Jurassic Park is opening the amber for some of the 8- and 16-bit console games based on the dinosaur movie franchise, bringing its NES, SNES, Game Boy, and Genesis outings to PC next week. Fingers crossed, the anniversary return of the series’ previous video games could lead to some of its overlooked adaptations getting their chance in the spotlight. In other words: when will Trespasser finally get the respect he deserves?
The Jurassic Park Classic Games Collection does exactly what you’d expect from a package with such a dry name: it brings together seven retro games in a single digital package.
That’s seven games for technical reasoning, but three games with different names and ports, as you’ll get the NES, SNES, Game Boy, and Genesis games, all simply called Jurassic Park; the SNES and Game Boy versions of the 1994 non-canonical sequel The ChaosContins; and Jurassic Park: Rampage Edition, a different Genesis-exclusive sequel that lets you run like Alan Grant and destroy dinosaurs with a flamethrower and rocket launcher.
Games won’t be like they were 30 years ago, with the modern benefit of being able to have save states and other quality of life additions. Apparently there will also be some new maps in the game, if you’re already familiar with the originals.
The collection only includes 8- and 16-bit games from 1993 and 1994, omitting slightly offbeat selections like the 1994 3DO FMV minigame collection complemented by the decidedly less action-packed Jurassic Park Interactive and Paint and Activity Center. for TWO.
If we’re lucky, this return of the first Jurassic Park video games, returning to commemorate the film’s 30th anniversary, could be followed by some of their later outings released around The Lost World: Jurassic Park.
Could this mean we’ll eventually see redemption for Jurassic Park: the overly ambitious and technically innovative, if somewhat misguided and flawed, Trespasser, which influenced everything from Half-Life 2 to Halo to Far Cry (plus Octodad)? If all is right in the world, licensing finds a way.
Until justice is served, you’ll be able to try out the first Jurassic Park video games when they hit Steam for $30 on November 22.