Video Game / Jurassic: The Hunted

"What the foxtrot is going on here?"

— Craig Dylan in Jurassic: The Hunted

Jurassic: The Hunted is a First-Person Shooter developed by Cauldron (the guys that make Cabela's hunting games) and published by Activision for PS2, PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii in 2009.

In the game you play as Craig Dylan, a former U.S. Navy SEAL, who now works for a private security firm with his war buddy Armando "Rock" Depiedra (no relation to that other rock). You've been hired by Sabrina Sayrus, whose father went missing years ago above the Bermuda Triangle. After getting sucked out of his plane by a bolt of freaking lightning, Dylan awakes and finds himself isolated from the others on a strange jungle island. Within seconds of beginning to look for friends, he's attacked by a pack of raptors! It isn't until much later, though, that he actually acknowledges them as dinosaurs, initially convinced that they are big lizards. The rest of the game follows Dylan and his team as they try to get off the island and discover why the heck it's covered in dinosaurs, exploding mushrooms, and prehistoric scorpions.

Jurassic: The Hunted borrows its control scheme from the Call of Duty franchise, both of which are published by Activision. In fact, it even has a Nazi Zombie-inspired mode called "Survival". But the Nazi zombies are replaced with teleporting dinosaurs, which might have made this the best game ever, had they included any multiplayer options whatsoever. In both modes you can use a bullet time feature that when activated highlights the vital organs of those nasty reptiles. This was probably added because of the developer's previous work on Cabela's.

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Tropes used in this game:

• Abandoned Area: The empty fortresses, campsites, and vehicles seen throughout the game are signs of past human activity in the game's main Lost World-type setting, but you never see any other humans once you explore the aforementioned locations for yourself.
• Artistic License – Biology: Whenever you shoot a Brontoscorpio, the bullet holes in his exoskeleton always show red blood like the bullet holes in the skin on every other possible target in the game; however, in Real Life, scorpions always have blue blood instead of red blood like that of vertebrates.
• Artistic License – Paleontology:
  • The Tyrannosaurus rexes in the game sport crocodile-style osteoderms on their necks, backs, and tails, but the species sported no such features in Real Life. Plus, their teeth are too numerous, small, straight, and sharp. In Real Life, they only had sixty teeth, and their teeth were massive, backward-curved, and blunt for crushing other dinosaurs' bones. But the biggest example is their arms which are much too large and more comparable to those of Allosaurus, except they have the correct two-fingered hands.
  • The two pterosaurs in the game (Cearadactylus and Ornithocheirus) both lack their distinctive cranial crests and semicircular beak bumps.
  • Velociraptor, Deinonychus, and Utahraptor (the three dromaeosaurs in the game) are all completely scaly and hunt in large packs. Plus, they also even sport keratinous spikes running down their necks, backs, and tails like diplodocids. On the flipside, Velociraptor is correctly sized and proportioned for once.
  • The game features a large number of prehistoric species from the world over (such as Tyrannosaurus rex, Velociraptor, Deinonychus, Utahraptor, Brachiosaurus, Triceratops, Pachycephalosaurus, Cearadactylus, Ornithocheirus, Dilophosaurus, Spinosaurus, and Brontoscorpio, even though some of the aforementioned species wouldn't have lived with one another in Real Life).
• Awesome, but Impractical: While the RPG can kill most enemies with a single direct hit, it can only carry six rounds at a time, and when fired at extremely close range, it also has the potential to kill you. When fired from a far distance, enemies have time to dodge your attacks because the RPG's rounds travel much more slowly through the air than bullets.
• The Bermuda Triangle: The setting of the game is an island somewhere in here. It's mysterious and interesting by itself, but filling it with dinosaurs is just spoiling us.
• BFG: The plasma rifle kills nearly everything in one shot and has unlimited ammo. And you get it before the first weapon in the game, if you've unlocked it.
• Big Bad: "Spike" the Spinosaurus is a vicious apex predator that can easily kill any other dinosaur in his territory, and he even goes out of his way to endlessly pursue enemies that have caused him trouble in the past. What a prick indeed.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: Brontoscorpio, a giant prehistoric scorpion, appears in the ninth and thirteenth levels, and as his massive size (compared to extant scorpions) would suggest, he can easily kill you if you aren't careful around him.
• Bloodless Carnage: Somewhat averted. Though you never see blood endlessly gushing out of a target's bullet holes, you do still see blood coming out of said bullet holes for a split second before stopping completely, and you can also see blood inside the bullet holes.
• Boom, Headshot!: If you shoot a lesser enemy (such as a Velociraptor) in the head, it'll kill him instantly.
• Boring Yet Practical: Though most of the handheld weapons in the game may not seem as glamorous as the RPG, machine guns (such as the 30-06 Assault Rifle) have rather large ammo magazines, high rates of fire, and quick reload animations.
• Boss Battle:
  • The eighth level has you battling two Tyrannosaurus rexes in an attempt to gain access into a nearby cave system.
  • The eleventh level has you battling "Spike" the Spinosaurus until a Tyrannosaurus rex comes to battle him as well.
  • The fourteenth and final level has you battling "Spike" again as you attempt to buy the "time vortex engine" enough time to open up and teleport you and your friends back to the present day.
• Boss-Only Level: In the eleventh and fourteenth levels, the only enemy you face off against is "Spike" the Spinosaurus. Plus, the twelfth level can also be considered a Mini-Boss-only level due to four Utahraptors being the only enemies you fight throughout it.
• Bottomless Magazines:
  • Averted with handheld weapons. They all have finite ammo limits, and once you're completely out of ammo, you must use randomly placed ammo containers to replenish it.
  • Played Straight with stationary weapons. They have no finite ammo limits whatsoever, but if they're fired for too long, they'll overheat, forcing them to cool down before firing again.
• Cliffhanger: The overall story is ultimately left unresolved when "Spike" the Spinosaurus awakens in the present day and attacks Craig Dylan and company once again during The Stinger (with no explanation as to what happened to them after that).
• Convection, Schmonvection: Craig Dylan and his prehistoric reptilian enemies can stand right next to lava without burning up or suffocating due to toxic gases.
• Creepy Cave: In the ninth and thirteenth levels, you explore different sets of caves that are infested with albino Velociraptors, Brontoscorpios, exploding mushrooms, ancient relics, and poisonous, acidic water.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: During a cutscene that plays upon completing the eleventh level, "Spike" the Spinosaurus fights and kills a Tyrannosaurus rex in just a few seconds.
• Damage-Sponge Boss: Both of the T. rex bosses sport massive amounts of health that take long periods of time to deplete, even on "normal" difficulty.
• Death from Above:
  • Played Straight with pterosaurs attacking and killing you as they swoop down towards you from the sky and random cliff faces.
  • Inverted with you shooting and killing pterosaurs from the ground below them. Plus, if you manage to kill a pterosaur with a grenade, you'll unlock a "Death From Below" achievement, and if you kill 50 pterosaurs in the seventh level, you'll also unlock a "Who Needs A Bug Zapper?" achievement.
• Degraded Boss: Downplayed and justified with Utahraptor. At the end of the second level, you battle a lone member of the species with nothing deadlier than a 30-06 Assault Rifle. At the end of the fifth level, you battle two members of the species with a 5.56 Assault Rifle and grenades. At the end of the twelfth level, you battle four members of the species with an RPG, a Light Machine Gun, and grenades.
• Disc-One Nuke: The plasma rifle featured on "hard" difficulty allows most enemies to be killed with a single shot right from the very beginning of the game.
• Early Game Hell:
  • Downplayed on "normal" difficulty. In the first two levels, a pistol and a machine gun are your only available weapons. In the third level, you gain access to grenades that allow you to blast your enemies apart from a safe distance, and throughout the rest of the game, you gain access to more machine guns and a handheld missile launcher, making the eventual boss battles with rampaging Tyrannosaurus rexes and "Spike" the Spinosaurus easier to advance beyond.
  • Surprisingly averted on "hard" difficulty. In the first level, you gain access to the plasma rifle that allows you to one-shot just about every enemy in the game right from the very beginning.
• The End... Or Is It?: Just as you're being whisked away by a pre-rendered cutscene, Spike opens his eyes.
• Exploding Barrels: Barrells that can be lethally exploded on your enemies appear in certain levels throughout the game, and on top of that, exploding mushrooms can also be used against Brontoscorpios during the second half of the game.
• Eye Awaken: The seemingly dead Spike briefly shuffles around and opens his eye in The Stinger.
• Final Boss: You battle "Spike" the Spinosaurus during the fourteenth and final level of the game, and he's still just as hard of an opponent to deal with during the aforementioned level as he was during the eleventh level.
• Flunky Boss: The rexes, again. While you fight them, you're constantly swarmed by pterodactyls. Under most circumstances, the fact that they die in one shot makes them a joke, but during the aforementioned Boss Battle, they respawn constantly and attack like a never ending conga line of screeching death. On hard difficulty, this is the hardest point in the game, even more so than the Final Boss.
• Gentle Giant Sauropod: Brachiosaurus appears in the first two levels, and he's completely non-hostile towards all other entities in the game.
• "Get Back Here!" Boss: The Tyrannosaurus love to run behind rocks and hide for thirty seconds at a time. Because you can't move in these sequences, it makes this battle take forever.
• Headbutting Pachy: Pachycephalosaurus appears in the first, fourth, and tenth levels, and he can headbutt you to death if you're not careful.
• High-Pressure Blood: Averted. Whenever you shoot a target, you only see blood coming out of the resulting bullet holes for a split second before it stops completely.
• Hollywood Darkness:
  • In the third level, as you navigate the night, the moon is your only available lightsource, but you can still see fairly well.
  • As you explore the caves seen throughout the ninth and thirteenth levels, you can still see just as well as you can on the surface during broad daylight, no less.
• Implacable Man:
  • "Spike" the Spinosaurus endlessly pursues Craig Dylan throughout the last five levels of the game, and no matter how badly "Spike" gets injured, nothing seems to put him down for very long.
  • The two Tyrannosaurus rexes encountered in the eighth level also take a lot of bullets to kill, and before they die, nothing stops them from trying to eat Craig Dylan alive.
• "Instant Death" Radius: In some levels, you encounter explosive barrels and also explosive mushrooms that will kill anything that gets too close to them.
• Lava Is Boiling Kool-Aid: Averted. In the fifth level, the lava seen throughout it flows just as slowly as Real Life lava.
• Lava Pit: Multiple pools of lava can be seen and walked across via obsidian bridges in the fifth level.
• Lethal Lava Land: The fifth level takes place near an erupting volcano, complete with flowing lava rivers, lava pits that must be carefully crossed over via narrow obsidian bridges, burning trees, and hungry dinosaurs who don't suffer any ill effects from being dangerously close to the lava in question.
• Lightning Can Do Anything: During the opening cutscene, a lightning strike causes Craig Dylan to fall out of his futuristic spaceship of sorts, setting the game's entire time-traveling and dinosaur encounter-infested plot in motion.
• Mini-Boss: Utahraptors are bigger and stronger than most other enemies, but they can still be killed with far fewer bullets than a Tyrannosaurus rex.
• Monster Delay:
  • Tyrannosaurus rexes can be heard roaring in the background early in the game, but you don't actually encounter any of them until the eighth level.
  • Up until the tenth level, you don't even get a single glimpse at "Spike" the Spinosaurus, and you also don't get a full look at him until the eleventh level.
• Monster Threat Expiration: As you gradually gain access to bigger and stronger handheld weapons, the general threat level that most enemies pose to you progressively lessens with time because only your damage output gets upgraded after your first encounter with a given enemy type, whereas the aforementioned enemy type's damage output doesn't get upgraded after your first encounter with it.
• More Teeth than the Osmond Family: The Tyrannosaurus rexes in the game sport a lot more teeth than their Real Life counterparts.
• New Game Plus: After beating the game, Hard mode is unlocked (which increases the damage the enemies can take and reduces the damage you can take); however, you can pick up the Plasma Rifle in the first level (which has unlimited ammo and kills almost everything in one shot).
• New Work, Recycled Graphics: Most of the weapon model are recycled from Cauldron's previous FPS: The Whitworth Rifle and the Colt Model 1855 are from History Channel: Civil War — A Nation Divided and its sequel, the Taurus Raging Bull, the Mossberg Shotgun, SAW and the FN Scar L are taken from Soldier of Fortune Payback, the Glock 18 and RPG-7 are from Secret Service: Ultimate Sacrifice and the BAR is from History Channel: The Battle for the Pacific.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: "Spike" the Spinosaurus can quickly shrug off just about whatever you throw at him, but he's by no means immortal because attacks by other entities can still visibly injure him in one way or another.
• No-Gear Level: Subverted. Right at the very beginning of the game, you have no weapons whatsoever, but partway through the first level, you pick up a pistol and a machine gun.
• One-Hit Kill:
  • With the RPG equipped, a single direct hit is all it takes to kill most enemies (such as Velociraptors, Deinonychus, Utahraptor, Cearadactylus, Ornithocheirus, and Brontoscorpios).
  • On "hard" difficulty, a single Tyrannosaurus rex bite will kill you instantly.
  • The plasma rifle can also kill most enemies with a single direct hit.
  • With any weapon equipped, a single well-placed shot to the head of either a Velociraptor, Deinonychus, Cearadactylus, Ornithocheirus, or Brontoscorpio can kill him instantly, and so can a single Quick Melee blow to the head on any of the aforementioned enemy types.
• Overheating: The helicopter's minigun, the mounted machine gun, and the Plasma Rifle overheat if fired for too long. The machine gun has to be reloaded as well.
• Prehistoric Monster: Every prehistoric carnivore in the game (especially Tyrannosaurus rex and Spinosaurus) is portrayed as a bloodthirsty monster who thinks humans are tastier than anything else.
• Quick Melee: If and when you run out of ammo, you can get physical with your enemies by slamming your fists and lower arms into them.
• Raptor Attack: With the exception of the eighth, eleventh, and fourteenth levels, Velociraptor, Deinonychus, and Utahraptor all appear throughout every other level in the game, and they're all completely scaly and hunt in packs.
• Rated M for Manly: A muscular, deep voiced soldier fighting gigantic dinosaurs with full auto weaponry while rock and metal music blares in the background? You better believe it's this!
• Reference Overdosed: The achievements for this game are mostly these: "Nuck Chorris Rex", "Clever Girl", "Plumber Stomachache" and "Mari-Ouch", "These are not the Hammer", "Welcome to the Jungle". The list goes on.
• Savage Spinosaurs: "Spike" is a Spinosaurus who can curb-stomp any other dinosaur he encounters, and he's nigh-invulnerable due to his ability to take countless RPG rounds to the face without even losing consciousness because of it.
• Scary Scorpions: Brontoscorpios appear in the ninth and thirteenth levels, and just like their Real Life counterparts, they're giant scorpions capable of killing full-grown men via stinging them.
• Shout-Out:
  • Achievements aside, the infamous Jurassic Park III battle gets a nod when Spike the Spinosaurus fights a Tyrannosaurus and kills it in the same manner.
  • Just like in Jurassic Park, Dilophosaurus can attack you from a distance via spitting venom at you; however, instead of being black and sticky like in the aforementioned film franchise, the venom in this game is chartreuse and runny.
• Shown Their Work: Velociraptor is actually portrayed as small and slender, with Deinonychus and Utahraptor being added to fill in the usual role of larger dromaeosaurs.
• Spinosaurus Versus T. rex: During a level eleven cutscene, "Spike" the Spinosaurus battles a Tyrannosaurus rex to the death and kills him by snapping his neck in half.
• Standard FPS Guns: Played with a little. Due to the island being time's dumping ground, its covered in stuff from all eras. Your automatic weapon is a modern SCAR with a holographic sight, but your sniper rifle is a single shot musket.
• The Stinger: Following the end credits, the very last cutscene features "Spike" the Spinosaurus opening his eye and attacking Craig Dylan and company once again, ending the game on a massive cliffhanger.
• Stupid Jetpack Hitler: A level later in the game has you track down a wrecked Nazi uboat and retrieve a time vortex thingy that Dr. Sayrus uses to open up a portal to the correct time in history.
• Super-Persistent Predator: In the later levels, "Spike" the Spinosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rexes will relentlessly pursue you as long as they're still alive.
• Temper-Ceratops: Triceratops appears in the tenth and thirteenth levels, and whoever or whatever isn't careful around him will easily get stabbed to death by his enlarged brow horns.
• Terrifying Tyrannosaur: 3 Tyrannosaurus rexes appear throughout the game, and they're all portrayed as blood-thirsty carnivores who will stop at nothing to swallow Craig Dylan whole.
• Terror-dactyl: Cearadactylus and Ornithocheirus, two lesser-known pterosaurs, appear throughout most of the game, and whenever they're encountered, they're always seeking to devour you alive.
• Time Travel: At the beginning of the game, a time-vortex anomaly sends the main cast back through time to the Mesozoic Era, setting the game's entire plot in motion.
• To Serve Man: The theropods, pterosaurs, and giant scorpions seen throughout the game only ever go after you, a human, and they never go after the main setting's resident ceratopsians, pachycephalosaurs, and sauropods.
• Toxic Dinosaur: The Dilophosaurus have a frill and spit venom.
• Trapped in the Past: This is basically what happened to Dr. Sayrus, even though the island's place in history isn't ever explicitly mentioned.
• Zerg Rush: Throughout the game, having large swarms of enemies charging towards you en masse is borderline constant, especially whenever you either use a stationary weapon, defend an abandoned fortress against hungry dinosaurs, or play the "Survivor" mode.

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