A Dino portion of Survival Horror on your PC (Dino Crisis (PC))

Member Name: roebuddy

Product:	Dino Crisis (PC)
Date:	03/10/00 (99 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Survival Horror on your PC - with DINOSAURS!! Quality Entertainment while it lasts

Disadvantages: Poor resolution (needlessly so), Quite easy, Pricey (worth it for fans)

A Dino portion of Survival Horror on your PC

Survival Horror. The PC has had it’s fair taste of the genre, with the Alone in the Dark series, and other point and click variants. But not many of the ‘traditional’ PC titles have really hit the mainstream with any conviction (alone in the dark aside possibly). Survival horror has been mainly the forte of consoles, with their light gun capabilities and rumble paks. As such some console to PC ports have been really poor.

For example, the House of the Dead on PC was a joke. A mouse cannot replace the satisfaction of using a light gun. Can it?

But this changes somewhat with the blokes at Capcom. Resident Evil (especially the Power VR uncut version) and Resident Evil 2 were tremendous conversions. So, just as Resident Evil on PC was great and Res Evil 2 EVEN better, would Dino Crisis be BETTER still and do REAL justice to the giants of Triassic eras?

Here’s some background.

You all know the plot for ALL survival horror. An introduction to a plot where mankind (and that means YOU) is in deep doodoo.co.uk by some beasties that are out to bite yo ass. And YOU gotta kill em!

I ordered Dino Crisis for PC and had it delivered to my door the day after it came out. My motive for doing so? Well, my brother is an avid fan of the Resident Evil Series and has the first two of that series on PC, so I thought he’d like Dino Crisis. I have to admit, I love the concept of Horror Survival, but could’nt really be bothered to play Resident Evil, and ended up watching my brother as he completed both games (with me rattling instructions like an annoying back-seat driver). As you can imagine, this greatly diminishes the need to play the game yourself, if you know what’ll happen.

However, being once a kid, and like every kid, having a facination with dinosaurs, I decided to give Dino Crisis a whirl before actually giving the game away. And cr
edit to the game I was hooked.

Now before I go into the nitty gritty, there are some things people need to know. If you own the Playsation version, and are looking for the enhancements that a powerhouse PC can provide, then you may end up being very disappointed. I have a Pentium 2 300 Mhz with Voodoo 3 graphics card, and the resolution will only go up to 640 by 480 – Why?

Resident Evil 2’s res went higher, what’s the deal. The only saving grace is that the game is on PC which might mean that a future patch or update will enable higher resolutions.

Also, the supposed additional extras in the game are probably not worth an existing PSX Dino crisis owner getting the PC version. To put it bluntly, the extra features are not worth writing home about. The Internet Operation Wipeout sub-game is’nt too hot, and if you DO go to the trouble of setting up a multiplayer game, you’re much more likely to be playing Quake 3 or Voyager Elite Forces.

Furthermore, the “shaking” of the screen upon the imminent arrival of a tyrannosaur may be pretty good for a Dino Crisis novice playing the PC version, but for those of you that have PSX, you’ll be missing the dual shock pads.

All that aside, I had’nt played the game on PSX, and could only imagine how the rumble features would have enhanced play. But that was quickly forgotten once you immersed yourself in the game.

As I said before, I was hooked. There’s gotta be something right with the game if that happens. Dinosaurs, guns, eerie music, dark corridors – you can do one of two things: brown your pants or use that itchy trigger finger and shoot them before they bite your ass. Simple flight (fright) or fight!

Couple that with the fact that you gotta use your brain. Triple that by the way you can jump outta your skin as your train of though is interrupted by a menacing growl. Excellent.
It’s fair th
at the puzzles are a great deal easier than the Resident Evil games, but the creatures are harder to evade than the lumbering zombies of RE. (They are about as easy to kill, though just as in RE, this can be altered by increasing the difficulty level).

Overall, you may not want to come back to this as many times as RE2. Not only because there are fewer alternative endings, but the game doesn’t look as nice. (It’s perhaps a little unfair to compare it to RE2 as it’s engine is slightly more advanced). That may detract from it's price as well - it's lastability ain't great, and you could conceivably complete it in one dedicated (or not so as the case may be) weekend. (It's a shame the game took such a long time to be released on the PC platform, because the RIGHT timing could have made this a really popular game across the whole board of PC gamers, and not just the RE / Dino Crisis junkies/fanatics. (I know that there are other people interested in the game too, but I'm sure most would agree that you already know quite a lot about the game already cos it's been out and had a high profile release on PSX ages ago.)


For existing PSX owners, there’s nothing really new here. But for those without PSX, you can really enjoy this dose of gargantuan horror survival. If you’ve got a pad (I use the Microsoft Sidewinder) it really helps. Also, turn up the bass of your sound system – to add that little something. The monitor tuning option is essential to get the right feel.

Some reviews suggest that you only require a mid-spec computer. True, true. It plays well on my P2 300 Mhz with voodoo 3, and pretty poorly on P 133 with Voodoo 1, if that helps. But whatever the system, the GAME is what’s important here.

If you’ve not played it before, and you’re a dino freak or like the buzz of survival horror, then you’ll love this game. Testament is the fact that I kno
w some people playing it on quite poor systems (like the P 133 with voodoo 1) and the GAME overrides the poor gameplay (i.e. slow) on that particular system

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