I remember getting this game, way back in Christmas 1998, when I was 12, and I could not believe that there was a game out that, at the time, was considered the 'sequel' to The Lost World: Jurassic Park. I could not wait to install it on my PC. This is probably where the issues with Trespasser started. In short, the game was way ahead of its time. It was brought out too soon in its development with many bugs and ended up being way over budget! My computer at the time was powerful enough (just) to run the game on its basic settings, but from the off, I felt the game was not going to be what I wanted it to be.
The general plot of the game is that you are the sole survivor of a plane crash, and you wake to find yourself on the now known Site B - the island where the T-Rex of San Diego came from. You must make your way through the heart of the island and to the summit of the mountain in order to be rescued by helicopter. Along the way you visit various sites such as the worker village. On your way through you discover hidden secrets of InGen and how Jurassic Park was created and how, it ultimately, failed.
Fast forward 24 years, to 2022, and Jurassic Park Trespasser is remembered fondly by the Jurassic community, mainly because it's the game that had the potential to be the best Jurassic game to date. It is also the game, I believe, that fans want to see remastered - especially after the release of Jurassic World Aftermath and Aftermath: Part 2 on the Oculus Quest. Even if you want to remaster the game and have it as 'canon' within the franchise, this is a relatively easy task when you consider that the plot of the game is being the sole survivor on Isla Sorna (Site B). The bulk of the game focuses on your journey to survive, with not many ramifications on the story that effects current plot threads that have been shown on the big screen or in Camp Cretaceous (or any other canon media, like the novel, ‘Evolution of Claire’).
There are some things within the game that are truly ground-breaking. For me, the biggest change was not having an interface to the game, meaning that you had no visible health bar or inventory. Instead, you had a tattoo on the chest of your character (a female called Anna) that showed a heart with an indication of how much 'life' you had left. If this game was to ever be remastered, it is fair to imply that a change of the health bar’s location may be more appropriate for modern standards and decency. Perhaps a tattoo on her arm would suffice! Due to there being no interface, there was no way of showing what weapon you had or how many bullets you had, but instead, you had your character tell you that the gun only had 'a few bullets left' or 'this one is fully loaded'. This made you more wary of using your bullets – a trait which later informed games like ‘The Last of Us’, where you were much more wary about using your ammunition.
There were many, many, things wrong with this game. Not only did installing the game take hours, but once you started playing, it would frequently crash, meaning you had to start all over again. When I first started playing, my biggest issue was that there were no dinosaurs. I wasn't sure if this was a bug in the game, or if I had missed an important part of the story that triggered something within the mechanics of the game to progress to the actual dinosaurs. I did however, over time, manage to play the game properly and interact with the dinosaurs – finally exploring all of Site B!
The best thing with this game is that Sir Richard Attenborough reprised his role of InGen’s owner, John Hammond. As you progressed through Isla Sorna as Anne (voiced by Minnie Driver), you would discover items and events that would trigger narrated soundtracks from John Hammond. These audio tracks provided background on Jurassic Park and Isla Sorna. These included adding to the back story and mentioned characters including Dennis Nedry, Dr Wu and Robert Muldoon. Even if a remake of this game never happens, I cannot believe this voice over recording has not been used in some way shape or form. It would be right at home in a future Jurassic World film, or in a prequel project like ‘Hammond’, which some fans pitched recently. There are YouTube videos of the John Hammond voice overs – with particular credit being paid to the Jurassic Time team, who have meticulously pieced these recordings together with great sound effects and music. I'm not going to spoil anything that Hammond says, so I highly recommend you go and take a listen for yourself.
This game had the potential to be ground-breaking. The graphics were out of this world (for 1998), and the ambition to create an open world environment including so many locations was ahead of its time. The box art itself is beautiful, depicting a tiger stripped Velociraptor bursting through some wooden remains while screaming at the user. I feel the biggest error for Jurassic Park Trespasser, is that it was designed and produced at the wrong time. This game, if made today, could be like the rebooting of Tomb Raider in 2013 on modern consoles, or could even work as a Red Dead Redemption-style open-world game. Imagine, for a moment. You’re a lone survivor on Isla Sorna, and you have the ability to free roam the WHOLE island in glorious 4K. Is it possible to get Rockstar to hold the Jurassic license? It could even work well as a more modern VR game, following in the steps of ‘Aftermath’ on the Oculus.
Jurassic Park Trespasser. The right game - just in the wrong time!
Sources: -
https://fabiensanglard.net/trespasser/index.php
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trespasser_(video_game)
John Hammond audio - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6fgLbSw7Ao
Chris Kay
Twitter - @chris_kay_art
Instagram - @campcollectjurassic (Jurassic fan account)
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Written by: Chris Kay