Trespasser: The Lost World - Jurassic Park

The Good
Every good thing that you heard about Trespasser is basically true, if there ever was a game that was ahead of it's time then this is it. I don't know the details, but the story behind the development of Trespasser must have been something special, as In the days when Quake was king the fact that someone decided to take a major license and do something like this is admirable to say the least.

The game takes place in The Lost World's Site B dino-infested island but, (first bold move) completely forgets the movie and the novel's plot and instead casts you as the lone survivor of a plane crash that gets stranded on Site B. As you leave the beach you start the game in, you are confronted with the truth behind those dinosaur rumours and set forth in a quest to escape the island while Hammond's voiceover introduces the locations and sets the stage for whatever you are going to find at the next corner (as your character recalls quotes from his autobiography) and adds some intrigue and subplots to what's essentially a "get the hell out of there" plot.

The real star of the show however, is the gameplay. Instead of opting for a typical run 'n gun approach, the developers instead opted to create a realistic, free-roaming simulation of the island where the emphasis was on exploration, realistic environment interaction and survival instead of pure action. To achieve this they created huge, incredibly detailed (for the time at least) 3D jungle environments that your character could easily explore and threw into the mix what has to go down in history as the first really impressive physics simulation for a game of it's kind. Every object in the game can be picked up, pulled, pushed, rolled, etc. and it reacts realistically with the environment according to it's mass, which enforces a sense of realism hardly ever seen in a videogame (both before and since).

To enhance the level of simulation the gameplay toned down your character's abilities to realistic levels. Your character isn't a super-woman that can run around, perform acrobatic stunts and shoot everyone with deadly accuracy a-la Lara Croft. Instead she has trouble running at a decent speed, and barely can jump. Furthermore, you don't have a handy-dandy health bar or any stuff like that, instead you have to look down and check out your model (!!) to see how you are doing, and while the notion that she automatically regenerates over time can be somewhat stupid, it's compensated by the fact that there are no health-pickups, powerups or stupid "videogamy" stuff to pick up.

As you would have expected however, you will run into dinos, and you are going to have to keep them at bay with some firepower, and this is another area where the game excels. You don't go around collecting weapons as a female Rambo, weapons are scarcely spread through the abandoned installations and are mainly pea-shooters, cannot be reloaded, and most dinos shrug off their hits easily. And their handling doesn't boil down to you centering a magic crosshair on a dino and pulling your handy "fire button". Instead the game's interface includes a simulated "arm" that's hard to describe (just go ahead and play to see what I'm talking about) which has wrist/hand controls and which comes into play whenever you interact with the gameworld. Be it stacking crates, activating switches, opening doors and handling weapons. Translation? Handling anything in the game isn't a matter of pressing a generic "use key" but instead you have to actually reach out and grab the item you want to. Using a weapon works the same way, and calls for you to pick it up, aim it MANUALLY by using the weapon's actual sights and shooting takes into consideration your lead, recoil, etc.

Taking the concept further you can only take with you 2 items at any given time, be it an AK-47 or a keycard... Not even Silent Hill, with it's intentionally clumsy combat and realistic touches such as tripping goes as far as Trespasser in terms of desperation-inducing realism, and when you trow on top of that a free-roaming virtual island (probably the first really extensive virtual landscape developed for any game) and the realistic physics model you have one of the most interesting "real life" simulations ever conceived.

With added dinos of course.

Oh and if you remember this was the launch title for Dreamworks Interactive, so they poured all their production values into it, which can be most admired in the music and voiceover departments.

The Bad
Unfortunately all the bad stuff you heard about the game is also true. The problem with Trespasser is that while it might have been an incredibly groundbreaking experiment in realistic and innovative game design, it's an utter failure as a game.

There are problems everywhere you look at, but I'll try to be as concise as I can. Basically all the creativity seems to have been poured into the design and features explained above, but what good are they if they only get used into a game where you are all the time stacking crates, chasing colored keycards and pressing assorted buttons?

All you get to enjoy then is the "escape the dinos" survival-horror aspect, and while the realism in the game goes a long way to create a genuine sense of tension and despair, the game drops to it's knees when you notice the braindead AI which allows you to easily exploit it's many holes and brainfarts to your advantage and the really slow pace of the dinos. Sure, they can outrun you, but that hardly means anything, and when you look at the movie's blindingly fast raptors coming out of nowhere and making mincemeat of whatever they can find you can't help but feel extremely let down with the dinos in Trespasser. They can still make mincemeat out of you, but they take about an hour to slug their butts to where you are and all they do is press their snouts towards you as you hear a biting noise for an attack animation.... niiiiiice.

Also, given the lenghty and groundbreaking process of developing the new technologies for the game, the game falls quite behind in terms of QA. There are as many bugs in this game as in the jungle it's supposed to take place in, and they often hinder the gameplay as you get weird reactions from the collision detection routines, clipping errors galore and millions of mishaps involving your arm.

And aside from all that you have the good ol' bitching. Stuff that some gamers might ignore but I just find annoying. Such as the stupidity behind making revolving doors that ALWAYS manage to find a way to knock the weapon out of your hands, the weapons disappearing whenever you enter a new scene, the "I only have one arm" approach that causes your character to handle ANYTHING with just her right arm (she must put some serious hours at the gym, as she can fire assault guns and shotguns with just her right hand and not even flinch!), etc. etc.

Oh and there are some shitty hardware issues that make it a problematic title to this day... watch out.

The Bottom Line
The only real way to define Trespasser is as an incredibly cool showcase of new ideas stuck in a shitty game. Make no mistake, I have a profound admiration for what the guys behind Trespasser did, but there's no denying it's a rather mediocre game.

Most hardcore gamers should take a look at it to see one hell of an amazing achievement way ahead of it's time, but don't expect it to be an enjoyable gaming experience on top of that.

The Good
Its not like any other First person 3D game, the unique engine gives it great graphics (look at its rendering of water !) and the physics allow for true to life puzzles. Totally immersive and really big. I bought it in spite of the bad reviews and am not sorry at all.

The Bad
the requirements are a little steep and the resolution doesnt go above 800x 600 and some of the puzzles are of the get the key type ( not many though)

The Bottom Line
If you want a unique experience that in my opinion kicks Half-Lifes butt, you cant go wrong here.

The Good
The game's realistic physics model was certainly interesting. Pretty much every object in the game ranging from crates, paint cans, chairs, and rocks could be picked up, thrown, pushed, knock each other over in a domino effect, and would generally be movable in a manner that you'd expect from real life. At first this was novel, but at times it could be annoying as crates you were trying to stand on fell over, or a gun you were trying to pick up rolls off a cliff because you accidentally nudged it. Not to mention the fact many of the game's "puzzles" relied heavily on the physics engine, resulting in the aforementioned crates falling over problem.

The physics engine also resulted in interesting interaction with the dinosaurs. Because the gun you hold in your hand exists as real objects in the game world, if a raptor got too close to you, it could push your gun aside with its snout as it bites you (thus messing up your aim), or even knock the gun out of your hand with its tail. Depending on how you felt about this, this could either be viewed as realistic, annoying, or both. I must admit I personally found this added some excitement to close quarter battles as you desperated groped at your feet for your gun while the raptor lunges at you. However since nine times out of ten this resulted in your death I found myself loading from saved games and killing the raptors from a distance. You could also lose your gun if you bumped your handed against something. This made moving through enclosed areas somewhat annoying.

Combat with the dinosaurs was pretty interesting. Since your character moves at a "realistic" (ie slow) speed, it is almost impossible to outrun the raptors even though they also appear somewhat sluggish. Thus combat is the only way to dissuade them from eating you. There are variety of ways to do this, the most common of which are the guns.

The game provides you with a wide variety of real-life manufactured guns, ranging from magnums, submachine guns, and even AK-47s. Guns have a fixed amount of ammo and cannot be reloaded, and so must be discarded after use (leaving you vulnerable). In some areas guns are so plentiful this really isn't a problem and you can pretty much go around wasting raptors like Turok, while in other areas (especially the last three levels) they are rather rare forcing you to make every shot count and occasionally find alternative ways to kill and/or escape the carnivores. I found this effective rather than annoying as the feeling of nakedness you get from being unarmed is quite interesting and isn't found in most other FPS. Also, there are no crosshairs and no auto-aiming, so you really need to work on using the guns to get accurate shots. I found that the guns gave a very satifying "kick" when fired, and the fact you move the gun-arm itself in combat rather than the body attached to the gun (like in most other FPS)somehow made shooting them off more satisfying. The dinosaurs spurt blood and go down quite nicely (especially if you shoot them in the head or go full auto with an AK-47), however for some reason they tend to die in a silly looking belly down pose.

Besides the guns, there are variety of fun ways to kill the dinosaurs based on the physics engine. You can drop heavy crates on them, hit them with close combat weapons such as baseball bats or two-by-fours, or even smash them over the head with a rock. It is even possible to kill a raptor by stabbing them in the head with a rifle, and while not entirely realistic it does save ammo. However the game isn't very consistant, sometimes this works and sometimes no matter how much you whack a dinosaur on the head nothing happens. And heavy objects (such as smallers crates, chairs, rocks, and barrels) have no effect if you throw them at the raptors, even if you hit them right in the head. There are a variety of places where large structures such as jeeps and trailers could be knocked over and dropped on a dinosaur, and you could also lure raptors to the edge of a cliff, dodge them as they lunge, and laugh as they roll over the edge.

The dinosaurs themselves are certainly well animated, with cool skins and skeletal animation which give them fluid movement. However there isn't much variety in the dinosaurs(seven species in total, including the ever-present raptors), and except for the raptors there are only two or three per level. It's odd how the total number of non-raptors on the island can be counted on two hands, but the raptors are everywhere. The raptors are scary enough at first, but the real show stealers are the larger carnivores which show up later on in the game, such as the Allosaurs and the seven massive (and nigh-invincible) Tyrannosaurus Rexs. Still, I would have enjoyed the game more if there were more non-hostile dinosaurs just wandering around. Also, more interaction between the dinosaurs would have been nice (occasionally a predator will attack a heribivore or another predator instead of you, but this almost never happens even when herbivores are present).

The levels are a mixed bag. Some areas are really badly designed, such as large empty outdoor areas, and a monorail where you have to leap from one unfinished section of track to the next like a Mario Brother. However other areas look quite good, such as the abandoned town and lab areas, and even some old Mayan ruins. These areas look quite decrepit and creepy, like a scene from a post-apocalyptic movie. The various ravenous raptors and occasional T-Rex patrolling the abandoned buildings also adds to the effect. Being stalked by the raptors through the gutted-out town ruins is very effective and chilling.

Finally, the sound in the game is great. The sounds the dinosaurs make, ranging from the raptor's hostile growls to the T-Rex's booming roar, are very nice and atmospheric. The carnivores also make cool crunching and slurping sounds when they dine on the corpse of a fresh kill (which more often than not is you). When hit, different objects in the game make different sounds depending on what they're made of (wood, steel, plaster, etc). If you try to pat a dead dino with you hands you hear a realistic leathery sound. The game stars the voices of Sir Richard Attenbourgh (who played John Hammond in the Jurassic Park movies and in the game) and Minnie Driver (who voices Anne), two reputable actors. They don't have much to work with, but they do their best. Finally, there's the game's CD music, which is terrific. The CD tunes range from pounding actions tunes when you run across a large carnivore, to slow ominous music when you shift through Ingen's decaying ruins. Unfortunately the CD tracks are very short (about 20-40 seconds each) and only play at specific points in the game.

The Bad
The graphics in the game are grainy in software mode, but do smooth out and look pretty good on a graphics card. Environments are lush and objects and creatures look great close up. However there are several annoying quirks such as disappearing objects (certain signs and even the ceiling can vanish if you look at them at certain angles) and the fact everything outside of a six foot radius becomes blurred and unfocused.

Although I personally found the arm/hand interface to be novel and interesting, at times it could be fairly annoying, such as when trying to pick up large objects or stack crates. Also there are a very large number of buttons which need to be used to use the arm successfully (3 to 5 keys as well as the mouse) which results in some minor hand-twisting which becomes almost impossible on top of trying to manuever in combat. Anne's arm also occasionally twists and convolutes in disturbing ways and becomes difficult to control, especially when acting upon heavy or fixed objects (such as large crates or sentry guns).

Anne's slow speed of movement also results in a good degree of tedium as you sluggishly tredge through the levels. This is especially true of levels which involve a lot of backtracking, such as the abandoned town, where you've already killed the raptors and there's nothing left to do but slowly move from one place to another.

Two particular parts of the game I found incredibly annoying. In one area, you had to climb a cliff wall by jumping from one outcropping to another. What was annoying was that it was impossible to know in which order you needed to jump to reach the top, and if you didn't jump on the rocks in the exact order the designers intended the game wouldn't let you progress even if it looked like you could climb up. Throughout the game, it is impossible to tell which sloped surfaces can be climbed and which are impassible. Another type of interaction I found annoying was inputing passwords. There are three numerical keypads in the game where you have to enter a password to progress. Unlike many other adventure games figuring out the passwords is easy, but inputing them is nearly impossible. This is because you have to use the hand to push the individual buttons, just like real life. unlike real life, Anne's hand has no nerve endings since it's just a mesh of polygons, and as a result you can't feel the buttons and end up numbly mashing them inaccurately.

The final problem is with the AI. The game brags that the dinosaurs are living, breathing entities, but in the game you can actually see the dinosaurs standing around doing nothing until you get close enough, at which point they "activate" and start moving around. Also, instead of wandering around the levels raptors are spawned out of thin air to attack you (most of the time this is done out of your sight, but sometimes you can actually see the raptors drop out of the sky like a hungry gift from God). This really detracts from the illusion of a living world promised by the game. Also, there are times when the AI will react illogically. A T-Rex will stand in a clearing with two tasty velociraptors and yet do nothing, but will chase you down once you get close enough. A velociraptor will chase you into a building and then walk headfirst into a wall because they haven't been programmed for indoor movement. A T-Rex will become imbedded in a tree and start rotating in circles.

One particularly embarrassing error involved the final boss. Now, normally the game's last battle is quite thrilling. When you reach the Summit, a pounding action variation of the Jurrasic Park theme starts playing and all of a sudden the mother of all raptors comes out from behind a building and charges right at you. However, I found that if you ran quickly and managed to jump back to the metal catwalk over the summit, the Alpha raptor would just stand there and not move since you were out of her range. Finally after I shot at it a couple times, the "super raptor" started moving, only to make an abrupt turn, ram her head against a building, bounce off, and go flailing down the mountain. I admit this was funny as hell, but it kind of detracted from the suspense. After loading a saved game and trying it again, I found I was unable to get her to bump her head again, but it was relatively easy to lure her over the edge from the safety of the catwalk. Maybe this was deliberately put in as an alternative way to win the game without fighting it out. But it really just seems like something the development team overlooked.

The Bottom Line
This is actually a fun game. There is a continous feeling of tension as the raptors stalk you in a frightening manner (even though they have a fondness for head-on attacks and only ever manage to ambush you by being spawned right next to you), and being chased down by a T-Rex is as exciting as you might expect. Blowing away dinosaurs with the various weapons is fun, and aside from a few annoying puzzles the physics engine is very cool. Some people who were expecting a typical First Person Shooter will probably be baffled and annoyed by the interface, but personally I found it interesting. The game does create an interesting constant feeling of suspense and vulnerability that you don't usually find in most First Person Shooters (except perhaps Aliens vs. Predator). However, the game is bogged down by the numerous errors and problems mentioned above, and really takes an effort to like.