Fresh on the heels of the Jurassic Park movie-- well 13 years fresh-- comes the DVD game based on the movie. Players navigate through the DVD menu and participate in different challenges: trivia, pattern matching, multiple-guess and even a challenge reminiscent of Donkey Kong. Up to 4 players can play. They may choose long or short game (5 successful challenges vs. 7 successful challenges). There are three skill levels: Scout, Tracker, Palaeontologist (the hardest). Players can handicap themselves by playing themselves harder skills levels vs. other players at easier levels.

Graphics

The graphics are obviously CGI and prebuilt DVD animations. That said, they are effective. I happened to watch Jurassic Park shortly after playing this game: the CGI from this DVD driven game is comparable to the original movie. I don't know if this was the intention (use a property made in the early days of CGI), but the game compares favourably to the movie.

Sound

The sound quality is high-- as good as you expect from DVD quality sound piped through your TV.

Gameplay

There a seven types of challenges:

The Chasm challenge is as close to a button mashing as this game gets. You need to jump across a chasm to complete the challenge. Time it right and land on the other side. Time it wrong and you're dino-chow. A ten-year old may find this tricky, but anyone who has played a console game will ace this almost immediately.

The Screening Room. As in the movie, players see a presentation in a theatre environment-- a clip from the movie plays and the players need to recall all of the details to answer correctly. Its fun: watch the dinosaurs with careful detail, only to be asked "How many lights were there." As the difficulty ramps up, the questions get harder.

On the Plains-- you need to spot a dinosaur through the mists and identify it. Is that an allosaur or an edmontonsaurus? You have to be REALLY up on your dinosaurs to get this challenge. It does come with an all-play chance if the main player doesn't get it right; but it boils down to all-guess mode for the most part.

The Museum section is multiple choice trivia. It's multiple choice, so as a paleo-neophyte, I found it the most painless part of the game
The Laboratory is a pattern match-up-- get the top, the middle and the bottom of a creature matched-up. There doesn't seem to be much of a challenge as its open ended (let them scroll until you get the match that works best for you.

In the Fossil challenge, you have so many chances to uncover dinosaur fossils. Click on a section of the screen and expose bones or more dirt. As the difficulty level climbs you get fewer tries before you fail. Some palaeontologists may be daunted by the level of dino-trivia required in the [section]. Beyond that, the questions get repeated frequently-- sometimes twice in a row for two different players.

The Jungle Maze sends players into a pick-a-path driving game. Choose one of five paths and recall how it branches. Navigate it successfully to take samples back to the lab. This is one of those annoying elements because the five paths have few jogs. Memorize them and you're set.

Conclusion

The criticism of this game is common to all DVD games-- there isn't enough randomness so you keep trekking over the same territory. There is a passing linkage between the game pieces and the DVD game. I wish they had shed the board and packaging (e.g. 1'x1' box to hold a DVD and game pieces) altogether to make this a great portable DVD game. You have to love dinosaurs to love this game. If you do; or if you have a budding fossil hunter in the house, this game is worth your while.