The Jurassic Park Classic Games Collection is an excellent collection of mediocre games that relies purely on nostalgia to generate sales.
Singleplayer.
Many of the titles in the Jurassic Park Classic Games Collection are incredibly short, and its possible to complete most titles in less than one hour, even on the hardest difficulty settings; this figure becomes even shorter for players who only wish to complete the game as the human character (default story), which in turn reduces the playtime of some titles such as Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park: Rampage Edition both for the Sega Genesis to less than 30 minutes per game.
It’s honestly pretty astonishing that gamers in the 1990s accepted this freely, while gamers today would riot if a full-priced game* offered less than 10 hours of content, let alone less than one hour on even the hardest difficulty.
*In 1993, Sega Megadrive games retailed for $49.99, and SNES for $60, which would be $104 and $126 in 2023, far more expensive than the industry standard of $70 for a AAA title.
Jurassic Park Classic Games Collection launches with all of the bells and whistles we expect of a retro compilation release, including save states, the ability to rewind gameplay, quick resume gameplay, and set various filters to recreate the appearance of CRT monitors.
While these additions are nothing new regarding retro compilations, it’s always nice to have them included, as they help to make older titles, which are traditionally punishingly hard and offer limited lives and continues, more palatable to modern audiences.
While many of the titles in the Jurassic Park Classic Games Collection are mediocre, Limited Run games have done an excellent job of porting them. Honestly, each title looks, sounds and plays about as well as could be expected.
Of special note is Jurassic Park (Sega Genesis), which could easily be sold today as a high-quality indie title; the character animations look fantastic, and while the audio design remains contained by what was possible on early 1990s hardware, I enjoyed playing Jurassic Park (Sega Genesis) as much in 2023 as I did when I first played it in the mid-1990s.
Growing up in the early 1990s in the UK was a time of both excitement and frustration; misinformation and third-hand “facts” were rife, and well-meaning parents were fearmongered into labelling all manner of mundane things as evil, from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to Video Games.
Jurassic Park, with its “excessive violence, horror, and gore”, was a target like no other, even in my small Welsh village where the internet was only just getting known (and was already being labelled as “evil”); somehow, the concerns and accusations of American conservatives were starting to spread.
I remember being told why Jurassic Park was evil and how the devil used it to confuse and corrupt people by well-meaning family members (who also thought Batman was also “off the devil.” and a corrupting influence). Thankfully, my parents were more grounded, and I was allowed Jurassic Park, Batman toys & video games like anyone else.
While there is something to be said about Jurassic Park being too violent for small children, the accusation of dinosaurs being “off the devil” has always fascinated me, and a review of Jurassic Park is a great time to look into the accusation.
In short, some American evangelical Christians believe that demons created dinosaur bones to confuse people and stop them from believing that the world is only 6000 years old.
While some have tried to rewrite history to fit dinosaurs within that time frame, others still insist that dinosaur bones were planted there by the devil and his fallen angels.
Now, I will be forthright with you: I am a follower of Jesus Christ, and his references to God making male and female” in the beginning” are enough for me to believe in creation.
I have witnessed time and time against direct evidence of God and the Lordship of Jesus Christ in my own life (including witnessing people cured of cancer and incurable blood disease ); I do not doubt for a second that our current existence is the work of God.
However, that does not mean that humanity as we are now, were the first humans on Earth, and the Bible itself lends credence to this with God stating that Adam was to replenish the Earth, something he and Eve would not have been able to do if they were the first humans.
In addition, we are told that before creating mankind, God spoke and said, “Let us create man in our image”, with some original texts containing a word that modifies meaning to be something closer to “this time let us”, or “this time we will”, implying that mankind in some form had once lived on Earth before it becoming formless and void, as it is rediscovered at the start of Genesis.
As for why the Earth was created and then became formless and void, only to be repopulated, the Bible does not say; however, many believe this was due to the heavenly rebellion which saw Lucifer cast out from heaven, with many theologians believing this act was the catalyst for the end of the old world, which then entered a rapid cycle of decay until the Earth was entirely devoid of life and light.
Could this explain the elusive final “missing link” between modern man and Neanderthals, the extinction of the dinosaurs and proto-humanity, and why modern human history only existed back 6-10k years despite evolutionists claiming that humanity in its current form has existed for much longer?
Very likely, as we know, these things did exist (despite some extremist Christians trying to claim dinosaurs were not real), and yet there has never been any scientific or religious proof that bridged the gap between the “old world and proto-man” and modern humanity, signifying that a break occurred and that the history of the Earth is not as linear as we have been lead to believe.
In short, Dinosaurs existed, and they are not the work of the devil, and calling them as much dismisses the beauty of their creation.
Dinosaurs and some likely form of a lesser evolved proto-man lacking the divine spark of creation existed before the events of Genesis, and calling anything related to “cavemen” & dinosaurs satanic is a poor witness for Christ and honestly makes Christians look insane and focused on unimportant things, while important issues such as poverty, immigration and healthcare are left unaddressed.
Jesus told his followers to Love God and Love one another, not to spend their lives attacking the world around them and making mountains out of molehills.
If more Christians spent their energy doing this instead of instigating the next “satanic panic”, the world would be a much better, kinder, and happier place indeed, and the true and rarely preached Gospel of Jesus Christ would be known by all people and nations.
Jurassic Park Classic Games Collection is a action video game developed and published by Limited Run Games, it was released on 21 November 2023 and retails for $29.99+.
Jurassic Park Classic Games Collection is available on the following platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.
The following peripherals are officially supported:
Jurassic Park Classic Games Collection is rated PEGI 7+ and contains:
If you have been itching to replay class Jurassic Park titles for the last three decades, then the Jurassic Park Classic Games Collection is a great way to expierance them in modern hardware.
That being said, with most games being either ports of other games in the collection or low-effort sequels, waiting for a sale is a good idea, as while it’s a good collection of games sold at a fair price, many of the games are of average quality at best, and there are much better ways to spend $30 than replaying some of the most iconically generic movie tie-in games of the early 1990s.
