Jurassic: The Hunted – Playstation 3

This is a decent game. I had fun with it. Although a budget title, Jurassic the Hunted can be quite a bit of fun.

The graphical detail is so-so, although things look good, it lacks the polish of, say, Crysis 2 or Dead Space 2. The graphics are not bad, mind you, it is just that this is not a top title graphically. Still, things moved smooth. I had no problems with glitches.

The sound is ok. The music will pick up when you are in a battle and slow down when there are no more enemies to fight. While not memorable, the music does not get on my nerves. Voice acting was alright. There really is not much of a story, just a lot of gunplay!

The shooting is fine. Although against Dinosaurs, sometimes your gun feel rather light. If you hit the smaller ones in the head, it is one-shot dead, but if you hit them in the body, you’ll need 5-6 shots. Ouch!

This game has arcade sequences where you shoot from a fixed, mounted position. These can be a little touchy. I am not a great gamer in this area, but I was still able to get through them, after several tries, of course.

The few boss fights are kinda neat. The last boss is a timed battle. It is rather hard.

The game is not long. 6 to 8 hours is all it takes to play through once.

Overall, this is a decent title to play. It has a lot of good trophies to get, that’s for sure. Jurassic the Hunted can be fun if you give it a chance.

This was a pretty fun game. I went into expecting very little from the story (I was not disappointed, btw), but some fun dinosaur-hunting. All in all, this game was a win. There were a couple of things that really stood out to me as being great or not so. I’ve noted them below. Note that, with a few exceptions, most of my “less than great”‘s were really pretty minor things, that had a negligible impact individually, but a more significant one when taken together.

Great:

– The Raptors. (I’m guessing Utahraptors?) You fight a lot of them; maybe too many, as it seems like these are all you run into for long stretches of time. These are not just dumb beasts that attack you mindlessly, though. They hunt in packs. They hide in the foliage to camouflage themselves. If one of the pack has taken a lot of damage, he falls back to let the fresh one take over.
– The rest of the dinosaurs and lizards. They were all well done – the Dilophosaurus’ had good range, the T. Rexes were tough and scary, etc. I would have liked more interaction with herbivores (like, being able to mingle with the herd, making sure not to be stepped on as you do)…but all in all, well done.
– Survival mode. This game isn’t a masterpiece when it comes to storyline, so it’s nice to be able to fight the dinosaurs without having to rehash that. Multiplayer would have been cool too, but I understand that this wasn’t a big budget production. 🙂
– The Jurassic Park references. Ok, so I’ve been a total nerd with Jurassic Park since I was a young kid. So, yeah, it was pretty cool to see the Jurassic Park references (“Clever Girl”, anyone?). The dinosaurs are modeled after the Jurassic Park ones, I would assume, as the game creators take much of the same creative license that Spielberg and Chricton did (concerning the Velociraptors and Dilophosaurus, for instance). The raptors sound just like the Jurassic Park ones, too. Pretty freaky when you’re creeping through the jungle and you hear that…

Less than great:

– No ability for stealth. One of the great things about this game is how stealthy the dinosaurs can be; unfortunately, particularly as the game wears on, there is very little opportunity for you to do the same, as the dinosaurs don’t spawn until you reach such-and-such point – when it’s too late to take them by surprise. It would have been nice to be able to hone your stealth hunter skills.
– The voice acting/dialog. I didn’t expect a masterpiece, so I wasn’t disappointed, but know that the voice acting is not that great at times; nor is the dialog itself.
– Damage. You can take wayyyyy more damage than you should be able to in this game. I mean, look at the size of those raptors jaws! No way you could keep getting bit by that. Then when you start getting bit by the T. Rex and the Spinosaurus, and just keep going…all I can say is, I didn’t realize the Man of Steel was posing as an obnoxious merc these days….
– Save points. This is just a lousy way to make your game take longer – by making the player replay the last segment, since where ever the saving point prior to his/her demise was. If they had allowed the player to save at will, there wouldn’t have been a need to turn the dinosaurs into wimps. Granted, there would be aggravation in both scenarios. However, this would have at least made the feeling of the perils of hunting dinosaurs a little more authentic. (I know, I shouldn’t probably be playing a dinosaur-hunting game and complaining about realism…but it would be nice to at least pretend 😛 ).
– The loading screens. This is really pretty minor, but for the first half of the game, they seemed to have exactly the same text and order for the loading screens. Plus, they always paired the wrong description to the wrong image. Brachiosaurus info with a Velocoraptor or Dilophosaurus picture. I understand that they weren’t really “paired”, but it looked that way.
– “Accept”. Again, this is really minor…but having you click “Accept” every time they tell you “You have been killed” can get pretty aggravating. “Continue” would have been a much better choice, as Ok would have been lousy too (“No, it’s not OK that I was killed!” 😛 ).
– The Spinosaurus vs. T. Rex fight. Again, this was minor, minor, minor. But, really? A wounded-nigh-unto-death Spinosaurus can, just like that, pick off a Tyrannosaurus Rex?! Come on, give the King his due – he might not have been able to best a well, on the top of his game Spinosaur, but this one was starting to look like swiss cheese!

I know I have a lot of nitpicks about the game listed, and only a few positive points…so let me re-emphasize…the positives wayyyyy outweigh the negatives. There might be more negatives, but they are all pretty minor; where as the positives are substantial. So, all in all, I give this a 4/5 – a fairly short, but fun, dinosaur hunting game.

Jurassic: The Hunted for the PS3 doesn’t try to be anything it isn’t. What you get is a linear First Person shooter where the dinosaurs are the star. The story is simple, yet intriguing.

It controls intuitively, features a variety of minimally upgradeable weaponry, and keeps consistently intense from level to level. It has just the right amount of difficulty to keep you challenged and engaged.

The gameplay spans a total of about 5-6 hours of gameplay per difficulty mode.

If you are a big fan of dinosaurs, the Jurassic Park films, or casual FPS shooters, then this is the perfect game for you.