Jurassic Park: Chaos Island, also known as Chaos Island: The Lost World Jurassic Park, is a 1997 tie-in video game for The Lost World: Jurassic Park. The player takes control of all the main protagonists from the movie—Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore), Nick Van Owen (Vince Vaughn), Eddie Carr (Richard Schiff), and Kelly Curtis (Vanessa Lee Chester), who are all voiced by the original actors—to enact the basic premise of the film: they are sent to Isla Sorna, "Site B", where John Hammond and InGen created the dinosaurs for Jurassic Park four years after the events of the first movie. Disaster eventually strikes and the heroes need to escape from the island. On the way, they are harassed by the Hunters, who plan to take dinosaurs off the island to make a profit, and by the dinosaurs themselves, but can hatch their own dinosaurs using a DNA serum which allows them to control them. It's basically Command & Conquer with a Jurassic Park wrapper.
This game provides examples of:
- Actually Four Mooks: The Compsognathus is actually three small dinosaurs in a group.
- Adapted Out
- Eddie: Didn't I die? In the, in the movie I died.
- Also, most of the other characters from the movie are omitted, including the Big Bad Peter Ludlow and Great White Hunter Roland Tembo.
- Artificial Stupidity: The AI leaves a bit to be desired. Probably the best example is in the seventh level, where a dinosaur nest in a very particular spot past a tree will cause explorers to constantly try to go around the tree back and forth, blocking each other's path endlessly if more than one has been tasked to collect the eggs.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Dinosaurs have collars indicating who controls them: blue is the player, red is the Hunters, and white is wild dinosaurs. Also, the Dilophosaurus' venomous spit is colored according to its faction.
- Comically Missing the Point: In the tutorial, the Research Assistant finds some eggs. Naturally, he thinks they're food.
- R.A.: Hey, look what I found.Hammond: Well, what do you suppose you got there?R.A.: Breakfast!Hammond: *chuckling* No, no, no, no, no.R.A.: Big old Denver Omelet with a side of bacon...Hammond: Those... are very valuable dinosaur eggs that you can hatch.
- Faction Calculus: There are two factions in the game (three if you count wild dinosaurs), though only one is playable: the explorers/research team, comprised of the main characters (blue); the Hunters, the main antagonists (red); and wild dinosaurs, who are neutral or aggressive to all—including other wild dinosaurs (white).
- Fog of War: The tutorial lampshades this by the Research Assistant commenting on all the "black fog" that limits his field of vision to only a few feet. Unusually for a real-time strategy game, once the fog is lifted, you can see everything that goes on in that area even if none of your explorers or dinosaurs are anywhere near it.
- Gentle Giant: Parasaurolophus will usually not attack even if provoked, preferring to run away; the only ones you'll see attack anyone are the ones you control. Averted with every other herbivore in the game, which will go chasing after your explorers and dinosaurs with no provocation.
- Green Hill Zone: The first two levels, set on Isla Nublar, have pleasant-sounding music are are populated only by Parasaurolophus and Compsognathus, which pose little to no threat to you even on the highest difficulty, and only a few Hunters in the second level. In contrast, the third level has much more serious, foreboding music, the first dangerous dinosaurs you'll meet, and a lot more Hunters.
- Hero Must Survive: Usually averted, but the tenth mission requires Eddie to survive since he's the only one that can boot up the power plant that you need to complete the mission, and every named character must survive the final mission. In both cases, you get them for free.
- I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: Ian puts it succinctly:
- Ian: The Valley of Death? Perfect, just perfect...
- Lightning Bruiser: Most of the dinosaurs qualify, but special mention goes to the Tyrannosaurus.
- Medium Awareness: Eddie knows he's in a video game, since he knows the game is an adaptation of the movie and knows he died in the movie.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: some levels require you to use explosives to blow up obstacles. Particularly, in the sixth level you need to cross a natural rock bridge to reach the plunger and destroy the bridge so that you can reach the main objective. You can leave one of your team members or dinosaurs on the rock bridge as you detonate the explosives, which will instantly kill them.
- Worker Unit: The Research Assistant. Any of the characters can build all the same buildings and do all the same things, but only the Research Assistant can not only be recruited multiple times, but also is the only character that can't be upgraded.
- You All Look Familiar: The Research Assistant. Richard Attenborough's narration for him as John Hammond lampshades this by saying that he can "appear to be everywhere at once."
- Zerg Rush: A viable tactic, especially against wild dinosaurs since their AI can't really handle being attacked from multiple directions, allowing you to unload on them while they're unable to fight back.
