Jurassic Park: Trespasser - Gameplay

Gameplay

The entire game is played through the eyes of Anne (voiced by Driver). There are only two cut scenes, one that begins the game and one that concludes the game, and an introductory video. There is occasional orchestral music, scored by Bill Brown. As she traverses the island, Anne will often talk to herself or remember clips of John Hammond's memoirs (voiced by Richard Attenborough) describing the creation (and downfall) of Jurassic Park. There are no time limits or difficulty settings to adjust and only the first level has text prompts to aid players that are new to the game.

This game features no HUD. Anne's health is represented by a heart-shaped tattoo on her breast, that the player can look down to. The ink of the tattoo is filled in depending on the amount of damage she has taken; when it is full, and a chain appears around it, Anne is dead. Anne's health regenerates quickly over time as long as she does not take further damage. The only way for the player to know how much ammunition is left in a particular weapon is by picking up and then weighing the weapon and specifically saying things such as, "About eight shots," "Feels full," and "Hasn't been used." The actual level of realism has been debated because a number of Anne's characteristics, such as her ease at dropping items from her hand, is not very realistic. This example of not holding items is something that in real life is easy, yet difficult in the game.

By pressing a key, Anne will extend her arm out in to the game world, allowing the player to pick up, swing, push and throw objects. This allows the player to create improvised weaponry, for instance: grabbing a large rock off the ground and bashing a raptor with it. Anne can move her arm in any direction, allowing the player to get a different feel of use for each weapon. However, this feature is extremely cumbersome, as it requires up to five buttons (maximum) to be pressed to fully manipulate the arm (picking up, dropping, moving, swinging, and rotating). This makes utilizing the arm in the heat of battle somewhat frustrating. Anne can only carry two items at once and when bumping into things will often drop items. Further problems with the arm included a contribution to logical flaws in the promoted realistic portions of the game. For example, Anne could drag steel girders that theoretically weighed a ton or more, and swing them around or toss them several feet with little difficulty, but could not use this same arm to pull herself over a 3-foot (0.91 m) high embankment. The wrist is able to rotate 360 degrees several times over and the lack of an elbow often results in erratic and impossible movement.

In addition to picking up objects off the ground to use as weapons, Anne can find and use various other armaments including key cards and diskettes. In situations requiring button input (such as keypads), Anne will extend out one of her fingers. In keeping with the "hyper realistic" vision of the game, firearms have no cross-hairs, causing the player to first align the gun by adjusting Anne's wrist and then manually move her arm to aim at dinosaurs. Due to the non-traditional nature of the controls, inexperienced players may find it difficult to fire their weapons. Anne can carry up to two weapons at a time. Weapons have been made to incorporate realistic recoil, as if being held with two hands. Once each firearm is empty, it serves little use except as a club when swung. Empty weapons cannot be reloaded, and so must be discarded and another one found.