"The Dinosaurs that are devouring
big screens around the world mat look prehistoric, but the interactive
games based on The Lost World: Jurassic Park are anything but. The games
are built with the latest programming technology, creating realistic, nail-biting
entertainment. A host of computer console titles accompany the film's release,
and there's something for for everyone - from flesh-tearing T-rexs to cunning
raptors to mere hatchlings."
"For some reason, we humans
love to be scared out of our wits, and Trespasser, the PC-CDROM adventure
game from DreamWorks Interactive, succeeds at this providing extraordinary
realistic representation - both visually and behaviorally - of a dangerous
island inhabited by prehistoric carnivours. The game's dinosaurs are created
much like they were for the film - from the bones out. In a 3-D computer
graphics program, musculature is placed over skeletons, and then skin,
created from highly detailed bit-mapped images, is sketched over the animal.
Just as Lost World creators wanted the on-screen dinosaurs to look and
move like real, breathing, weighting things, so the game designers wanted
the small-screen creatures to act and react like real animals should. To
ensure this, DreamWorks built the game's artificial intelligence (AI) around
each character's physical attributes (height, weight, durability, etc.)
and motivation (fear, love, anger, curiosity, hunger, etc.). For players,
the detailed images combined with the AI create a rich, thrilling, and
realistic game."
"Trespasser begins with the same
premise as The Lost World: Hammond, the creator of Jurassic Park, built
a "Site B" island that still exists. In the game, you're the survivor of
a plane crash who washes up on the remote island. Quickly realizing escape
is a matter of life and death, you must keep you wits about you while following
landmarks across deadly terrain and avoiding dinosaurs that threaten you.
Along the way, you must solve puzzles, explore the environment, and acquire
skills-similar to many other CD-ROM adventure games. This one adds a
bit of combat spice, however, since you must also triumph in fierce battles
with cunning, carnivorous foes."
"DreamWorks Interactive is
also developing a Lost World: Jurassic Park stratagy CD-ROM game for kids,
age nine and up. Both games are expected to be ready in time for Christmas
'97."
Dino a Dino
"Whether you're man or beast
in The Lost World: Jurassic Park, DreamWorks' title for the Sony PlayStation,
the action is so intense you may actually feel the heat from the T-rex
breathing down your neck! The game takes advantage of the latest technology
to create a sophisticated, challenging game-playing experience. New morph-X
technology, seen in The Lost World: Official Souvenir Magazine, makes incredibly
realistic images, aided by real-time animation and beautifully rendered
3-D graphics. With more than 80 moves per character, players have amazing
control over the game's five characters: Compy, Raptor, T-rex, a human
hunter, and a human scientist. The high number of moves per character gives
each one its own blend of ferocity, intelligence and tenacity."
"The games objective: to survive
on a mysterious island populated by the hungriest genectically-engineered
preditors ever to walk the earth. More than 20 species of dinosaurs live
on the island, which comprises 25 different environments including lush
junglr settings and eerie indoor locales. As a dinosaur or human, you'll
stalk, track, attack and fight through 90 levels of escalating chaos with
landscape loaded with danger."
"The Lost World for Playstation
is expected to be available in June of 1997. Saturn, Genesis and Game Gear
versions of the title are being developed by Sega for release later in
the summer. Game lovers should also keep their eyes open for the Sega arcade
game, featuring Sega's new Model 3 graphics board that generates one million
polygons per second. (Translation: reall fast acceleration, really cool
dinos.) Listen for dinosaurs roaring in an arcade near you sometime this
summer."
The computer game will be published by Dreamworks Interactive, called "Trespasser: Jurassic Park". The scheduled release date is December of '97.
Trespasser: Jurassic Park will not just be a companion to the movie, but an entire new adventure, taking place after the events in JP2 unfold. "[It is] the digital sequel to Lost World: Jurassic Park", says director Steven Spielberg. The game, in development now, is headed by Seamus Blackley, the same person who created the popular flight simulator, Flight Unlimited.
Soundelux, a Hollywood sound company that recently won an academy award for their work in "Braveheart", was hired to to create all the sound effects, ambiance and voice-overs for the game.
According to CGW online, the Trespasser team have been busy "building AI code, physics-based muscle-skeletal models, bit-mapping techniques, mathematical mapping techniques, wave models for water based on depth and refraction, and more."
Trespasser is a non-linear, 1st person game. If you have ever been disappointed by the 3-D worlds generated in computer games in the past, this game will change all that. "In most games, the terrain has a tendency to pop. That is, certain landmarks like skyscrapers, mountains and trees pop up suddenly upon the screen, even though you didn't receive any hint that they were there until you were almost upon them... [the game's algorithms will] scout the map beyond the active area to determine if any relevant landmarks are present. If they are, indications of those large landmarks begin to appear on the horizon." (CGW online)
Unlike most 3-D games, Trespasser will concentrate more on puzzle and adventuring than non-stop shoot-em-up's like Doom or Quake. "[The game will contain] physical logic puzzles such as getting across a ravine with two short boards by building a "T," crossing electrical fences without getting fried, and luring raptors across holes in scaffolding in order to get them to fall through." (CGW online)
For more information about Trespasser: Jurassic Park, including technical specs about the game, check out this CGW online article: "Trespasser: Jurassic Park Is No Technical Dinosaur", or the earlier article. For some pictures, check out the picture gallery
The PlayStation game is a totally different beast than the game for the PC, the which lets you play "a series of five characters, struggling to survive on a mysterious island populated by genetically engineered dinosaurs. Based meticulously on creatures created for the film by Stan Winston Studios and ILM, the over 25 species of dinosaurs featured in the game animate, stalk, track, attack and fight in real-time in an expansive island environment packed with biological perils." (Dreamworks webpage)
Electronic Gaming Monthly has this to say about the upcoming video game: