Jurassic Park: The Game review

Rent a copy of the original Jurassic Park on DVD, pick up your controller of choice, and press play. Now, just play along! When you see the characters run, mash the buttons for all you're worth. When they dodge to the left, press left with them. Ooops! Got the timing wrong? Then you die! Jump back to the start of the scene and try again. And again. And again, if needs be. Repeat until 'you' save the day.

It's about the same experience as playing this game, only £19 cheaper. Maybe more!

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Yes, Jurassic Park: The Game is an unwelcome trip back to the interactive movies of the '90s, somehow surviving their extermination like one final smallpox virus hiding in a dung beetle's arse. It's 3D instead of FMV, but you're still stuck doing little but hitting keys as they flash on screen and trying to convince yourself you're in control. Between those bits? Equally bland adventure screens, offering little but the chance to choose the order in which you click the handful of hotspots and dialogue options masquerading as puzzles, with an interface that feels like an iPad port. Natural selection? Bah!

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If you've played Heavy Rain on the PlayStation 3, you'll recognise exactly what Telltale are copying, and what they're trying to do to keep the action flowing. In theory, that's fine. What's missing though are the reasons Heavy Rain got away with its simplistic action in the first place – the plot branching, emotional situations, and above all, the (admittedly often illusory) feel that your decisions actually mattered.

Here, forget all that. You're not the star of this Jurassic Park adventure. You're the projectionist, your only real job being to keep the film running smoothly until the end credits finally roll.

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To give it some credit, your film is at least decent – assuming you don't expect the Spielberg touch, can tolerate Telltale's 'scary' new dinosaur owing more to Alien than it does to palaeontology, and somehow don't notice that the plot would end halfway through if not for the entire cast suddenly becoming denser than osmium when they should be watching Isla Nublar disappear in their rear view mirror.

The main plot is a hammy but watchable sequel to the first movie, focusing on a father and daughter lost in the park, and the hunt for Dennis Nedry's lost can of embryos, played out under endless button prompts and punctuated with much goofier death scenes. Like the new dinosaur, it's hard not to think of Aliens as much as Jurassic Park, but it's excellent machinima - and even at its worst, still better than The Lost World. Mind you, so is being locked in a jeep with a flu-ridden dilophosaurus...

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It's not, however, much of a game. Which is a problem for anything that has 'The Game' hanging from it with all the sincerity of a pair of plastic comedy breasts. If you want a barely interactive movie that asks nothing of you but the most basic of motor functions, maybe you'll love it. Beyond that? No.