Reception
| Reception | |
|---|---|
| Aggregate scores | |
| Aggregator | Score |
| GameRankings | 56.64% |
| Review scores | |
| Publication | Score |
| Allgame | |
| Computer and Video Games | 1.0/10 |
| GamePro | |
| GameSpot | 3.9/10 |
| IGN | 4.7/10 |
| PC Zone | 7.0/10 |
| Game Revolution | B- |
Before the release of the game, it was announced that Jurassic Park: Trespasser would revolutionize PC gaming. Unfortunately, after the game's release, reviews noted that it "failed to impress". Trespasser was not only a critical but also a commercial failure with only (about) 50,000 copies sold. Reviews of the game were mostly negative, but some reviewers felt the game had positive elements and a few were impressed by the title's originality and scale. Many of the reviewers disliked the poor graphics performance on even the fastest, graphically accelerated PCs available upon the game's release. Despite the anticipation over the many "first attempts at" within the game's original development scope, the reality did not match the hype.
A Computer and Video Games review thought the game was a "dog" and gave it a score of 1 out of 10. A Gamespot review by Elliot Chin described it as the most frustrating game he had ever played with "boring gameplay and annoying bugs". Some of the complaints included the physics engine is needlessly complicating, levels were over-filled with box-stacking puzzles, exploration is tiresome because movement speed is far too slow, landscapes were barren with few dinosaurs, too many collision detection bugs, poor voice acting and a clumsy arm interface. An IGN review was more favourable, describing the plot as "super-intriguing" with high praise for the realism of the game's physics engine. Despite featuring a blocky and heavily pixelated environment that offered limited interaction, the dinosaurs were convincing and "looked and moved really well" and the reviewer felt the game was badly implemented but still ground-breaking. One Game Revolution review described the game's graphical engine as gorgeous with impressive real-time shadows and good water and particle physics. On the downside, the gameplay was very basic with the usual "key-finding, enemy-killing, button-pushing" of the FPS genre and when there was more than one dinosaur on-screen the game slowed considerably. An Allgame reviewer didn't like the bugs and graphical glitches or the slow frame rate but concluded the game was a "ground breaking title that offers some great thrills, challenges, puzzles, and rewarding gameplay". PCGamer thought the game got the atmospherics right. PCZone felt the game could be quite frightening but that there were too many guns scattered around the island. An Adrenaline Vault review liked the game's originality and some tense moments, but disliked the critically bad flaws such as the slow treks, the lack of a real inventory system, the frustrating interface and there being too many guns lying around.
Computer Gaming World awarded the game "Coaster of the Year". GameSpot included Trespasser as one of nominees for the title of the Most Disappointing Game of the Year ("losing" to Star Wars Rebellion) and gave it the dubious award of the Worst Game of the Year (PC), commenting: "Of all the games released this year, none was as ill-received and terrible as Trespasser. No game was implemented as poorly, and no game squandered its potential as much. No game played as awfully. (...) There's one thing we won't forget: Trespasser was undoubtedly the worst game of 1998."
As time went on, fans got involved into making their own new levels using TresEd, fan-made software that allows the user to edit Trespasser.
Read more about this topic: Jurassic Park: Trespasser
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)