‘Jurassic Jump’ Review: Life Finds a Way

Dinosaur enthusiasts, rejoice! Jurassic Jump (out now, free) is here to get you up and running through fantastic prehistoric lands.

Your job in Jurassic Jump is to help a gang of little dinosaurs in their quest to gather the almighty eggs holding the DNA of their tribe! You do so by running and avoiding obstacles in your way while gathering eggs, coins and letters forming the word J-U-M-P. Since the game auto scrolls, you simply need to worry about avoiding the obstacles thrown in your path. Tapping once to jump will take care of most of them. Otherwise, you can double tap your iPhone to do a double jump.

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You start with Randy Raptor, the green dinosaur. You get to unlock his Jurassic friends by collecting coins along the way. But I hope you’re not in a hurry because you will need 30,000 coins to unlock the first of his buddies. And that, my dear friends, is a lot of money. Even more so when you take into consideration you can gather maybe 500 coins per run, if you are lucky and quite skilled.

Jurassic Jump features 10 distinct zones that you need to go through in order to finish the game. You start your adventure in the Lowlands, an area that features mostly grass and dirt platforms. You need to avoid spikes as well as balls of dirt rolling your way on a mission to flatten you. Once you are successful with this first world, you will be able to move to the second one, Lavaland, with its magma rocks and fiery hot lava. Each zone has some unique obstacles, as well as a different climate, which prevents the game from feeling too repetitive.

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The music is extremely perky and joyful. I could let the title screen run forever while I was shaking my bum to the music. It really gets your blood pumping and puts you in the right head space to conquer this runner.

Sadly due to the highly pixelated art style of the game, some obstacles aren’t very clear and you run into them even with the best of intentions. I was quite disappointed when I accidentally impaled poor Randy on a dark grey spike I couldn’t see protruding from a platform.

Thankfully, the ads are discreet in this free game. They only showed up after my third or fourth failure. I feel this is a nice way to keep a game free while still bringing in revenue; you don’t want the ads to ruin the gameplay experience.

Verdict

Jurassic Jump is a cute retro style endless runner. But be warned: it’s also a hard game. A very hard one. You will bite your lip and try, try again, but you may end up being frustrated. It’ll probably be a positive experience for anyone looking for a tough challenge, though. This is an interesting game, well-suited for people who can appreciate having to use serious skills in a challenging environment.

Different worlds to visit
Free with discreet ads
Difficulty is quite high
Hard to unlock new characters
3.5
Very Good