Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Jurassic Park (SNES, 1993) was developed and published by Ocean Software and is one of the most ambitious licensed games of the 16-bit era. Instead of simply turning the movie into a side-scrolling platformer, Ocean created a large action-adventure combining overhead exploration with first-person indoor sections. It was technically impressive in 1993, but its ambition also produced some of the game's biggest problems.
Rating: 6.5/10
You play as Dr. Alan Grant, exploring Isla Nublar after Jurassic Park's security systems have collapsed. Rather than following the film scene by scene, the game gives you a series of objectives involving restoring power, accessing computer systems, collecting dinosaur eggs, destroying the raptor nest and eventually calling a helicopter to escape.
Most of the island is explored from an overhead perspective. Grant can move and fire in eight directions while using weapons including a cattle prod, shotgun, tranquilizer gun, gas grenades, bolas and rockets. Dinosaurs range from smaller Compies and venom-spitting Dilophosaurs to dangerous Velociraptors, Triceratops and appearances by the T-Rex.
The outdoor sections are easily the most enjoyable part of the game. The jungle environments are colorful, dinosaur sprites are detailed, movement is reasonably smooth and the large interconnected island creates a genuine feeling of exploration. Raptors can suddenly emerge from vegetation, giving even routine travel a degree of tension.
Entering buildings completely changes the game. The perspective switches to a texture-mapped first-person view reminiscent of early PC shooters such as Wolfenstein 3D. For a standard SNES game in 1993, this was an impressive technical achievement, and the indoor sections even support the SNES Mouse.
Unfortunately, this is also where Jurassic Park has aged the worst. The framerate is extremely low, turning feels sluggish and the corridors are filled with similar-looking walls and rooms. Some facilities contain several floors, making it incredibly easy to become completely lost. Raptors appearing around corners can be genuinely frightening, but much of that tension comes from fighting the controls as much as the dinosaurs.
Navigation is arguably the game's largest overall problem. Jurassic Park is surprisingly open-ended and gives relatively little guidance about where to go next. Objectives frequently require travelling back and forth across the island, finding particular access cards or returning to previously visited buildings. Without memorizing the layout or using a map, wandering around aimlessly can consume a huge amount of time.
Making matters considerably worse is the complete absence of a save or password system. Jurassic Park is far too large for this design choice. A blind playthrough can easily take several hours, and losing all your lives late in the game means starting again from the beginning. Save states make the experience much more reasonable today, but on original hardware it demands an exhausting single-session playthrough.
Presentation remains one of the strongest aspects. The outdoor graphics still look attractive, and the shift between 2D exploration and first-person interiors gives the game an identity unlike most other Jurassic Park adaptations. The soundtrack by Jonathan Dunn is also excellent, with atmospheric jungle themes and tense interior music complemented by dinosaur sound effects and Dolby Surround support.
The ending is unfortunately another disappointment. After surviving such a lengthy and demanding adventure, the final sequence offers very little payoff, making completion feel strangely anticlimactic.
Jurassic Park is therefore a fascinating example of a game whose technical ambition exceeded what its hardware and design could comfortably deliver. In 1993, its huge island and pseudo-3D interiors were genuinely impressive. Today, the slow first-person sections, confusing navigation, heavy backtracking and lack of saving are impossible to ignore.
There is still a good game underneath those frustrations, particularly in the atmospheric outdoor exploration. With save states and a map, it becomes considerably easier to appreciate what Ocean was trying to achieve. On original hardware, however, Jurassic Park is less a timeless classic than an ambitious and memorable experiment that has aged unevenly.
Jurassic Park (SNES, 1993) was developed and published by Ocean Software and is one of the most ambitious licensed games of the 16-bit era. Instead of simply turning the movie into a side-scrolling platformer, Ocean created a large action-adventure combining overhead exploration with first-person indoor sections. It was technically impressive in 1993, but its ambition also produced some of the game's biggest problems.
Rating: 6.5/10
You play as Dr. Alan Grant, exploring Isla Nublar after Jurassic Park's security systems have collapsed. Rather than following the film scene by scene, the game gives you a series of objectives involving restoring power, accessing computer systems, collecting dinosaur eggs, destroying the raptor nest and eventually calling a helicopter to escape.
Most of the island is explored from an overhead perspective. Grant can move and fire in eight directions while using weapons including a cattle prod, shotgun, tranquilizer gun, gas grenades, bolas and rockets. Dinosaurs range from smaller Compies and venom-spitting Dilophosaurs to dangerous Velociraptors, Triceratops and appearances by the T-Rex.
The outdoor sections are easily the most enjoyable part of the game. The jungle environments are colorful, dinosaur sprites are detailed, movement is reasonably smooth and the large interconnected island creates a genuine feeling of exploration. Raptors can suddenly emerge from vegetation, giving even routine travel a degree of tension.
Entering buildings completely changes the game. The perspective switches to a texture-mapped first-person view reminiscent of early PC shooters such as Wolfenstein 3D. For a standard SNES game in 1993, this was an impressive technical achievement, and the indoor sections even support the SNES Mouse.
Unfortunately, this is also where Jurassic Park has aged the worst. The framerate is extremely low, turning feels sluggish and the corridors are filled with similar-looking walls and rooms. Some facilities contain several floors, making it incredibly easy to become completely lost. Raptors appearing around corners can be genuinely frightening, but much of that tension comes from fighting the controls as much as the dinosaurs.
Navigation is arguably the game's largest overall problem. Jurassic Park is surprisingly open-ended and gives relatively little guidance about where to go next. Objectives frequently require travelling back and forth across the island, finding particular access cards or returning to previously visited buildings. Without memorizing the layout or using a map, wandering around aimlessly can consume a huge amount of time.
Making matters considerably worse is the complete absence of a save or password system. Jurassic Park is far too large for this design choice. A blind playthrough can easily take several hours, and losing all your lives late in the game means starting again from the beginning. Save states make the experience much more reasonable today, but on original hardware it demands an exhausting single-session playthrough.
Presentation remains one of the strongest aspects. The outdoor graphics still look attractive, and the shift between 2D exploration and first-person interiors gives the game an identity unlike most other Jurassic Park adaptations. The soundtrack by Jonathan Dunn is also excellent, with atmospheric jungle themes and tense interior music complemented by dinosaur sound effects and Dolby Surround support.
The ending is unfortunately another disappointment. After surviving such a lengthy and demanding adventure, the final sequence offers very little payoff, making completion feel strangely anticlimactic.
Jurassic Park is therefore a fascinating example of a game whose technical ambition exceeded what its hardware and design could comfortably deliver. In 1993, its huge island and pseudo-3D interiors were genuinely impressive. Today, the slow first-person sections, confusing navigation, heavy backtracking and lack of saving are impossible to ignore.
There is still a good game underneath those frustrations, particularly in the atmospheric outdoor exploration. With save states and a map, it becomes considerably easier to appreciate what Ocean was trying to achieve. On original hardware, however, Jurassic Park is less a timeless classic than an ambitious and memorable experiment that has aged unevenly.
