Jurassic Park III: The DNA Factor Review

With the release of the 3rd Jurassic Park movie a few game spin off were of course inevitable. This game for the Gameboy Advance puts you in charge of Mark Hanson or Lori Torres in a mission to find missing DNA fragments on the island of Sorna. As the plot goes, an InGen corporation plane disappears over the island of Sorna, a rescue team are subsequently sent in and find the plane but discover that its precious cargo of Dinosaur DNA has been scattered over the island, which of course means you go in to get it all back.

The game is split into 2 major sections, first there is the DNA gathering element, which takes place in various parts of the island. These parts are of course inhabited by living dinosaurs, which you must avoid while picking up the different coloured DNA fragments. At the end of the level you need to pick up a base DNA capsule which contains the DNA for the dinosaur you are about to reconstruct minus some DNA particles which you need to put together.

After completing a level you are required to reconstruct a DNA strand for a specific dinosaur. You are not told what the dinosaur is because no one knows but once the strand is complete the dinosaur is revealed. This part of the game is probably the most boring element, theres not much to do but fire off DNA particles at the rotating strand, its very easy to figure out what colour particle goes where as the missing parts are easily identified by a flashing circle when you have a correct DNA particle for that area, if not a flashing cross is shown.

The game does not really strike me as one that is going to do well, While the levels are laid out reasonably well, the DNA reconstruction part is plain and boring. The levels are the best part of the game and while picking up DNA fragments is not the best excuse for charging round a dinosaur filled island, the ability to kill some dinosaurs is a welcome distraction.

The games graphics are also one of those big problems that seem to hit this game from every angle. While you do get to kill dinosaurs, eventually, the problem arises when you want to see them to kill them. Most of the time they disappear into the background as they are so tiny and the colouring is so similar. All you get to hear is some sort of screeching then your hit, I mean what is all that about?

Keeping with the sounds, they are awful too. The music is bad, the sounds are all over the place and if I had to say something good about them its that they stop when the power button on the GBA is pressed. You do get different weapons but when you cant see what you're trying to hit then it doesn't really help.

Another problem is the amount of text your required to read thorough just to begin the game. You get some text telling you all you need to know about the game and how the levels work, I guess its ok the first time round but the second time round you end up sitting there pressing the A button for ages hoping some miracle is going to happen and the game loses all text, that's if you really want to play it a second time.

The game does not do justice to the film, which I thought was pretty good. Its failings are all over the place, from the side-scrolling levels to the DNA reconstruction phase your required to complete to advance to the next level. This game is meant to be the first of 3 JP3 releases from Konami, lets hope the rest get better.