Shotgun From Jurassic Park

The SPAS-12 is a combat shotgun that was produced by the Italian firearms company Franchi starting 1979! It was made famous to the movies Jurassic Park & The Hitcher amongst others. Its special features include the dual-mode selectable from semi auto or pump action operation.

Turns out, there's not a lot of language crossover between Jurassic Park and the Smurfs. But in spite of that, Jurassic Park (which, disappointingly, is just called 'Jurassic Park' in German) was my favourite film. I watched it over and over. I could quote bits of it (still can) in German before I understood what they even meant (still don't). To this day, it still sounds weird to me when I hear any of the characters speaking English.

John Hammond was Scottish? That was like finding out Bagpuss was Jamaican, or that Mickey Mouse was a breathy Welshman with a lisp who spoke in couplets. But I never felt like I was missing anything, and I still don't.

And I think, perhaps a bit snootily, that that's because there's a divide – a kind of perceptual chasm – between what people think they remember Jurassic Park being about, and what it was, you know, actually about. And I also think that this is the reason that every Jurassic Park game I've ever played has been a disaster. It's Not About Guns The first Jurassic Park games I remember playing – dimly in the first case and vividly in the second – were Trespasser and the old Jurassic Park arcade cabinet. The former was horrible: a pink pipe cleaner puppet (with feet-obscuring breasts you could look down and ogle at, for some reason) running around an island shooting what might have been dinosaurs. Strewn about were machine pistols, revolvers and assault rifles, and naturally, raptors were the main adversaries. Not smart or particularly dangerous adversaries, but there they were: vaguely raptor-shaped poly-golems wobbling about in broad daylight while the jaggedly-busted heroine bravely gunned them down. Take that nature.Trespasser – You told us to shoot her.The second game took scenes like the Jeep chase with the T-Rex and added lightguns.

The undisputed king of the dinosaurs thundered along, snapping its jaws, and your job was to shoot highlighted weakspots on its body to slow it down while you made good your escape. Actually, your job was to miss so the machine ate all your twenty pence pieces and bankrupted your parents. But nominally that was what it was about.

Guns in videogames are great: a neat way for a person playing on a 2D screen to reach into the world and experience the illusion of three dimensions by making something that looks far away explode, bleed or fall over. But in a Jurassic Park game they're worse than a mistake: their inclusion is out-and-out series blasphemy.The First Ever Model 3 3D Shooter, No Less!Guns appear in the first film twice: once in the hands of the doomed Muldoon, who thinks he's stalking a raptor in the jungle before one pops out of a bush and growls in his ear, and a second time when the raptors have the main characters cornered in the control room. Alan Grant is on the phone with Hammond when a raptor appears at one of the windows.

You don't even see Grant fire: you hear three shots over the phone, see the three sets of spider cracks that the shells have ineffectively punched into the glass, then the shotgun lying abandoned. That's the point that the developers of both early games missed so heroically: Jurassic Park includes guns for a false sense of security. When Muldoon or Grant have a beefy SPAS-12 shotgun in their hands, they look confident and in control. But of course, they aren't. In both cases (and to its credit, the third film in the trilogy plays the same card with its team of heavily armed dino-hunters that all end up eaten), the point is that this force of nature that InGen has unleashed is far too powerful to control.

They're the physical embodiment of Hammond's arrogance. Even in the very last dinosaur encounter - the raptors finally cornering Grant, Saddler and the kids in the visitor's centre – it's not the humans' intelligence, preparedness or weapons that save them – only a bigger, hungrier dinosaur. It's Not About CharactersNot that anyone would, really, have minded too much if the characters had been eaten. Before I sat down to rewatch the first film, there were humans involved in the scenes I remembered most clearly – but they aren't the stars. Like silent protagonists in videogames, the tension doesn't stem from the deep feelings of attachment you have towards the cast, but from putting yourself in their shoes and realising how hopelessly doomed you would be.

It's also – and I mean this with the greatest respect possible – not a very well written film, in terms of character and dialogue. The bits you remember might be the tagline about life finding a way, or Muldoon's chilling (and, OK, awesome) monologue about the raptors' intelligence ('when she looks at you, you can see she's working things out').

But here are the bits you forget: Lex's made-up hacker prattle, Tim's snotty needling of his sister, Dr. Malcolm's impossibly awkward attempt to seduce Dr.

Sattler with some red hot chaos theory demonstrations. Or what about this line, shouted by Dr. Grant himself when they're taking the seated laboratory tour? “'Wait a minute!' He yells, waving his arm at the screen.

'How do you stop the cellular mitosis?!' Because he's a scientist, see? And when you don't explain how you stop cellular mitosis to scientists, they storm off your tour cart and break into your laboratory to find out. It's hokum – precisely why I didn't miss anything at all of value when I watched the film in German as a cowering six-year-old. And that's where Telltale's approach to its Jurassic Park game went so wrong: it focused almost entirely on characters in a series for which, historically, characters aren't important.

The game's dinosaurs aren't living creatures: they're enemies to be dodged, fled or whacked off rollercoasters with metal pipes (genuinely). If not, they're puzzles to be herded about with clicks and button presses. It's a complete reversal of what the films are about: humans aren't the creatures that are important in Jurassic Park: the dinosaurs are. That every single character in Telltale's game was as likable as being scalped also didn't help. It's Not About DinosaursBut the emphasis on characters wasn't the first warning flag in Telltale's interpretation of Jurassic Park.

That actually came before I'd even started the game, when the very first menu conjured up a T-Rex that lumbered right into the centre of the screen to do its trademark roar. Talk about blowing your load early.

I hadn't even clicked New Game, and already here was the game's biggest (figuratively and literally) star, well lit, performing for me while I considered an options menu. Ironically, it felt a bit like an attraction at an animal park. Compare that to the opening shot of the film. Everyone remembers the first scene: the raptor being transported in the cage, the cage slipping, the poor site worker being clawed in by the raptor, the tasers going off while Muldoon yells 'shoot her!' (another example of guns pointedly not saving a life in the Jurassic Park universe). But the first shot is actually of trees rustling in the night.

That's all you're shown, just trees – and its totally deliberate. What's making the trees move? Is it a dinosaur? A massive squirrel? You don't know, because the film isn't telling you. It wants to make you use some imagination, not wheel out a dinosaur before you've found your seat and poke it 'til it goes ‘raargh'. In fact, the dinosaurs are barely on-screen in the film at all.

Instead, their terrible power is shown almost entirely by reference. When the two tour Jeeps first pull up outside the T-Rex enclosure, it's in a wide shot pulled way back to show the fence for scale. The cars are tiny. That massive fence, with lights on top that show it's electrified, towers five times the cars' height. And the characters stare up into the trees and complain that there's nothing to see. Not for them, it's true, but as the audience – as people who know we're watching a disaster – it shows us everything. Whatever's in those trees isn't like any animal we've ever seen: whatever's in those trees is a monster.

The raptor feeding scene does the same trick to show a whole other kind of danger. Their enclosure is small, but its fences are different to those on the T-Rex enclosure: they go up and then fold part way over the top, like a barbed wire security fence. We can't see what these creatures look like – but we know immediately they can jump a regular fence, or maybe even climb one. When the cow is lowered in, the sound and rustling fauna comes from different directions.

We know raptors are small, fast, hunt in packs and tear prey to shreds before Muldoon even begins his speech. One of the reasons it's so chilling is because he's confirming the terrible picture of these creatures we've already put together in our heads. Back to the game again. There's little clever camera work – just the occasional stolen shot of something running past the lens lifted straight from the film. Telltale's dinosaurs are well lit (and when they aren't, they have great big glowing eyes, for some evolutionarily improbable reason), and get whole camera shots to themselves to inform the player they're about to do some quick-time-event-ing. Their appearances couldn't be more clearly telegraphed if they were flown into each scene by helicopter and announced by a bugler. By comparison, the dinosaurs in the first Jurassic Park film are on screen for less than a total of fifteen minutes.

The T-Rex doesn't appear until – to the minute – halfway through the film. And the raptors? The first full body shot of a raptor – in the kitchen scene – doesn't happen until 20 minutes before the end of the film. It's your head doing the grunt work of the scares, not CGI or animatronics. Except When It Is About DinosaursBut the most critical omission in any Jurassic Park game is wonder. The majesty of the creatures. In the gun games, dinosaurs are moving targets dressed up in costumes – obstacles of different sizes and speeds for you to shoot at, no different really from Space Invaders.

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In Telltale's game they're a little better, but still obstacles of a different kind: ones that only exist in their relation to humans. It's true that not every encounter in Telltale's game is a violent one (although the herding puzzles were head-on-desk-thumpingly dull – just drive over the stupid Triceratops if it loves that leaf so much) – but the Triceratops that's escaped its pen and the Parasaurolophus group that need chasing out of their paddock are still not much more than button-and-switch puzzles that grunt.'

I wanted to show them something that wasn't an illusion. Something that was real, something that they could see and touch. An aim not devoid of merit.' Jurassic Park is a nature documentary in every way that matters, and to differentiate a Jurassic Park game from one that's just about dinosaurs, you need the shots of the baby penguin at play as much as the ones of it being eaten by a polar bear.

Tenderness along with cruelty, awe along with terror. You need that first scene with the Brachiosaurus, in which Drs. Grant and Sattler see a real live dinosaur for the first time, rearing up on its hind legs to tear leaves from an impossibly tall tree and then coming back down with force enough to shake the ground. You need the sick Triceratops, with lungs so big that when Grant lies against its side and it lifts him up he starts smiling like a child in a zoo. You need the scene with Grant and the kids in the treetop, when another curious Brachiosaurus pokes its nose into their hiding place and sneezes over Lex. Of course you need raptors and T-Rexs, too.

There's surely a great open-world game to be made of Isla Nublar – part The Forest, part Zoo Tycoon. There's just as surely a great Alien: Isolation-a-like to be made as you creep around a park building trying not to alert a nearby Velociraptor. But without the moments that made everyone, characters and audience members alike, gawp like toddlers it won't be Jurassic Park – just another game about monsters.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park is a light gunarcade game from Sega. It was released in 1997, and is based on the film of the same name. It is also a sequel to Sega's 1994 Jurassic Park arcade game. A third arcade game based on Jurassic Park III was made by Konami in 2001.

Gameplay[edit]

Ian Malcolm and Sarah Harding go missing after landing on Isla Sorna to conduct an investigation. A rescue team is sent to the island. The player controls one of two rangers, whose goal is to find Malcolm and Harding.^[2] Players battle dinosaurs by disabling them with tranquilizer darts.^[3]

The game features five levels based on environments from the film, including a laboratory and a workers' village. Four of the levels feature a boss battle that must be won to advance the game. Boss enemies include Tyrannosaurus, Deinosuchus and Carnotaurus. Velociraptors are also featured as enemies throughout the game. Pachycephalosaurus, Compsognathus and venom-spitting Dilophosaurus are also encountered throughout the game. At times, the game presents the player with an opportunity to rescue a human who is being attacked by one or multiple dinosaurs. Saving the human results in the human rewarding the player with either a temporary weapon upgrade or additional health.^[4][5][6]

Development[edit]

The Lost World: Jurassic Park is based on director Steven Spielberg's 1997 film of the same name. Having developed the original Jurassic Park arcade game, Sega AM3, a division of Sega, became interested in making the game after hearing about the film.^[7] Additionally hoping that they could make use of Sega's new relationship with Spielberg's company DreamWorks (the two companies were partnered for the GameWorks chain of entertainment venues), producer Mie Kumagai presented her ideas to AM3 president Hisao Oguchi, who approved.^[7] AM3 began developing the game in early 1997, after receiving permission from Universal Studios.^[8] Shinichi Ogasawara was the game's director.^[9]

The development team wanted the sequel to have more tension. Sega AM3 utilized Sega's Model 3arcade system board, as Model 2 was not advanced enough for certain features.^[8] Model 3 allowed the game to operate at 60 frames and 100,000 polygons per second.^[10] It was the first shooting game to use Model 3,^[11] which Sega AM3 had never used before. The development team had difficulty designing the game due to unfamiliarity with Model 3.^[7] The team also faced a tight deadline to get the game finished and released.^[8]

Early in development, the developers only had access to the film's original script. Action scenes from the script were added into the game. Approximately three months before the game's completion, various materials related to the film were sent to the development team, who then added extra elements to the game. The developers had little communication with the film's creators and instead worked mainly with the film's promotional crew. Some of the development team members went to the United States to visit the film's sets, which inspired the level designs. The development team also planned to visit Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), but the company was too busy creating special effects for the film. Instead, the team visited Stan Winston and observed some of his full size velociraptors created for the film.^[8]

The developers considered adding a creature similar to the Loch Ness Monster, but later dropped the idea as it was decided it would have been awkward for the player to shoot. A Deinosuchus was used instead. The game's dinosaurs were designed from scratch by Sega AM3, as ILM's production sketches were unavailable. Velociraptor was among the most difficult dinosaurs to design due to its quick movements. The development team also spent considerable time deciding how to make the game's main dinosaur, the Tyrannosaurus, appear frightening and impressive. The Carnotaurus, which appeared in the original script for the film, was implemented into the game, as the developers expected ILM to create the creature for use in the film. The developers initially planned to make the two-player mode different from the one-player mode, in regard to routes the players would take or the types of dinosaurs they would encounter. This idea was scrapped due to time constraints.^[8] The game was publicly announced in the first quarter of 1997,^[12] and was unveiled in June at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3).^[13]

Release[edit]

The Lost World: Jurassic Park was released in the United States and the United Kingdom in September 1997.^[14][6] It was housed in a 'theater style' cabinet with a 50-inch monitor, two light guns, and four-speaker surround sound.^[15][16] Spielberg received one of the arcade cabinets as a gift from Sega of America.^[8]

Special edition[edit]

By January 1998, an updated version of the game had been released in Japan, under the title of The Lost World Special. The new hydraulic game cabinet features seats that rotate and rock from side to side, and an 80-inch screen,^[8] compared to the original version's 50-inch screen.^[11] A burst of air blows out at the player(s) whenever the Tyrannosaurus roars. The game was rewritten to more closely follow the film's plot. Some ideas that were scrapped from the original game were implemented into the Special game. Some of the game's levels were moved around from the original. The Carnotaurus was cut from the game and replaced with a final level of a Tyrannosaurus rampaging through San Diego.^[8]

Cancelled port[edit]

In January 1998, Sega AM3 said it would be impossible to port the game to the Sega Saturn, but expressed interest in a PC version.^[8] In January 1999, it was announced that the game would be converted and released for Sega's Dreamcast console. The Dreamcast version was to include larger levels than the arcade version.^[17] In August 1999, Sega AM3 was in the process of converting the game for release in Japan in January 2000, with a possible U.S. release in the spring of 2000.^[18] These plans were cancelled by January 2001.^[19]

Other versions[edit]

A number of other games were released under the title The Lost World: Jurassic Park, including a pinball game and a number of home console games. These games were developed separately by different companies and featured completely different gameplay styles.

• Sega Genesis – The Lost World: Jurassic Park
• Sony Playstation and Sega Saturn – The Lost World: Jurassic Park
• Handheld game (Game.com, Game Boy, Game Gear) – The Lost World: Jurassic Park
• Pinball game – The Lost World: Jurassic Park

Reception[edit]

GamePro wrote that the game, when it was unveiled at E3, 'was so cool, it earned ShowStopper status even as a display,'^[20] while Next Generation wrote that it was, 'Easily one of the most impressive titles at E3'.^[21]Electronic Gaming Monthly called it 'Probably the most impressive of the arcade games featured [at E3 1997]'.^[22]Next Generation also reported, 'Some rival companies privately admitted: 'This game is so exciting, it could have become a hit even without the licensed property behind it.'^[13] After the game's release, Johnny Ballgame of GamePro wrote that the graphics 'are a giant leap forward for gun games in terms of sight and speed.'^[10]Computer and Video Games wrote that the graphics 'look amazingly authentic'.^[23]Sega Saturn Magazine wrote that the game's graphics 'are to die for', noting that the game featured 'the best dinosaurs ever seen outside of the cinema'.^[24]Arcade magazine called the game 'hours of mindless fun,'^[17] and 'a fantastic coin-op shooter which bore little resemblance to its cinematic cousin'.^[25]

Anthony Baize of AllGame rated The Lost World: Jurassic Park four and a half stars out of five, and wrote, 'The programmers did an excellent job to make gamers feel as if they are in the middle of an island with crazed dinosaurs as far as the eye can see.' Baize praised the graphics, writing that the game 'is a masterpiece. The graphics look as if they have been lifted from its namesake movie. [..] The dinosaurs look and sound real. That is fairly amazing.' However, Baize criticized the game's loud sounds, saying that 'the deafening sound coming from the speakers may be The Lost World: Jurassic Park's only real flaw. There is a line where anything can be considered to be too loud, and The Lost World: Jurassic Park crosses that line. While the loud sound is supposed to engage the gamer thoroughly, it can be distracting. [..] The sound is a bit too loud, but that should not keep anyone from playing it.'^[26]

In 2012, CraveOnline included the game on its list of '8 Arcade Games We Want Revived.'^[27] In 2017, TechRadar ranked The Lost World: Jurassic Park among the 50 best arcade games of all time, writing that it was remembered as 'the only good Jurassic Park game' and that its graphics were 'unmatched' at the time of its release, while concluding that it 'still makes us long for a proper Jurassic Park game every time we see it.'^[28]

References[edit]

1. ^ ^abSega (1997). The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Arcade. Sega. Scene: End credits.
2. ^'Something has survived'. Sega of America. Archived from the original on February 23, 1998.
3. ^Webb, Marcus (October 1997). 'Arcadia'. Next Generation. No. 34. Imagine Media. p. 32.
4. ^Harrod, Warren (January 1998). 'Coin-Operated'. Sega Saturn Magazine. pp. 92–95.
5. ^Harrod, Warren (February 1998). 'Coin-Operated'. Sega Saturn Magazine. pp. 92–95.
6. ^ ^ab'Sega Arcade Show'. Computer and Video Games. UK: EMAP. September 1997. pp. 86–87. Retrieved January 12, 2017.
7. ^ ^abc'An Interview with Mie Kumagai'. Next Generation. No. 32. Imagine Media. August 1997. p. 52.
8. ^ ^abcdefghiHarrod, Warren (January 1998). 'Exclusive! AM3 interview'. Sega Saturn Magazine. p. 62–65.
9. ^Harrod, Warren (April 1998). 'Coin-Operated Extra'. Sega Saturn Magazine. UK: EMAP. p. 96. Retrieved January 12, 2017.
10. ^ ^abBallgame, Johnny (December 1997). 'Dino Arcade Annihilation'. GamePro. p. 124. Retrieved December 2, 2016.
11. ^ ^abWebb, Marcus (October 1997). 'Lost World roars!'. Next Generation. p. 32. Retrieved November 9, 2018.
12. ^'Sneak Previews: It's Out of the Park!'. GamePro. No. 104. IDG. May 1997. p. 43. Retrieved 2017-01-12.
13. ^ ^abWebb, Marcus (September 1997). 'Sega Finds The Lost World'. Next Generation. Imagine Media. p. 32. Retrieved January 12, 2017.
14. ^'Lost World: Jurassic Park'. Next Generation. August 1997. pp. 50–51. Retrieved November 9, 2018.
15. ^Webb, Marcus (September 1997). 'Sega Finds the Lost World'. Next Generation. No. 33. Imagine Media. p. 32.
16. ^Harrod, Warren (September 1997). 'Coin-Operated: The Lost World: Jurassic Park'. Sega Saturn Magazine. No. 23. Emap International Limited. p. 93. Retrieved November 5, 2019.
17. ^ ^ab'Dreamcast – Jurassic Park: The Lost World'. Arcade. UK: Future Publishing. January 1999. p. 94. Retrieved January 12, 2017.
18. ^'Lost World Coming To Dreamcast Finally?'. SegaWeb.com. August 16, 1999. Archived from the original on 2000-08-20.
19. ^'AM3 developer information'. IGN.com. Archived from the original on 2001-01-26.
20. ^'The Lost World: Jurassic Park (Arcade)'. GamePro. IDG. September 1997. p. 41. Retrieved January 12, 2017.
21. ^'Buzz'. Sega. 1997. Archived from the original on June 30, 1997.
22. ^'Arcade Games at the E3? You Betcha!'. Electronic Gaming Monthly. No. 98. Ziff Davis. September 1997. p. 76.
23. ^'The Lost World: Jurassic Park'. Computer and Video Games. UK: EMAP. August 1997. p. 96. Retrieved January 12, 2017.
24. ^'Jurassic Park Discovered in Arcade'. Sega Saturn Magazine. UK: EMAP. August 1997. p. 13. Retrieved January 12, 2017.
25. ^'Trespasser Preview'. Arcade. UK: Future Publishing. December 1998. p. 36. Retrieved January 12, 2017.
26. ^Baize, Anthony. 'The Lost World: Jurassic Park review'. AllGame. Archived from the original on November 15, 2014.
27. ^Davidson, Joey; White, Mike (January 6, 2012). '8 Arcade Games We Want Revived'. CraveOnline. Retrieved August 9, 2017.
28. ^Lynch, Gerald (March 7, 2017). 'The 50 best arcade games of all time, ever'. TechRadar. p. 4. Retrieved November 9, 2018.

External links[edit]

• The Lost World: Jurassic Park at the Killer List of Videogames