Jurassic-Park-Trespasser
Latest
Joystiq Weekly: Xbox One's Kinect, Mario Kart 8 review, Godzilla's past and more
Welcome to Joystiq Weekly, a "too long; didn't read" of each week's biggest stories, reviews and original content. Each category's top story is introduced with a reactionary gif, because moving pictures aren't just for The Daily Prophet. If machinery works the way The Brave Little Toaster suggests, you gotta feel for the Kinect - the solid experiences it supplements are often drowned in complaints about its underwhelming games, as well as its general inaccuracies as a listening, motion-tracking controller. We imagine Microsoft reassured the device about its playground reputation by including it with every Xbox One out there, but then ... well, this week happened. Kinect might be destined to just stay at home now, waiting for a band of appliance-shaped adventures to accept his flaws so it can tag along with for their straight-to-Blu Ray sequel. Hey, on the upside, at least that terrifying air conditioner died off before Kinect was ever able to meet him. Can you imagine being left alone in a house with that thing as a kid? Talk about new legitimate fears. Anyway, now that we're done painting a bleak picture of Kinect's secret social life, there's a lot more to this week than technological popularity contests. It's financial season, with Ubisoft, Take-Two and the NPD Group throwing numbers everywhere, we've got reviews for Mario Kart 8 and Super Time Force, and there's also a dip into Godzilla's past of ruining virtual metropolises. It's all stacked neat and orderly for you after the break!
Jurassic Park: Trespasser remake aims to make good on long-lost promises
Fifteen years later, Jurassic Park: Trespasser still seems to bring out the dreamer in game developers. It's largely forgotten today, but there was a time when the 1998 first-person shooter published by Electronic Arts aspired to be the ultimate technical achievement. Developer Seamus Blackley dreamt of a perfectly seamless, immersive world with intelligent dinosaurs – an idea that still has the power to spark the imagination with its insane technical ambition. Despite assurances prior to release that the game would revolutionize PC gaming, Trespasser was critically panned and commercially ignored. Today, the dream of that revolutionary title lives on through a group of dedicated fans unwilling to let to die. The architect of that effort is Larry Ellis – an Australian working part time at a local distribution company, with the rest of his hours devoted to the long forgotten licensed game. Utilizing Crytek's powerful CryEngine, he recently captivated the internet with a series of gorgeous updates to the original Trespasser jungle environments. Ellis' ambitions, however, are far greater than a simple remake. The part-time designer has grand ambitions with plans to recreate the game's entire world – Isla Sorna – and within it, inject new missions, objectives and more. Utilizing technology that lies at the bleeding edge, Ellis aims to make use of both Oculus Rift and the Razer Hydra to live up to the game's original vision for a unique control scheme. Ellis' project seems almost crazy in scope - a one-man attempt to make good on assurances made by a company he has no affiliation with nearly two decades ago. Perhaps it's an impossible dream, but it's hard not to cheer for an underdog with so much passion.
