While still clearly ultimately devoted to the classic adventure game formula, Telltale Games has been showing an increasing devotion to expanding the scope of the kind subject matter and gameplay variations that is available to them within the genre. This has come in the form of everything from resurrecting long dormant properties, both within and without the video game industry, to an increasing willingness to insert darker and more serious themes into even its most comedic works to increasingly implementing adjustments to their normal control/interface methods and gameplay formula. Telltale is clearly trying to prove to the world that they are capable of making more than just a funny, point-and-click, LucasArts style adventure game. With the release of Jurassic Park: the Game, the company has taken their boldest step away from this formula yet, but the question remains: will the game make players want to return to Jurassic Park or is it just another example of the bad DNA that has long dogged the many, many game adaptations of this franchise?

In many ways, Jurassic Park: the Game shares much in common with the many dinosaurs who inhabit the titular park from which the franchise draws its name. In the world of Jurassic Park, the dinosaurs are amazing creatures whose odd mix of DNA ultimately leads them to go beyond the control of the humans who created them. So too then is JP:tG a mostly memorable and highly compelling experience that is nonetheless at times brought down by an awkward mix of less than perfect game design and a struggling, outdated graphics engine. Just as with the scientists who cloned the dinos only to end up in many cases the meal of their creations, so too were the clearly high ambitions of Telltale ultimately let down by the technology they must rely on to make said ambitions a reality.

This is not to say that Jurassic Park is a bad game that interested players should consider avoiding; far from it. At its best, the game manages to capture, like the movie series its draws the majority of its inspiration from, the truest essence of a thrill ride: an exciting experience with peaks and valleys, swerves and curves, and twists and turns aplenty. While there are times when JP:tG bogs downs for any number of reasons, said moments are far outweighed by a number of strong action sequences and clever naturalistic (and often multi-character) puzzles. While it starts slow, once the game reaches the halfway point of the second of its four episodes (a holdover from when the game was, like most previous Telltale titles, going to be released in an episodic monthly format) it starts to build a real sense of energy that stays with the game during the remainder of its playing time. The game’s fourth episode is especially strong, featuring one standout set piece after another, all while also building towards an explosively engaging finale.

Those eyes belong to a new, not previously seen in the films, species of dino , the Troodons, who cause what is easily the most intense and disturbing sequence in the game.

Jurassic Park: the Game opens its story during the events of the original movie, specifically the night of the storm where everything went wrong, but quickly moves past this time period around the last fourth of the first of the game’s four episodes. From that point forward, the story tracks a small band of disparate survivors (including one of the geneticists instrumental in first cloning the dinos, a veterinarian/former zoo keeper and his estranged teenage daughter, and a local woman turned mercenary who has snuck onto the island for dubious reasons) as they are brought together by two mercenaries who are all that remains of a larger rescue force sent by InGen. While all the characters do at least a good to decent job of being engaging and interesting to follow, it is the two members of the rescue force who give the game some of its best moments, such as when one of the mercs is forced to take on a raptor armed with a knife, only to turn around and win in one of the games crowing moments of badassery.

While the plot is basic boilerplate for the franchise (characters get trapped in dinosaur filled environment and must proceed to try and escape while also dealing with interpersonal problems), and the characters rarely stray from archetypes, the writing is strong enough to take these potential liabilities and turn them into assets. This is achieved by creating a tale that feels like it could slot perfectly into the franchise as a whole. If someone had handed me the script for this game and said it was originally meant to be Jurassic Park 4 I would have had little difficulty believing them.

Not every dino in Jurassic Park wants to eat you… Just most of them.

From the handful of truly intimidating new dinos introduced to the various moments of fraying personalities clashing with one another, Jurassic Park: the Game manages to convincingly prove that Telltale is more than capable of moving beyond the standard comedic fare that has mostly dominated their works up this point. While most of time spent in the park is a constant and breakneck struggle for survival, when the game does manage to break away for the occasional bit of down time strong character work shines through which in turn lets the characters become more than just stock players in your standard horror/adventure tale. This accomplishment bodes especially well for the company’s pending The Walking Dead game considering how vital the mixture of harrowing action beats and more subdued character moments is to that series.