNES, Saturn, and Playstation, for better or worse! I enjoyed Jurassic World as a sequel. I was not disappointed by Colin Trevorrow's direction or the storyline. Since its been a while that I played a game with JP content, I was tickled that LEGO made this game, with content from all 4 films! I am playing the X360 version.

Just like with the films, I feel that the Jurassic Park section was the most special and fun of the 4 here, too. This review is mostly based on my first play-through of Story Mode of each film. This is the first time I've played a LEGO game with audio clips from the films. In prior games (like LEGO Star Wars), they'd pantomime scenes and you'd understand it from your memory - and it was often funny. But now, lots of the real actors' dialogue is played! This is mostly good; see JP3 section for 'bad' example.



Jurassic Park

The graphics are really nice in some sections, I noticed. Cinema-quality backgrounds, water, and lots sprites with little LEGO debris temporarily cluttering up the entire playfield! I got an immmediate charge out of playing as Robert Muldoon and hearing his dialogue. Man, it would have been great if Muldoon was also in TLW. But nope , he was outwitted by the Clever Girl and died. I experienced a few little glitches here and there. The one that I remember is between the Brachiosaurus paddock, and the main JP Visitors' Center. You need two types of characters to open a gate - an athletic jumper (Ellie), and sometimes a Dino Expert (Dr. Grant) to assemble LEGO bones into a machine. Well, I jumped in one of the two jeeps and the other characters didn't follow me to the gate. I had to drive back to the previous gate until the characters re-spawned, and fool around until I got both characters to the final gate. It didn't take long but at first I was confused, and I was so preoccupied with whether I *could* actually solve the problem, that I didn't stop to think if I *should* ! Still , these little bugs aren't a deal-breaker for me. I experienced a few other bugs such as a character getting stuck in infinite "backing-off-from-danger" loop, but I was able to get past that by switching characters and moving forward. I saw a number of graphical graphics tears as well. This game must've been on a tight schedule for such bugs to still be in there.

One of the most bizarre things I've ever seen is Ellie Sattler investigating huge piles of dino droppings. She jumps headfirst into them with a swimmer's pose. Other characters back off from the smelly piles automatically (the source of my previously mentioned bug), waving their hands in front of their noses. Dino Droppings Diving occurs throughout the game. There are also Loose Earth piles (which Dr. Grant uses his shovel to dig up and reveal things) , and they often look pretty similar to Dino Poop piles, causing me to be initially confused by what to do.



The Lost World


The fun LEGO gameplay continues here, but opens with a boring level of Eddie's Workshop location with some minor vehicle-fixin' puzzles, then leading to the Stegosaurus sequence where you must hide in logs and get the angry Steg to attack it with his tail, getting his tail stuck there for a moment. And of course there's the hanging-trailers w/Eddie-in-the-Jeep sequence! I anxiously awaited the horrible film part where young Kelly does gymnastics and kills a raptor - it's certainly in here, even Iam Malcolm's line "They cut you from the team?!". HAW HAW HAW. I hate the scene, but its fun to make fun of it. Another funny make-fun scene is where the characters hide behind a waterfall in a cave, and the dino expert runs out to certain death (by T.Rex) because he's afraid of a little snake. After this happens, the Rex looks at the other characters and shrugs his shoulders/arms at that dumb action. Then he leaves to eat the guy! The mainland scenes with a loose T-rex are included too.


Jurassic Park 3


Remember when Eric's mom had that megaphone and kept yelling "ERIC! ERIC!!?", and Dr. Grant told Mrs Kirby "that's a very bad idea" ? Well, you get to hear that audio clip OVER and OVER again, for 5 minutes straight until you reach her and shut her up. Thanks, Traveler's Tales. It's weird using characters like Mr and Mrs Kirby, who had no survival skills at all in the film, yet here they are athletic and can use grappling hooks and so on. Well, overall I liked playing through this section but it is nothing special. The Spino isn't nearly as menacing as the raptors and Rex from JP and TLW sections. You do get to battle Pterries and the Spino at the end. Billy is the rock climber character and nobody is too angry at him here for stealing raptor eggs; he uses his paragliding parachute to span long trenches that no other character can. The game finishes with the Spino in the water, you get to battle it with puzzles and exploding fuel tanks.



Jurassic World

It was finally in this section that I realized that you need to play as a compy to access the green tubes, that I'd seen in the prior film story sections but couldn't utilize the compy yet. The two boys have a section where they need to re-tire and supply batteries and gas to the jeep. It makes more sense that in the actual film where they show incredible mechanics skill reviving a 20-year old jeep.

Speaking of compies, by this time in the game, I'm pretty sick and tired of the Compy thugs which attack you in every movie storyline section. Sometimes you must smash then assemble a blockage over their nest (usually a hole coming out of the mountain) or they come forever. But other times 2 or 3 show up to slow you down a bit more.

You get to play as the Rex and finally the Raptors in some parts here. JW seems more thought-out and longer than TLW and JP3, to me. Pretty much all of the main scenes are here. I liked the brief scenes in the truck , or on the bike, with an aiming reticle trying to zap the pursuing raptors. Once raptor Blue joins your team, she is needed to pull off some puzzles. It is funny to press the B button over loose LEGO piles and see the raptor furiously assembling a LEGO machine!

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All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed playing LEGO Jurassic World! What a trip through the films, and its easy because you can't really die, all you can do is get stumped on a puzzle for a brief while. With the authentic music and voices and great visuals, this game is a lot of fun for the JP fan.