My friends, welcome…to Jurassic Park! Oh, um, wait…wrong set of dinosaurs. Dino Crisis was first released for the PSOne and later ported to the Dreamcast. Though I made fun at first by mentioning Jurassic Park, the game pokes fun at itself by having the characters say that “this is just like the movie!”
The game follows a special task force lead by a weapons specialist called Regina. Regina and her team are to retrieve a Dr. Kirk who was experimenting on something called “Third Energy.” Dr. Kirk had been presumed dead three years before after an accident while doing his experiment. Only, the doctor is not dead and his experiments have, somehow, transported dinosaurs into the island where he was conducting his government-sponsored research. Once the intro plays and Regina and her team are dropped on the island, the game starts. You are given several choices at various points of the game, which makes the gameplay not totally linear and keeps things fresh when you come back to play. Overall, Dino Crisis has been compared in its gameplay to Resident Evil, except you deal with dinosaurs instead of zombies. There are plenty of puzzles you have to solve in order to advance in the game. Some of these are word games, others involve finding pieces that will let you open up doors, etc. Visually the game looks really good. The dinosaurs look really good but there is only a limited number of dinos (compys, raptors, pteros, and T-rex’s). Their sounds are well done and do add to the atmosphere. You can only use the standard controller but adding a Jump Pack adds to the experience. This game is very good and fans of this type of game will feel right at home.
