Jurassic World Aftermath - Switch Review
"Would please a lot of Jurassic Park fans."
All of a sudden, you crash land on Isa Nublar, separated from your party and left alone in a strange abandoned facility. The power is off and needs to be restored, but you can hear sounds echoing through the halls - you’re not alone. Something hides in the darkness, something primal, and you need to find a way out before it's too late. Jurassic Park Aftermath is a first-person stealth game set two years after the fall of the Jurassic World, and it’s up to you to make it out alive!
The Good
After a brief introduction, you find yourself on board an aeroplane flying over Isa Nublar with the sole purpose of finding Blue - The Raptor from the Jurassic Park Fallen Kingdom genome. After an encounter with a few unruly pteranodons, your plane crashes into a hangar and your pilot is eaten alive, at which point the game turns into an almost Alien: Isolation-like survival game after your main predators, three very aggressive velociraptors, start hunting you.
This kickstarts your journey across the facility, restoring power, hiding from the three engineered raptors and completing lots of puzzles along the way. Stealth mechanics see you crawling under tables and desks waiting for raptors to pass by or get distracted, which you can do by using your multi-tool once you’ve unlocked it. This multi-tool will allow you to activate speakers or other machinery to get the dinosaur's attention so you can pass by undetected. You’ll then be able to complete one of many PC or door mini-games without interruption. Of course, new dinosaurs will be introduced as you progress, requiring new strategies to plan out your next move in order to avoid any new threats. There were some very cool moments in the game but I don't want to spoil them for you here.
If your screen goes red, you’ve been detected and will need to hide in either a locker or under a table, but if the raptors catch you, it's a quick game over, bringing you back to the most recent checkpoint.
You’ll also journey across multiple cel-shaded locations which made me smile a lot as each new area really stood out with its attention to detail. This made navigating them a real pleasure, and it's one of my main praises for the game, especially for someone like me who loves the Jurassic Park franchise.
The sound design needs a special mention as the atmosphere and dinosaur roars felt like they were taken right out of the movie, making encounters far more realistic and terrifying. Another special mention goes to the characters' voice actors that are great throughout the adventure, especially Dr. Amelia who is your partner-in-crime giving you orders on the fly and chatting while exploring; the fantastic ramblings from Ian Malcolm were also a joy to listen to and really sold the story and character motivations.
TL;DR
- Interesting plot setting
- Hide and seek mechanics
- Beautiful cel-shaded art style
- Fantastic sound and voice acting
The Bad
Our main character Sam is very slow moving. While he can run for a brief time, it’s not a viable option long term. I guess it keeps the tension up, fear of being the slow prey being hunted by the roaming raptors, but it can make certain sections in the latter half of the game quite frustrating.
Speaking of, there are two sections that are really difficult to get through. The first one is restoring the power while crawling around the floor while avoiding broken glass, trying to not make any noise at all. This was frustrating as you are required to plug power cords into electrical sockets to open a door, but it's just so fiddly to actually do. Just that single action alone makes a lot of noise, which attracts a raptor that keeps randomly appearing from around the area, resulting in plenty of trial and error. Secondly, there’s a section where you're using the monorail, but the less said about that, the better. These two sections made me really mad and I very nearly gave up on them both as they were so frustrating.
My last gripe is that it was all over too quickly. Jurassic Park Aftermath took me roughly five hours to complete, and that was with me having a few breaks in-between sessions. But apparently, it can be completed in three hours, which is not a lot of time really considering the price the game is currently being sold at. Apart from a few toy collectibles to find and an extra ending, there’s nothing to unlock after you’ve finished the game and the story ended quite abruptly.
TL;DR
- Slow movement
- Two frustrating key missions
- Short length with an abrupt ending
- A lack of extra content after completion
Final Score: 8/10
Jurassic Park Aftermath is an enjoyable adventure that is similar to Alien: Isolation but a lot less scarier. The game still made me jump a few times though and the three raptors posed a very serious threat throughout my time with the game. There are some very cool moments that had me smiling from ear-to-ear, ones which would please a lot of Jurassic Park fans; you know who you are. It's just a shame it's over all too quickly, with no extra content to speak of. Although, just like the park it's based on, you'll want to explore all that the ravaged facility has to offer and seek out the plenty of little nods to the movies. Life, uh, finds a way, and you should find a way to play this game, even if it's just for a weekend excursion.
Thank you for checking out our Jurassic World Aftermath Switch review, thank you to Coatsink Software (via Plan of Attack PR) for providing the review code and thank you to our Patreon Backers for their ongoing support:
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