Written by: Rik
Date posted: July 8, 2022
Note: as indicated by the title of the piece, we are going to be talking about significant major events towards the end of the game here, so if you don’t want any spoilers, please do stop reading!
The basic character line-up in JP: The Game is: Nima, the Costa Rican islander who is sent (along with slimey corporate type Miles Chadwick, the bloke by the ship who Nedry is seen talking to in the film) to retrieve the can of stolen embryos; Gerry Harding the newly-hunky science man and his daughter Jess; Laura Sorkin, a previously unseen geneticist working on a remote part of the island who apparently was very close to getting Dr Henry Wu’s job; and three other mercenaries employed by inGen to rescue any survivors, flying in on a helicopter and doing their best impressions of the cast of Predator.
The mercenaries are pretty annoying, and it’s not immediately clear whether you’re actually meant to like them or not. They do seem fairly intent on completing their rescue mission, though, and there’s no suggestion of secret additional instructions from inGen about doing anything sneaky to save things in the park or silence employees.
Their leader is Billy Yoder, an alumnus of the same school of charm as Jack from Need for Speed: The Run (in fact they look virtually identical), who delivers a weird performance cocktail of hardman badass and hopeless goofball. It takes a bit of getting used to.
The plot twist you can see coming is that Laura Sorkin is one of those scientists who cares more for her research than real people and so will ultimately affirm that choice at the climax. The one that’s more of a surprise is that Yoder, having taken some time to establish some genuine heroic nice guy credentials, suddenly decides he’s going to be the bad guy after all.
The twist doesn’t come completely out of the blue – it’s clear he cares little for Sorkin and is traumatised by the death of his squad mates – but having previously been fairly unflappable and made generally ‘good guy’ decisions under pressure, for him to suddenly lose it and also decide he wants to nab the embryos for a big payday does seem like a bit of a stretch.
Is it good writing to make a character so annoying you dislike him, then work hard to have him turn into a hero, then pivot to making him the surprise baddie? I’m not sure, readers, I’m not sure.
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