trivard676You could be forgiven for thinking that Dino Crisis was just a cheap rip-off of Resident Evil, except with dinosaurs. Billed as “survival horror on a much larger scale,” Capcom released Dino Crisis in the midst of all of the other ‘Resident Evil clones’ hitting the market. Yeah, Resident Evil and Dino Crisis were made by the same company – even headed up by the same producer, Shinji Mikami. Needless to say, gamers shouldn’t skip over Dino Crisis for its copy-cat nature.
The Old Gods takes a look at some of the survival-horror classics of yesteryear. We hold them in such high regard, but do they really deserve all the praise that they get?
Dino Crisis was released in 1999 off the heels of Resident Evil 2 and a few months before Resident Evil 3. Needless to say, gamers were smack in the middle of survival-horror-mania, and Capcom in the late 90s was a survival-horror machine. Of course, it does help when many of your games run on the same engine. While Dino Crisis is often billed as just a copy-cat, it sold 2.4 million copies worldwide, and according to Wiki is the 6th most sold Capcom game. It’s followed by two sequels, ingenuously titled Dino Crisis 2, and the less popular (with good reason) Dino Crisis 3.
There’s not too many positive things you can say about DINOS IN SPACE
As you might expect, Dino Crisis controls, looks and sounds a lot similar to its zombie brethren. Compared to Resident Evil 2 however, the game seems a lot sharper and more refined in the visuals department. The menus, the pause screen all take on a different tone, and it’s appreciated, especially given the ‘high-tech’ aura of the game. This arguably makes the game a lot easier on the eyes than our previous entry, released only one year prior.
Also as you might expect, music and atmosphere are top-notch in Dino Crisis. The music does an amazing job of keeping you on edge while a lot of the time still sounding vaguely techno, to keep with the high-tech aura of the game. However, unlike in other games, there’s not a whole lot of audio cues (soundtrack-wise) to let you know you’re about to be attacked, except in certain instances (read on). Fixed camera angles also mean that raptors and the like can be lurking around the corner, perhaps a roar or the clicking of their gigantic toe claw to give away their presence.
Dino Crisis takes place in 2009 (gasp! The future!) on an isolated island. The Secret Operation Raid Team –SORT–has been dispatched to the island of Ibis to secure Dr. Edward Kirk. Kirk, a renowned scientist, was reported dead 3 years ago, but has actually been leading a weapons project from within a facility on the island. The team crash-lands in the jungle and are separated from their pilot, who has the only radio.
This tells us two things about the time…that acronyms for teams were extremely popular and on the rise, and that helicopter travel was the most dangerous feat man could undertake. The radio would have definitely come in handy once the team finds the half-mutilated corpses, and two of the characters, Regina and Gail are attacked by a velociraptor. Back in 1999, the kids in all of us thought “Dinosaurs…like Jurassic Park, except with blood and gore and half-torn apart bodies. And it’s like Resident Evil! Awesome!” Now, it kind of feels like “Dinosaurs…really? Huh…alright.”
It’s not the most far-fetched thing we’ve ever been fed, and it kind of leads us to believe that a big component of the fear behind our beloved survival-horror classics is ‘imagination.’ Sadly, for a lot of us, our imagination turns to mush the longer we’ve been sitting in front of televisions, or working at soul-killing jobs. So many people complain that survival-horror has lost its teeth. Well you sir or madam, have lost your imagination. Go be a stock-broker, or a salesman, or whatever it else it is adults do.
Was a lot more frightening back when both dinosaurs and lasers were cool. Also we were younger.
What hasn’t changed, however, is the demanding nature of the puzzles. It’s one of the few games where we’ve actually had to sit down with a pen and paper to write things down. If you’ve never played, this game is ‘loaded’ with puzzles. Almost as if Mikami said that Resident Evil wasn’t brainy enough and threw in twice as many puzzles and key hunts in Dino Crisis. Near the beginning, it’s refreshing, but about halfway through the game it becomes tedious and extremely annoying. Dino Crisis also features some of the most complex computer systems we’ve ever seen, short of having to fly through the registry like it was a future city or something.
However, that doesn’t mean that the game is necessarily difficult. We made it through the first section of the game relatively easily, while going through very little ammunition. Most of the enemies can be run past if knocked down. Compensating for this however, was the fact that enemies could follow you from room to room. They weren’t very subtle about it though – their presence was always alluded to with a “Surprise! Here I am!” moment. The puzzles are really the only aspect of the game that makes it very difficult. There’s a lack of ammo, but an over-abundance of health supplies, which can be made into various other items, including ammo! There isn’t a wide variety of enemies, and only a few boss fights.
A couple of well-timed shots aaand…”Derp!”
So after all of these years, is Dino Crisis really worth another playthrough? If you’re looking for a romp down Nostalgia Lane, then absolutely, but if this is your first time playing and are looking to see what all the fuss was about, then you’ve dug up the wrong fossil. The game has aged a bit better than the Resident Evils before it, and it does have some redeeming qualities in the audio/visual department, but those are relatively minor in the grand scheme of things.
What do you think? Did you like Dino Crisis? Would you play through it again? Let us know in the comments section!
