Chaos Island: The Lost World
| Chaos Island: The Lost World | |
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Cover art | |
| Developer(s) | Dreamworks Interactive |
| Series | Jurassic Park |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows |
| Release date(s) | October 30, 1997[1] |
| Genre(s) | Real-time strategy |
Chaos Island: The Lost World (also known simply as Chaos Island and Chaos Island The Lost World Jurassic Park) is a PC video game released in 1997 to coincide with the release of The Lost World: Jurassic Park. It is a real-time strategy video game, where the player controls characters displayed on a map, directing where they move with the mouse and giving them commands either with the mouse or from a menu.
Gameplay
The game features six characters from the film, each voiced by the actors who played them in the film: Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore), Nick Van Owen (Vince Vaughn), Eddie Carr (Richard Schiff), Kelly Curtis (Vanessa Lee Chester), and John Hammond (Richard Attenborough).[2] A "Research Assistant" can also be used as a playable character. The player can have more than one Research Assistant. Each of the characters has a different level of speed, eyesight (used for uncovering the fog of war) and number of supplies they can carry at one time. Only Malcolm, Owen, Carr and the Research Assistant are available from the start; Harding and Curtis become playable shortly into the game. Each character costs a certain number of points when selected for use in a level. There is a limited number of points that can be spent before the level begins, but when collecting supplies, the points can be spent on bringing in characters during the level. Hammond appears in cutscenes between levels.
In most missions, the player will be required to build a base camp. Any character can build structures. They can then collect supplies which can be found on the map. Among the structures which can be built are shelters for healing characters (Shelters, and Hardened Shelters which heal faster), nests for hatching friendly dinosaurs (Artificial Nest, and Incubator where the egg hatches quicker), High Hides for protecting characters, and buildings for upgrading character speed, eyesight, defence and attack power.
The game includes three difficulty levels and 12 missions,[2] except on the Easy level of difficulty, where the last two missions are left out. The game's plot only follows the film's plot very loosely. Early in the game, Malcolm, Owen and Carr are on Isla Nublar (the island where the first Jurassic Park occurred), where they rendezvous with Harding and obtain a DNA serum used to control dinosaurs that they hatch. A freighter then takes them to Isla Sorna (where The Lost World occurs) and crashes there in a storm. Future missions are largely spent combating the hunters which are on the island; the hunters are hostile to the playable characters and will attack them on foot, using Jeeps, and tanks in later levels. In one mission, the characters must free a baby T. rex and other captured dinosaurs from the hunters' camp, then in the next, return it to its nest and free the mother, who has been captured by the hunters.
Later in the game, the hunters blow up the playable characters' communications transmitter. The characters make their way to the InGen Communications Centre (as in the movie) to contact help. In the game's final level, the characters must all make their way to a helipad where they can be picked up. If these missions are completed, a bonus mission is opened where the player can play as the mother T. rex in San Diego making her way to the freighter where her baby is, and combating hunters on the way.
The player can use dinosaurs against enemies.[3] Eight dinosaurs from the films are featured, including Parasaurolophus, Compsognathus, Pachycephalosaurus, Dilophosaurus, Stegosaurus, Velociraptor, Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus. The game begins with just the first two, with stronger dinosaurs appearing in later missions. All wild dinosaurs (which wear white collars) are generally hostile to both the characters and hunters. However, the game features dinosaur nests with eggs, which can be collected by the characters and hatched, producing dinosaurs wearing blue collars which can be controlled by the player.
Herbivorous dinosaurs can replenish their health by eating plants, while carnivores do so by eating hunters or other dinosaurs. In the last three missions, the hunters become able to hatch dinosaurs of their own, which wear red collars and are hostile to the player. There are situations where wild dinosaurs can be lured or baited in to fighting hunters as they tend to attack nearby characters on either side; sometimes hunters also provoke them.
Reception
Cindy Yans of Computer Games Magazine rated the game three stars out of five and wrote that the game "has the look and feel of the original Command & Conquer." Yans also wrote, "The AI is not very finely tuned—resource gatherers need to be reordered to the stockpile after every collection, party members stand there while tanks run over them, pathfinding is quite primitive. Nonetheless, people with little real-time strategy experience will happily overlook these things in order to enjoy the intensive mini-missions that offer almost immediate gratification." Yans noted that the film's actors provided their voices "in a limited number of annoyingly repetitive sound bytes during mission play… with some good humor [...]. In the inter-mission briefings, however, the actors' presence is much easier to swallow. It is a nice touch to hear Jeff Goldblum instruct us about the upcoming mission."[2]
References
- ↑ "Copyright information for Chaos Island". United States Copyright Office. 1997. Retrieved September 5, 2015.
- 1 2 3 Yans, Cindy (January 29, 1998). "Command & Conquer Lite, you know...for kids". Computer Games Magazine. Archived from the original on July 4, 2003.
- ↑ "DreamWorks Interactive - Chaos Island". DreamWorksGames.com. Archived from the original on December 21, 1997.
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