You see, this game was great, but it was hindered by two factors:
- Abysmal performance on 1998 hardware (Pentium II just launched, 3dfx Voodoo2 & Rage Pro were the best cards)
- The stupid single controllable arm and interface (Would actually work fine in a VR headset environment)
Now the game was a revolution in that the physics were absolutely amazing and it was the first open world FPS in the 90's with fantastic graphics.
Had they had an interface like System Shock, complete with inventory system, easy to store guns and objects and notes, etc, this may very well have been one of the greatest games of all time, as the team would have focused more on the story, plot, map and level design elements, and optimizations for 1998 era hardware. I had heard the team spent most of their time on the arm. Looking down at the left breast to see health is hilarious.
I recently played this game, in its original form, from start to finish for the very first time on my retro rig, consisting of an Intel Pentium 4 3.0GHz with Hyper-threading, an ATi Radeon 9800 Pro AGP 8X, and 1GB DDR-400 SDRAM. The game ran perfectly smooth at 1280x1024, seeing as how this was hardware from like 5-6 years after its launch.
It took me 24 years to finally play through the entire game and my goodness, they capture the atmosphere & immersion perfectly, John Hammond's voice acting by Richard Attenborough is perfect, and Minnie Driver as Anne is convincing as the sole survivor of a plane crash onto Isla Sorna.
Once I got used to the controllable arm (not as easy as it sounds), how to aim & pick up stuff, how to holster something I picked up, and found that I actually moved faster by jumping repeatedly, I was set for my adventure on Site B. Back in 1998, fans of DooM, Quake, Unreal, and Jedi Knight had little to no patience for this arm, which is why it only had a laughable 50,000 units in original sales.
I'd say 8.75/10. Fantastic game once you get used to the arm, rushed final third though.
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