LEGO Jurassic World

Genre: 3D Action-Platformer

Players: 1

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Review:

LEGO Jurassic World is a family-friendly 3D Action-Platformer released in 2015 on PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Wii U, and then released on Nintendo Switch in 2019 with all DLC included. Additionally, a slightly different version of the game was released on PlayStation Vita and Nintendo 3DS in 2015, and then ported to mobile devices in 2016. In fact, while the two versions are slightly different, they’re similar enough that I’m copying much of what I wrote for my review of the Nintendo Switch version of the game and only changing the pertinent details. Anyway, as with the console release, this game is in fact based on the first four Jurassic Park films, from Stephen Spielberg’s 1993 original film to the 2015 film featuring Chris Pratt.

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”God help us, we’re in the hands of engineers…”

There’s something ironic that I can’t quite articulate about this game being a particularly fitting expression of a film franchise whose central idea is that the mastery of nature is nothing more than an illusion, when this game may possibly reveal better than any other how the Traveller’s Tales LEGO franchise mash-ups are similarly just an illusion of a seamless blend of the franchise and the series’ LEGO gameplay.

Where do I even begin? Well, let’s start with the sound. As with other recent games in this franchise, LEGO Jurassic World pulls much of its sound directly from the films being depicted. However, I did just mention that the original Jurassic Park is now 30 years old (ugh, now I feel like a geezer), and the sound quality of the voice samples from that film do not fit in here, especially when standing right next to completely new recordings for characters whose voices weren’t carried over (I’m guessing due to contractual reasons).

These are backed by John Williams’ amazing film score, but something of the majesty of that beautiful score is lost here. When this game recreates the film scene where Dr. Grant, Dr. Sattler, and Ian Malcolm first set eyes on the massive brachiosaur, it doesn’t seem to have the same impact with the entire creature being made out of just a few pieces of segmented plastic.

At the very least, this release on Nintendo 3DS does a pretty admirable job with the graphics, and while it’s not on par with the console versions of the game, lacking much of the lighting and shadow effects as well as some environmental detail, this still looks like a pretty acceptable compromise for a game that mostly looks pretty similar.

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“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

On that note, one of the elements that made the Jurassic films so thrilling was the sense of danger these animals posed. This has been completely removed in this version to make it better-suited to an E-Rating. In early scenes where characters would have been killed (and often were) in the films, instead they cartoonishly have their clothes shredded, or lose a sausage they’re carrying. I suppose I can’t blame the game’s creators for this – yeah, they could have “dismembered” the LEGO minifigs by popping off their legs and/or heads, but I’m sure they didn’t want to risk getting angry letters from upset parents of crying children.

Somewhat less excusable is the way the games and films’ plot is completely butchered by the LEGO games’ structure of “break everything in the area around you, build something, then move on” pattern of gameplay. Not only does this make the pacing really drag, but it seems absurd that Hammond would put on a big show of trying to impress his guests so they’ll sign off on his island, only to let his park staff make them run around bashing things until they can create mechanisms to make the gates work.

I should also note that the Nintendo 3DS version of the game cuts out the Open-World content of the console versions, which is no great loss, as that was seemingly an afterthought anyway. The story levels that remain are largely the same, though some minor changes to the level geometry have been made, which is no big deal. Less forgivable is the fact that the handheld version once again loses co-op multiplayer support, which really shouldn’t surprise anyone following handheld releases in the series at this point, but it’s disappointing all the same.

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”You patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you’re selling it, you wanna’ sell it.”

I swear, I did not go into this review expecting it to come across so negative. Believe it or not, I like this game. And it’s about on par with other Traveller’s Tales LEGO games on consoles. There were even moments when the LEGO reenactment of the films made me smile, even when they reinterpreted film scenes in a different way for comedic effect.

However, I can’t ignore what a cynical game this is. It’s not lazy, it’s clear a lot of work went into trying to ensure that this game reflected the films it depicts. But it is perhaps intellectually lazy, just plugging another popular franchise into the LEGO machine and spitting out another cookie-cutter game in the exact same style as all the others, and in a way that doesn’t seem to have the same spark of creativity as some of the others. I don’t get the feeling of truly exploring Jurassic Park like I got when walking around LEGO’s version of Middle-Earth, or the clever humor of Darth Vader pantomiming to Luke that he’s Luke’s father.

It settled in just how cynical this all was when I realized that I often have to swap to Ellie Sattler because she jumps higher. But… why would she jump higher? She’s a paleobotanist, so if she has some sort of special ability, shouldn’t it be a plant thing? Or at least because she works with Grant she could have a “paleontologist” skill like he does? But no, her special ability is that she jumps high… and I’m pretty sure it’s because an earlier LEGO game, The LEGO Movie Videogame, established that girl characters jump high, because that’s what Wyldstyle does, and I guess it just got Flanderized to all female characters in that game, and now I guess it’s a standard thing across LEGO games in general?

I used to wonder why people were so negative about the LEGO games, because they’re pretty much all good games, right? Well, maybe not all the handheld games, but the console ones at least. But maybe it was my mistake trying to marathon play and review through them one after another, that by the time I’ve gotten a dozen games in and start playing LEGO Jurassic World, I’m feeling that fatigue everyone expresses when discussing these games. It’s noticing seeing the Matrix code behind the scenes (wow, surprised that franchise hasn’t been LEGO-ized yet), and it’s like now I can’t not see it.

So in the end… yes, LEGO Jurassic World is a good game. But it’s good in the way that so many other LEGO games are good, and it fails to truly capitalize on the unique possibilities its franchise offers, or truly distinguishing itself from the countless other LEGO games, beyond being “like that but for Jurassic Park”. And while the Nintendo 3DS version is mostly a decent scaled-down version of the console game (minus the Open World elements), the lack of multiplayer is disappointing. Still, if those issues don’t deter you, you may find this game to your liking.

tl;dr – LEGO Jurassic World is a decent port of yet another game in Traveller’s Tales’ family-friendly franchise of LEGO mash-up games with good (though at times simple and repetitive) 3D Action-Platformer gameplay. This game follows the plot of the first four Jurassic Park films, and while it does a good enough job with that, it feels like a somewhat cynical game that reuses a lot of what all the other LEGO games have done. Unfortunately, both the Open-World elements of the console version and the co-op multiplayer didn’t make it into this release, but if you’re looking for a decent single-player take on a combination of LEGO and Jurassic Park, this should suffice.

Grade: C

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