Jurassic World Aftermath Collection PSVR2 review. This could have been so much better than it actually is. Originally beginning life on the Meta/Oculus Quest headsets (Oculus is even cited as a development partner on the introduction screen when you boot the game up on PSVR2), Jurassic World Aftermath Collection doesn’t exactly shoot for the sky when it comes to crafting an immersive, high-end VR experience that makes you feel happy that you’ve just forked over in excess of 500 pounds/dollars for Sony’s latest lump of VR tech.
Jurassic World Aftermath Collection PSVR2 Review
A Missed Opportunity To Make The Most Of Jurassic World In VR
Taking place between the events depicted in Jurassic World and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Jurassic World Aftermath puts you in the shoes of security expert Sam who crash lands on the island of Isla Nublar and then is tasked with escaping the island lest you end up being the starter, main and dessert for the local dinosaur folk that now have the run of the place thanks to the events glimpsed in the first Jurassic World movie. Originally released in two parts on other VR platforms, Jurassic World Aftermath Collection includes both parts (hence the ‘collection’ part of its title) of Jurassic World Aftermath, essentially meaning that players get the full experience all in one go.
Unfolding from a first-person perspective, one of the first things that’ll strike you about Jurassic World Aftermath is the cel-shaded visual style that has been employed. With starkly thick black outlines, colourful pastel surfaces and some neat lighting effects, Jurassic World Aftermath Collection certainly looks unique and bears closer resemblance to a CG animated take on the license rather than striving for something approaching photorealism.
However, it’s also true that the relatively low-powered origins of Jurassic World Aftermath are on full display here. Despite the increased resolution, framerate and additional visual effects afforded by PSVR2, Jurassic World Aftermath still looks very simplistic from a visual standpoint with geometrically basic environments, low poly models and sparsely filled locations. This is a shame too, not least because the setting of Isla Nublar would naturally lend itself well to a highly detailed and densely filled world that would echo the movie source material accordingly.
Another obvious limitation is the size of the world that Jurassic World Aftermath Collection presents players with. For much of the game you’ll be rooting around a range of fairly dingy rooms within the Isla Nublar complex and not only are they pretty small, but there’s also some loading to be done when you transition from the central complex hub to one of the other wings – a fact that seems unnecessary given the reduced size and complexity of those environments.
Though the visuals are certainly nothing to write home about, the audio side of things fares a lot better. From the iconic sounds of the various dinos (the strange guttural ‘hunting’ sounds of the velociraptors are on full, terrifying display here), to Jeff Goldblum reprising his role from the movies and fan favourite voice actor Laura Bailey (The Last of Us Part II, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, Call of Duty: Vanguard and so many more roles) enthusiastically guiding you through the game via a radio earpiece, Jurassic World Aftermath Collection is arguably easier on the ears than it is on the eyes.
It’s also worth noting that John Williams superb soundtrack also features here – but rather than the massive, dramatic bursts and swells of the orchestral composition that defined the movies, the soundtrack seems more muted here, almost as if it’s struggling to push through at every turn but rarely succeeds in doing so. Likewise, the neat use of 3D audio also benefits the experience, allowing you to precisely pinpoint velociraptors in the local vicinity as the move in and out of your line of sight – but more on that in a bit.
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As to how Jurassic World Aftermath Collection plays, unless you’re a particularly young, wide-eyed Jurassic World/Park fan with dinosaur posters plastered all over your bedroom wall, you’re not going to get very much from the game. Primarily a combat-free, stealth based puzzler that is over in just a few hours, Jurassic World Aftermath Collection has you sneaking around the environment, solving puzzles to unlock new areas and avoiding the numerous hungry velociraptors that are lurking around the place.
How you do all this stealthy sneaking is by crawling underneath furniture, hiding in lockers/cupboards and using your handy collection of gadgets to set off sound sources located around the environment to distract the dinos while you scamper away, over and over and over again. Though the Alien Isolation-lite stealth is serviceable, it’s really the repetition that grinds you down, making the very thought of having to dive into yet another locker or hide under another desk feel much more like a chore rather than something you’d either want to do, let alone find especially satisfying.
When you’re not avoiding the attentions of hungry velociraptors, you’ll be flicking switches and solving puzzles to progress through the complex and then eventually onto freedom. Much like the stealth gameplay beats that feature in the game, the puzzle solving in Jurassic World Aftermath Collection is simplistic too with obvious solutions and the only really taxing thing being able to solve quick memory puzzles before you’re spotted by a velociraptor after your distraction has worn off. Of course, the caveat to the relatively basic stealth and puzzle design of Jurassic World Aftermath Collection is that while older and more experienced gamers may find it all trite and much too easy, younger folk could still find it enjoyable all the same. As such, if you happen to be one of those folks or you’re buying this for one of them, feel free to add a point or two to the score at the end of this review.
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From an immersion standpoint, the biggest flaw that Jurassic World Aftermath Collection suffers from (other than a relatively incomplete use of the PSVR2’s capabilities), is that the world just doesn’t feel like it has any heft or physicality to it. By this I mean that there are very few items in the world that can be interacted with and worse still, your disembodied hands can pass through elements in the environment without any resistance. Again, this likely speaks more to the humble technical origins of Jurassic World Aftermath Collection, but the overwhelming impression remains that the whole package just hasn’t been as finely tuned for PSVR2 as it should have been.
A highly linear experience, once you’ve beaten Jurassic World Aftermath Collection there is little reason to go back – though the neat Dino Viewer, which lets you inspect all of the rampaging reptiles up close, will certainly add on another hour or so for those who are obsessed with them. While younger folks might still get a kick from its occasional scares and familiar locations, Jurassic World Aftermath Collection is a desperately linear adventure that struggles to break free of its humble technical origins and fails to both do proper justice to the setting of its source material and the PSVR2 hardware itself.
Jurassic World Aftermath Collection releases alongside the PSVR2 hardware on February 22, 2023.
Review code kindly provided by PR.