Everything Jurassic Park should've been. (Dino Crisis (PC))

Member Name: Zarrah

Product:	Dino Crisis (PC)
Date:	04/03/03 (123 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Addictive gameplay, Good plot, Mostly strong voice acting

Disadvantages: Too short!

Title: Dino Crisis
Developer: Capcom
Year: 1999
Platforms: PSX, PC, DC,
This review is based on the PSX Dino Crisis 1 - I don't know the PC requirements, I'm afraid.
I'm having to resubmit this review, as my entire account had to be wiped when I entered the wrong age when I registered (don't ask how I did that!)- thanks to everyone who commented before!

:~*~PLOT~*~:

You play Regina (codename), a Government Agent sent to a small island with a team to 'repatriate' (and it took me three dictionary hunts to discover that this simply meant to kick him back into his own country) a scientist who was thought to be dead - Dr. Edward Kirk.
The mission goes balls-up from the get go, a team member is sliced during the opening sequence - isn't it a shame that he was the only one with a proper radio? - and the entire island is deserted. Sound enough like Resident Evil for ya yet?
No? Well, while searching for the missing team leader (who we are led to believe fell off the side of the island) we hear a series of suspicious noises, ending with an unknown creature attacking Regina out of nowhere, and you are left with the option of running like Hell, or shooting it with a puny little gun that couldn't punch through paper. So starts the Dino Crisis...

:~*~GAMEPLAY~*~:

Walking, running and firing a weapon are so simple you could do it even without playing any other Capcom game - the other things, such as the 180Deg. turn and switching between targets, take a little more practise with the controls, but, again, they're quite easy too.
One of the hardest things I noticed about gameplay was that no matter which way the camera faces, you'll always go to Regina's left or right - if the camera's facing Regina, you often feel compelled to push to your left or right, and of course, that won't get you anywhere; a few dino fights are done with funny angles, so you really
need to practise during the first dino-less five-ten minutes to make sure you don't hang yourself up on corners or shoot in the wrong direction.
An easier gameplay quirk is that you can walk with a gun - having played Dino Crisis before Resident Evil I often found myself trying to walk forward with my weapon and ending up firing at the ceiling! ^^; You can't move while firing, only when equipped (ie. using the R1 key), but as all of the aiming is done automatically (and that feature gets quite useful when trying to hit the little dinos) you don't need the aim-up-aim-down feature, anyway.

:~*~PUZZLES~*~:

Yup, the puzzles are back - finding keys, finding disks, solving codes, finding components of keys - lovely. They're a lot more together than in Resident Evil, no finding the final component of the key to a door you saw yonks ago, at least.
They're also relevant to what you're doing - I mean, in Resident Evil, apart from a bunch paranoid, insane psychos having created the mansion, what's the real point of the puzzles apart from for gameplay? At least in Dino Crisis, the puzzles are tied in with the plot line - bypassing the circuitry of a security lockdown, for example - and that's one of the harder puzzles, too...

:~*~DINOSAURS~*~:

The dinosaurs are not only rendered well, but they also take a pretty good stab at intelligence; they trail you when you're wounded, burst through doors, surround you, and even play dead, only to tail whip you or grab you as you go past.
They also range from the tiny little things that barely even bother attacking you (only bouncing annoyingly around your head), to the T-Rex, whose sole ambition is to rip you a new one - and then there's the nasty little buggers in between...

:~*~GRAPHICS/SOUND~*~:

There isn't as much creepy music in Dino Crisis as there is in games such as Resi Evil, which I found slightly more creepy -
complete silence apart from your own footsteps can get suspenseful, you know? There is some quiet music sometimes playing, though, for those that like that.
Most of the dinosaurs have very heavy footfalls, which can be heard from a few screens away, giving you a chance to load your weapon, hide, or run like Hell - once they notice you, they'll make a loud noise, giving you an extra warning - then they're all over you.

Graphics are quite good, but the FMVs (Full Motion Videos) are a little bit... Virtual Reality is about the only phrase I can think of, really. Like they've tried too hard. CGs (don't ask me what that stands for) are, while not as detailed, very good - Regina is shown with the right weapon and the voice acting, while weak in places, is quite good, a character even turning round at one point and saying, 'This is just like that movie...'

:~*~BONUSES~*~:

Well, after competing the game with all three endings, we deserve something, don't we?
And Capcom delivers - after your first completion of the game, you're given two new outfits, the Army outfit - short shorts and a low cut T-Shirt; tell me who wears that in the army - and the Battle outfit - basically, the original Spy gear made into a lingerie style get up - cleavage included. The only use that can have in battle is that most of the opponents will probably be men, if you get my meaning...
Also, after finishing in less than five hours, you get the mini game, Operation Wipe Out, where you run round the facility laying waste to every dinosaur you can get your grimy little mits on - a small, three level game that is just as addictive as the actual game.
Also, after completing for the first time, you get the Shotgun in your inventory from the word go - and, one you've played three times (you don't have to have seen all three endings; I know I didn't) you get the Grenade Gun - with unlimited ammo, so you can enjoy t
he dino-blasting experience more.
Finally, you get your last bonus; the Ancient outfit - a short leopard skin dress that could pass off as just a one-sleeved T-Shirt, with all your weapons having changed to little bones tied together - erm... Yes. O-k.

:~*~OVERALL~*~:

With the success of Resident Evil to live up to, some people didn't have high expectations for Dino Crisis - well, weren't they wrong; Dino Crisis went on to win Game of the Year for one of the gaming web sites (whose name escapes me right now), winning out over Resident Evil 3, which came out the same year, and has sold a couple of million copies just on its own. Definitely a good buy.

Summary: