E3 2011 Jurassic Park Revealed

Deep in the heart of the LA Convention Center, in the quiet Concourse Hall, Telltale Games is hard at work showing off their latest titles. One of these is the greatest game based on the Jurassic Park license ever seen.

Kevin Boyle was on hand, at Telltale’s Meeting Room, to show us the latest build of the upcoming Jurassic Park game. He told us that they had been working hard to capture the feelings and imagination that the first movie generated. I was a kid when it came out and I recall fondly how spooky the environments were and how realistic the dinosaurs appeared. True, I don’t know a soul who has ever seen a real life dinosaur, but the ones in JP looked like they should have been the real thing. In order to accomplish the creepy and realistic feel of the game, Telltale decided to create a much more cinematic experience than they ever had before.

The first thing that pops off the screen is just how amazing the visuals are. Yes, this is still the same core engine that powers all of Telltale Games. Jurassic Park shows that this engine is very flexible and can continue to grow and expand as they need it to. With the beauty of the game, we questioned a dramatic increase in system requirements. Boyle told us that they are striving to keep the system requirements low but they could still be increased from past Telltale system requirements.

In Jurassic Park, player are reintroduced to the island. Telltale is not assuming anyone knows anything about the first Jurassic Movie or the license and will be explaining everything.  To accomplish this, players will be introduced to new characters. The new character shown at E3 2011 was Nima. Here Telltale used her as someone who knew nothing about the island and the dinosaurs that were there. 

Nima went back to the seen where Miles was killed trying to sneak off with the canister of Dinosaur embryos. Here, we got our first taste of seeing dinosaurs and narrowly escaping with our lives. Instead of incorporating standard point and click Adventure scenes, Telltale uses cinematic Quicktime Events (QTE) to deliver tension and a sense of fear around every corner. In fact, this is the first Telltale game where you can die. Telltale opted for this so the game felt more terrifying. But these QTE scenes won’t be terribly hard.  You will even see the difficulty ramp down if the player continues dying in a certain spot. 

The game was demoed on the PC platform using a Xbox 360 gamepad. However, the title will be just as playable with the traditional Mouse and Keyboard on the PC and Mac platforms. Control method comes down to what the player is more comfortable with–we were assured, 

To navigate between different scenes, players will have them mapped to your D-Pad.  This will easily allow you to move to different areas as you search for clues for whatever puzzle you are working through. 

When quizzed about the potential ESRB Rating, they are hoping to get a Teen rating for the game. The goal, in development, is to take the PG 13 Rating, of the first movie, and translate it to the game world. The want to cater to that same original audience and age group. 

Also, iPad owners, fear not. When asked about a release on the iPad, Kevin Boyle told us: “I would would be lying if I told you I haven’t seen Jurassic Park up and running on an iPad…” But no further comments on a release were given. We will, however, officially see the game out on PC, Mac, Retail Xbox 360, and PSN in the Fall of 2011.