The survival horror genre is not exactly renowned for being realistic. For years scary games revolved around people getting trapped in a mansion and being pursued by something frightening. Finally, though, the genre was blessed with the key ingredient needed to invigorate anything growing stale: dinosaurs.
Any survival horror fans out there are probably screaming “Dino Crisis! Dino Crisis!” and roaring a deep-pitched roar of bliss. I wouldn’t blame them, either. The Dino Crisis games are excellent for their portrayal of the hatred dinosaurs have for humans, and they serve as an excellent reminder for how much work we have left until humans and dinosaurs can finally coexist peacefully.
Dino Crisis tells the story of a Raid team visiting Ibis island to look into the intel they’ve received about a man called Doctor Edward Kirk developing heinous weapons. When they arrive, they learn that a serious accident has occurred; causing a time rift that enables dinosaurs to travel to the present. This concept of time-traveling may remind some of you of Back to the Future, but you’ll be happy to know that the dinosaurs lack hover boards.
The game relies on surprises as a scare mechanic, and it works incredibly well. Opening a door to find a raptor poised to attack is nothing short of terrifying, and the amount of times this happens never reduces the fear factor of it. Having entered many a room only to find a raptor ready and able to kill me, I can tell you with certainty that it never fails to send a chill down your spine.
Interestingly enough, Dino Crisis, now ten years old, is meant to take place in the year 2009. What better way to celebrate than by procuring a copy and playing through the game yourself? The graphics may be outdated, but there are few better ways to fill your urge for pixelated dinosaurs.
Although Dino Crisis is dated, I did quite enjoy it at the time. Probably the thing that it did right about the survival genre is that it really was about surviving. You knew that if something popped up, most likely you weren’t going to be able to deal with it, and you were going to have to run. If I survived a sequence, I was capable, not overpowered. We’re talking dinosaurs here, you SHOULD NOT be able to take them out easily. If the creators of the latest TUROK game for the 360 had paid attention, this would have been a good fact to keep in mind. Sure guns were practically useless, but I’m sure our hero from Dino Crisis would LOVE to have had whatever ‘insto dino killing’ knife that Turok was using. I gave the second one a play, but never got a chance to play the third. -Dino Crisis 3 -Dinosaurs…in space…in the future. If anyone has seen ‘Jason X’ you know just how far off that seems from the source material. It’s sad to have seen a possible franchise end on this note, I would certainly like to see it revived and why not? It’s not as if we ever get tired of ‘playing in god’s domain’ or anything. He’s got the bucket of legos, I say it’s time to dig in and see what we could do. Capcom may be raking in the bucks now, but why not revive this series or ‘Parasite eve’ for that matter?