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Review: JP3: Dino Defender

© Dan Finkelstein

With the release of "JP3: Dino Defender", Knowledge Adventure has done what many thought to be impossible: Create game based on the Jurassic Park movie license that is actually worse than 1998's horrid "Jurassic Park: Trespasser". Amazingly enough, while that game suffered from an overwhelmingly-long development period, huge amounts of hype, continual delays, and accusations of being "vaporware", then finally a game which was bascially unplayable (super-buggy graphics engine, laughable enemy AI, and an un-usable interface), Knowledge Adventure's "Dino Defender" manages to surpass even "Trespasser" for out-and-out crappiness.

Produced in secrecy behind "Edutainment" publisher Knowledge Adventure's doors, "Dino Defender" is a game which was announced only a few months ago -- and seemingly made in that time frame. The game plays as if it was made by a design and programming team of one with a basic knowledge of Macromedia Director: controls are unresponsive, gameplay is virtually nonexistant, and the graphics seem ripped from a SNES game (And honestly: I'm being kind here).

Adding to Knowledge Adventure's crimes with "Dino Defender" is false-advertising as well. The box promises "intense 3D worlds". What you get when you boot it up, however, is a side-scrolling "adventure" with flat, 2D graphics. Super Mario Brothers was more 3D than this game.

As for the game itself, it is bascially a standard 2D side-scrolling adventure game -- and a poor one at that. You play a strange silver robot character, who walks from screen to screen (screen scrolling was obviously too difficult a programming challange) gathering items and looking for secrets. Controls are so poor, however, that even this a chore. You can only perform one action at a time, so something as simple as jumping over a "cliff" is an exercise in frustration.

In all seriousness, it is simply amazing that "JP3: Dino Defender" made it to store shelves. Obviously no one at Knowledge Adventure cares about producing quality products, and instead are fine with releasing a half-baked (or perhaps "not-baked" would be better for "Dino Defender") product to correlate with a major motion picture in a vain attempt to rack in the cash.

"Dino Defender", is by far, one of the worst "games" I have played in the last several years. It is an insult to the customer and to the Jurassic Park franchise.

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