Jurassic Park: Dino Defender: King Tyrant

Last time, I just managed to escape being eaten by a bunch of...Pteranodons...before finding a T-Rex at the end of the level. I can't remember where I left off precisely...

Ah, well, there we go. Guess we had to have that, I've never seen the movie and I know that's a scene from it. It'd be pretty sweet if this wasn't a platformer coded in Macromedia. I guess its time to run.

I have several questions. As you can surmise, there was a bridge at the bottom of the screen the T-Rex tried to cross. A wooden, rope bridge. With a good chunk of the rungs missing. These questions have nothing to do with the T-Rex himself, he is just as smart as any other dinosaur, and anyway, there's no predator on Earth that size. I know how this game works and not how T-Rexes work. Why does this bridge exist? Why is it broken? Why the vines? Interesting, the game still says there's a T-Rex roaming around. And a pteranodon.

Why does this bridge lead to nothing? Unless this had a bridge too and that's out. Does anything in this park actually function? I'm surprised this suit isn't choking me to death at this point. I guess I can go up across the vines? Maybe I can climb down the bridge...

Oh, that's why he's still roaming around. Just a little bit. You can't see him too well, but trust me, he's there. Because its a fall of about 30 feet. With T-Rexes, you don't really capture them, you just use a flare on them. To distract them. Back up on the plateau of nothing. I climb up across the vines...I can't go across the vines. Am I supposed to jump across the trees? Yes.

Why is it that every game that has dinosaurs and platforming involve climbing on these guys? This game, Bugs Bunny: Lost in Time, Joe & Mac...probably others I don't know the name of.

I find it a good sign when on every screen there's something off about it for me to complain about. For instance, these vines. Why are they here, what are they connected to. Up, the pteranodon. Down? A hole in the ground and...

No. Come on. Must we? Must I do this dance? Ugh...Another power box at least.

You know, if this was good as an adventure* game the puzzles wouldn't be "figure out which background element you can walk on". After that there's a group of velociraptors a few screens off. Thanks to the raptor supply box in-between the tree-eaters, I get two of them. That's all the supplies they had. For two of them. Another trip back and all three here are gone.

What was the intended reaction to this? "Gee, golly, I sure hope I can get past this enemy!" I think most children would be annoyed by this guy. So far these guys have only been obnoxious. There is no reason for them to exist except as a completely obvious reflex test. Is this supposed to be their mating call? Maybe someone should have imparted this knowledge to me. An educational game about dinosaurs. Maybe a title licensed from a major movie. I'm sure somebody will figure that out.

Wow, a sound more annoying than the menu music. What a loud and annoying waterfall. Sounds like a stream someone screwed around with the volume on. Also, Myst's waterfalls look better than this. Myst had waterfalls, right? Been a while. Anyway, another power box, one guarded by a raptor for some reason. Thanks to a slick move I did on purpose, not accidentally at all, he is defeated with a minimum of fuss. Maybe the water's taken from a running faucet...

This puzzle again? Seriously? Oh, man. Fortunately, I don't have to do it twice, all the power boxes are done. Hang, on, the level isn't over?

Well, goodbye strange dinosaur that will probably eat me. Who is in an awkward position. I leave him with another question, what's the deal with this elevator?

Oh, you're kidding me. I have to run away from him? On the trees?

What a necessary sequence. This whole thing could have been done in cutscene. It was three screens of the easiest stuff I've done this entire decade.

If I was excited by dinosaurs fighting, I would've watched Jurassic World. T-Rex wins anyway. Another level escaping the T-Rex...

...A boss level? Please tell me this is one of the six levels. I guess I just hit this lever and...

Oh, good. That's good. Why is this power box different anyway? I ponder this question as the timer counts down. The T-Rex stays. I wait...and wait...and wait. I guess I have to die. That starts me back at the timer. So I reload an earlier save, doing the tree chase over again.

A single flare, a single call box. Must be big flares and call boxes. Beating this level involves a drawn-out series of jumps and tosses that are really quite trial and error but too complex to repeat here. Suffice to say when I actually did make it, I didn't believe it at first.

What is this suit good for if it isn't going to protect against steam? This "puzzle" involves taking the longest possible route across all these steam pipes at least three times, five if you want to leave with some capture pods. This is quickly getting into the unnecessarily tedious categories. Hey, at least we have a new kill screen for getting touched by the raptors.

Sigh...that's like seven. Five if you hit the first two at the same time. Six if you count this level's mess of a pipe system. That pipe of the middle left is tricky to get past. You have to climb up slightly before. Top left? Nah, that's easy, climb up, then across.

Oh...forget me, not this Sierra again. This is what amounts to two screens of some serious bull. I enjoy a challenge. This game doesn't really offer it as I like it. The challenge here is figuring out if I really am supposed to wrestle the controls to do what I want, or if I should try an alternate route. Inevitably, it turns out to be an alternate route. I only noticed the first safety cage. Not the second one. After that, its just a simple matter of doing running and jumping, even when it seems foolish.

Cue level end cutscene. I run out, door closes on dinosaur. It lifts it up and continues to chase me.

I run into the "InGen complex", which I believe is code for museum. InGen complex is what it says on the jewel case in back of a picture here. A picture that has a far too big PC. There's also a picture of the PC in front of a T-Rex on some vines, about to die. With two flares. The third is one with a...Pteranodon on the falling rock bridge. Which might actually happen if you're really lucky.

I climb up, hit the switch and a pteranodon hits the big dino as it falls to the ground. I would stop here, but I foresee the end is nigh. I would show you that happening, but I happen to miss that particular action shot and its too late now.

Another screen that involves the same thing as last time. Joy. Or, no, its supposed to be a series of jumping in front of a switch, Steosaurus (that's the dino) popping out, bones falling down. I assume they're plaster copies. I actually hope they're real.

A final blow, and the game is over. Non-violent my ass.

The end screen shot shows the dinosaurs being airlifted out. To where? I don't know, and I don't think anyone else did either. That would imply thought went into this ending. Afterwards, I get cards I can print out for all the dinosaurs I've captured all of. Not read, print out. It can only be read after printing out said items. Using a physical printer. Man, educational games were obsessed with printing things out. Amazing. Now to deal with all these screenshots. Oh, man.

*Knowledge Adventure, we're not actually either of those things.