Retro Review: Dino Crisis – More than just Resident Evil with Dinosaurs

<p>If you&&num;8217&semi;re like me&comma; then you&&num;8217&semi;ve most likely had thoughts of time traveling back to 90&&num;8217&semi;s&period; What a decade&excl; The new wave of film&comma; gaming and comic books was in full swing and with the likes of <em>Resident Evil<&sol;em> and <em>Silent Hill<&sol;em> arriving&comma; you better believe it was the golden age of survival horror&period; I love survival horror and during this time we were treated to some of the best &&num;8230&semi; and some of the worst&period; But the one I remember fondly and which was a strange hit with my family was <em>Dino Crisis<&sol;em>&period; This surreal Dino fest of action&comma; horror and survival was indeed rather more complex than your traditional survival horrors&comma; featuring enemies that didn&&num;8217&semi;t just sort to zombies&comma; killer trees or mutant bugs&period; Does <em>Dino Crisis<&sol;em> hold up after all these years&quest;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;130106" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-130106" style&equals;"width&colon; 640px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-130106" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;10&sol;01150842&sol;DinoCrisisimage111&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"640" height&equals;"480" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-130106" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Surprise&excl; &lpar;<em>Dino Crisis<&sol;em>&comma; Capcom&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>I remember <em>Resident Evil<&sol;em> as a child gave me nightmares&comma; so my folks didn&&num;8217&semi;t like me playing anything with Zombies or those types of creatures&period; Fast forward a couple of years later and I&&num;8217&semi;m fighting of dinosaurs which was perfectly fine&period; Our story takes place on a small island being used to conduct experiments involving inter-dimensional travel&period; Our team of mercenaries featuring our leading lady infiltrate the island in order to investigate the sighting of a scientist that everyone believes is dead&period; They arrive to meet their contact Tom and see that everything has gone to Dino s&ast;&ast;&ast;&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Now for it&&num;8217&semi;s time&comma; the voice acting is actually good and the dialogue is terrific&period; This plays out like a good B-Movie with some weird but laughable moments&period; My  favorite scene being when Regina walks up to her fellow mercenary only to discover a gruesome sight with a body torn in half and she utters the line &&num;8220&semi;that&&num;8217&semi;s disgusting&&num;8221&semi; in the most dead pan way ever&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s brilliant and the perfect sense of B-Movie delivery and humor that many games just get plain wrong now days&period; The team including Rick and Gale are very likable&comma; even if Gale is a massive douche&comma; he&&num;8217&semi;s still fun to interact with&period; There&&num;8217&semi;s more B-Movie type moments including a scene where a man in a near death state manages to pull out a Uzi from nowhere and fight a freaking Raptor&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Also for a laugh&comma; just watch the character&&num;8217&semi;s hand movements when they speak&period; They&&num;8217&semi;re always making hand gestures&comma; waving them around and Rick&&num;8217&semi;s typing makes me cry even to this day&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;130107" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-130107" style&equals;"width&colon; 640px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-130107" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;10&sol;01150946&sol;DinoCrisisimage21&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"640" height&equals;"480" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-130107" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Time to make you extinct again&excl; &lpar;<em>Dino Crisis<&sol;em>&comma; Capcom&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>So&comma; what you may gather from people who&&num;8217&semi;ve played this is that it&&num;8217&semi;s just <em>Resident Evil<&sol;em> with dinosaurs&period; Believe me this game is so much more than just that&period; As a foundation it is <em>Resident Evil<&sol;em> but there were some neat ideas woven into the gameplay to create a truly dynamic and refreshing survival horror game&period; While <em>Resident Evil<&sol;em> and <em>Alone in the Dark<&sol;em> stuck to what they knew was safe&comma; <em>Dino Crisis<&sol;em> was bold enough to add in some elements that involved crafting and minor RPG elements&period; You could craft ammo&comma; medicine and first aid to take care of bleeding&period; There were neat little features too as I reference back to the bleeding&period; If you were bleeding and wandered around too long&comma; more dinosaurs would show up&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>I will admit the interfaces and menus could be a little confusing&comma; but after a while you&&num;8217&semi;ll get use to them&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>But one of the most impressive aspects that actually influenced many games now days were the set pieces and boss battles&period; These were freaking amazing&excl; Okay&comma; so boss battles usually involved the T-Rex but wow&comma; were the designers inventive&period; There&&num;8217&semi;s a scene where the T-rex smashes through an office window&comma; another were you are being chased by it along an outside walkway and more&period; These were intense as hell and every encounter just made your heart skip a beat&period; There was also a form of QTE that popped up&comma; requiring players to mash the hell out of the controller&period; These were actually decent considering they weren&&num;8217&semi;t overused like most games do with Quick Time Events and they did a great job at creating tension and a frantic sense of panic&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;130108" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-130108" style&equals;"width&colon; 640px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-130108" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;10&sol;01151106&sol;DinoCrisisimage31&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"640" height&equals;"480" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-130108" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Offices with Dino-Tastic views&excl; &lpar;<em>Dino Crisis<&sol;em>&comma; Capcom&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p><em>Dino Crisis<&sol;em> also brought forward a mechanic that was used in the <em>Resident Evil&colon; Nemesis<&sol;em> game and to the same effective degree&period; There were moments you could side with either Gale of Rick in certain mission objectives and thus different events would play out&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s true that Gale&&num;8217&semi;s options were the worst and if you really wanted the challenge or just to loose out on some neat segments then side with Gale&period; Rick often encouraged some more lateral elements in his choices and the best example of how each character&&num;8217&semi;s path works is with a segment half way through the game&period; You&&num;8217&semi;re told that raptors are flooding the nearby area and you can either fight your way through with Gale &lpar;who leaves you behind anyway&rpar; or solve a series of puzzles with Rick&&num;8217&semi;s guidance and avoid any confrontation&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s nice there were moments like this and often they would catch you off guard&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The only downside was that not all the choices felt important and some of the puzzles were just annoying&period; The worst puzzle that came up and still haunts my nightmares is  aligning the colorful pipes that drop from the ceiling &period; Sweet Mary mother of God&comma; this was a painfully antagonizing puzzle because the small cut scene which showed the pipe going up or down felt like it took forever and there&&num;8217&semi;s no clear perceptive on the pipe&&num;8217&semi;s position as the camera is at an angle&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;130104" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-130104" style&equals;"width&colon; 640px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-130104 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;10&sol;01121941&sol;DinoCrisisimage7&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"640" height&equals;"368" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-130104" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Security is rubbish at this facility &lpar;<em>Dino Crisis<&sol;em>&comma; Capcom&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Also the game does go on a little too long in my opinion&period; By the third T-Rex battle you could just end the game there and it would&&num;8217&semi;ve been fine&period; There are another couple of hours at least to play with new dinosaurs and plot elements popping up&period; However I do agree that the campaign is a decent length compared to most <em>Resident Evil<&sol;em> games but it does impact slight on replay value&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>However with most of these being minor complaints &lpar;the pipe puzzle is a major one&excl;&rpar;&comma; they don&&num;8217&semi;t hold back this truly fantastic game&period; While <em>Resident Evil<&sol;em> gets a lot of the fame and glory I found <em>Dino Crisis<&sol;em> a refreshing change of pace that elevated a high amount of tension while mixing up classic survival elements with new ideas&period; I love the B-Movie style of story telling and how beautifully this game blends together a classic sense of horror with stressed based tension&period; This was a defining game for the genre and one I hold in high regard compared to many <em>Resident Evil<&sol;em> games&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;