"The Depths" Jurassic Park: The Game (Telltale Games) Video game November 2011

Our heroes make their way through the maintenance tunnel system of the park, but continue to be pursued by raptors...and encounter something else as well.

Notes from the Jurassic Park chronology

This story takes place on Isla Nublar shortly after the events of the first Jurassic Park film.

Didja Know?

Jurassic Park: The Game was published by Telltale Games in November 2011. The game is broken up into four distinct episodes (each composed of multiple chapters) that make up a larger story and serves as a kind of sequel to the original Jurassic Park film. I have chosen to write a separate study for each of the four episodes.

This is the study of Episode 3 of Jurassic Park: The Game.

Didja Notice? 

To the Tunnels!

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Yoder finds the Barbasol canister in Nima's pack and remarks, "I have a can just like this back in San Jose." Presumably, he is referring to the capital city of Costa Rica. This is also where Nedry and Dodgson had their meeting at which Dodgson gave the  Barbasol can to Nedry in the first place, as seen in Jurassic Park.

They Open Doors

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Nima refers to Yoder and Oscar as "idiotas". This is Spanish for "idiots" (female idiots, actually!).

When she finds the Barbasol can missing from her pack, Nima exclaims, "Puneta!" This is Spanish for "Jerk-off!"

Dr. Sorkin reveals that it was Dr. Wu (the chief geneticist seen in Jurassic Park) who came up with the idea to use frog DNA to fill in the gene sequence gaps of the dino DNA that was recovered from the prehistoric insects trapped in amber.

The cigarettes that Jess has swiped from Dr. Sorkin appear to have a brand name beginning with "Happy". I am not aware of any actual cigarette brand with that word in the name, however "happy cigarette" is a slang term for a marijuana joint!

Did You Hear That?

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The Argument

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Dr. Sorkin remarks that she hasn't gotten this much exercise since Carnival. Carnival is a Catholic festival that occurs before Lent. Dr. Sorkin may be Catholic herself, or it may be that she participated in Carnival in one of the nearby Central American countries in which Catholicism predominates.

Dr. Sorkin offers Dr. Harding some lysine supplements since they've been so active throughout the day without eating for quite some time. Although lysine is essential in building muscle protein, I know of no evidence that it would produce any immediate short-term benefit in strenuous circumstances.

This chapter reveals that Dr. Sorkin not only cured the Parasaurs of their lysine deficiency condition, but actually put the cure in the main water system where it can reach all of the creatures on the island and cure the condition in all members of the superorder Dinosauria it reaches. A superorder (also known as a clade) is a group of all extant or extinct descendants of a species. Dr. Sorkin points out that this would not include the pterosaurs since they are not actually dinosaurs. This would seem to explain how the dinosaurs on Isla Nublar were able to survive after InGen left the island, despite the "lysine contingency". (Ignoring the fact that, as I stated in the Jurassic Park study, all members of the animal kingdom are naturally incapable of producing lysine in the first place and must obtain it from food sources.)

Dr. Harding, worried about the possibility of dinosaurs from Isla Nublar swimming to the mainland, comments that Asian elephants migrated to Sri Lanka from India by swimming. Sri Lanka is an island nation about 25 miles off the eastern coast of India. I've been unable to confirm the theory that Asian elephants migrated to the island in this manner, but it seems reasonable considering the relatively short distance across the water and the fact that there are several smaller islands within the shortest points between the two countries.

This chapter reveals that Dr. Wu came up with the lysine contingency to prevent the dinosaurs survival away from the supervision of Jurassic Park.

During his argument with Dr. Sorkin, Dr. Harding mentions dinosaurs at Site B. This is, of course, a reference to Isla Sorna, the island where most of InGen's dinosaurs were initially bred, seen in The Lost World and many subsequent JP stories. 

T. rex Chase

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Stalking the Stalkers

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Get the Canister!

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After successfully grabbing up the dropped Barbasol can from under the nose of the T. rex and running to the safety of the tunnels, Yoder exclaims, "Somebody tell Carl Lewis I got some training tips for him." Carl Lewis is a retired track and field athlete for the United States who won numerous gold medals in Olympic and World Championship contests from 1979-1996.

Name That Tune

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The title of this chapter is a reference to the television game show that ran in various incarnations from 1952-1985.

The song that plays during Artie Bridges' prerecorded radio broadcast is "I Don't Remember You", written for the game by the band Jared Emerson-Johnson and the Lysine Contingency. Listen to the full version here.

Raptor Chase

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Three raptors attack Harding, Jess, and Dr. Sorkin in the tunnels. Since Oscar already killed one in chapter eight ("Name That Tune"), there were at least four raptors still living on the island, despite Muldoon having said there were only three early on in Jurassic Park. But remember, there was an episode that was ultimately cut from the game (see "The Intruder") which would have revealed that five raptors had been brought over from Site B (Isla Sorna, as seen in The Lost World) to replace the five killed by the lead raptor as described by Muldoon in Jurassic Park.

Dr. Sorkin indicates that the electricity on the island is generated by a geothermal power plant. This is also true on Isla Sorna, according to Ludlow in The Lost World.

Dr. Harding reveals that Jess' middle name is Marie.

Interrupting Harding's argument with his daughter, Yoder says, "We ain't got time for this After School Special crap." This is a reference to the ABC After School Special, a series of 1972-1997 telefilms aired occasionally on the ABC television network in the weekday late afternoon time period, made for a juvenile audience with topics of a socially relevant nature.

During their argument, Jess tells her father that she and her boyfriend are getting married once his death metal band takes off, her mom's already signed the emancipation papers, and that she's pregnant. Presumably, she was just being, as her father says, a snot, and those things are not really true!

Power Plant

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The Nest

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Dr. Sorkin comments that the Troodon nest looks similar to that of a cassowary or an emu. These are modern day large, flightless, omnivorous birds, the cassowary from New Guinea and the emu the largest bird in Australia.

Memorable Dialog