Jurassic Park Mod For Half-Life 2 Teaser Trailer Released

Holy snaps! That's the best way to describe Jurassic Life, the upcoming mod for Half-Life 2 that recreates the Jurassic Park experience in Valve's old but trusty Source Engine. The new teaser trailer – while still an obvious work in progress – is easily one of the most polished looking total conversions I've ever witnessed and it could be one of the breakout hits of 2013.

By all accounts once I laid eyes on the footage – had it not been made obvious that it was on the Source Engine – I would have assumed this was the CryEngine 3. Seriously, this game looks really, really, really good. The amount of work and intricate amounts of detail attached to this is so well done. But don't just take my word for it. Check out the new footage courtesy of DSO Gaming.

It's obvious where some polishing is needed, but for a group of volunteers to have undertaken this kind of dedicated project, it's just unbelievable to me.

This game is absolutely breathtaking and there are a few reasons why: For one, the dinosaur animations look exceptionally good not to have any kind of motion-capture reference work done. They have extremely talented animators onboard and that's one of things that can seriously help or hinder the atmosphere of the game...thankfully it helps the game because the animations look slick. Second, the lighting and feeling of desolation are executed superbly. Those shots of the player character walking down that hallway with just a knife was like...”What if something pops out?! He's just got a knife!”. Not many games can capture that kind of desperation but they nailed it in the treailer.

It's such a shame that big budget studios still don't get it, but at least the indie community still know what gamers want to play. I'm definitely going to be keeping an eye on this project.