Dino Crisis 2

The Good
The title of this review just resumes what I think about this game. It's one of the weirdest things that ever happened to me, and for being so weird, this review will be kind of weird also. For starters, I will begin with 'the bad' instead of 'the good'.
If you could be as kind as to scroll down and follow me... (or just click HERE if you're lazy)

So what's THE GOOD in Dino Crisis 2?
As I said, I hate the game. I believe I give enough reasons in 'the bad', but the fact remains, I played it all until the ending in about 3 sittings, and each time I found myself asking 'I hate this game... so why can´t I stop playing it?'.
The thing is plain simple: Dino Crisis 2 is FUN. I would load up the game and get stuck to my keyboard for about 3 hours or so, running around blasting dinosaurs, and I enjoyed the whole thing like a degenerated maniac.

Capcom just put together the most smooth interface I've ever seen in a survival/horror game. The controls answer brilliantly, the movements are quick and accurate, and the whole sense of gameplay is as dynamic as few times I've seen.
This makes the whole 'run & blast' thing as amusing as to justify to keep doing it for hours, just for kicks, which I've seen few times in any games and NEVER in a survival/horror.

You have a limited amount of ammo, but with every kill you earn 'extinction points' which you can trade in the save spots for healing items, armour, ammo, guns, and whatnot; hence, the whole very enjoyable dinosaur massacre thing can be extended at will all the way towards eternity without problems. As long as there are dinosaurs to kill, you will be able to reload —and even upgrade— your guns.

Adding to the normal running and shooting of survival/horror games, Dino Crisis 2 has a few 'alternate' missions in which you get a little of gameplay variety (like a mad running among huge dinosaurs while your comrade covers you from a tower, or a shooting-gallery-like scene in which your comrade drives the car and you get to cover against the chasing dinosaurs).
Plus, as any Capcom game, replayability is the order of the day, and every time you finish the game you get to unlock some secret stuff, including hidden levels.

The thing is just FUN.
I couldn't explain it better, I hated everything about this game. The graphics, the sound, the storyline... and yet it's among the top 5 most entertaining games I've ever played.

So, let's go for the bottom line. Scroll way down or click HERE.

The Bad
OK, here we are. This review STARTS here, in 'THE BAD'.
Why, you ask? Because of the very thing I said on the title: I HATE this game.

The first thing you see when the game starts is an awful low-res Capcom logo, and some quick camera trip through a jungle that takes you right to the options menu. By its structure, you can guess that Dino Crisis 2 has been taken straight out of a console game.
Upon starting, you'll see a fairly neat pre-rendered cutscene introducing you to an already-guessable-poorly-worked-out plot, about some messup in an experiment involving something called 'the third energy', a rift opened in the continuum, and the bringing back of a piece of land from prehistoric times, which means a huge jungle infested with dinosaurs taking over a small town. You play the role of two members of a military team (one male and one female) meant to find out what happened here, and to rescue any survivors. Unlike the nasty bad-asses of old school movies such as Aliens, these two are the kind of MTV-good-looking-marines that Hollywood is selling nowadays: the guy could be the blonde Backstreet Boy any day of the week while the girl is Britney Spears with a red hair.

As I said, the intro cutscene is technically great, but then it ends and you get to bump against the first awful bad point, a fact that's totally contradictory with the whole '(c) 2001, 2002' ranting on the title credits: the graphics.
Dino Crisis 2 has graphics as bad as I haven't seen in about 4 or 5 years, and it answers to a simple reason: the game is merely a 'port' of a Playstation game. You could just as well play the original PSX version with an emulator, Capcom didn't bother changing A THING to take any advantage of modern day PC's.
Low poly-count, low resolution single-texturing, no lighting effects, no shadows of any kind, no lipsynch... technically, the game is just an average DirectX 6-class PC game, and not even a slightly worked out one.

The game is a fixed-backgrounds survival/horror game a la Capcom, which means way more survival than horror. In fact, I don't think I got remotely worried about anything throughout the whole gameplay, let alone scared.
It's worth to mention that having fixed backgrounds one would have expected some beautiful eye-candy images... well, no luck here. The background graphics have as low definition as the poor character textures, and in fact you can easily spot pixels and jaggies all over the place. This is obviously not a game meant to be seen in a PC monitor.

The sound can just as well fit in 'the bad' because it doesn't add anything. There are a couple fast-paced tunes which seem to have been stripped from some ancient class-B horror movie, trying to put tension in boss fights and such, but they just make the game overall look even older.
The voice acting sucks, plain & straight. I'd stick with the voice acting of the worst low-budget porn movie ever, at least there would be moaning girls there.

The storyline might be the worst thing of the whole package.
Besides the fact that I'm still about to find out what the hell that 'third energy' nonsense was supposed to be (if they expect me to rollback to DC1 in order to find out, they can just as well keep waiting alright), the thing is, nothing happens in the game. You are running around in a town which is eaten up by a prehistoric jungle, shooting dinosaurs left and right, with the remote idea that you're looking for survivors or something, for about 70% of the game. Then, a third member of the team reports by radio, asking you to join him because he found someone, or he didn't find anyone, or he's in danger, or he misses you, or whatever; so from there on until the ending, it's all about finding the guy.
All of the while you are fed with data logs which are supposed to create some kind of intrigue about what happened there, but I had forgotten what ever was written in them by the time I finished reading each one.
Plus, there are some kind of 'teenage power rangers' that show up every now and then, shoot you, and run away, and the characters comment how weird that is, and who could they be, but the thing is you won't give a flying f*ck about it, and you will forget about them the moment they step out of the screen.
So, you keep running and shooting with the vague idea of having seen some mysterious power ranger kids stalking you while you fight dinosaurs... and, all of a sudden, it all happens. And I mean IT ALL.
In the last 7 minutes of game or so, you get to see like 5 pre-rendered cutscenes (you haven't seen any since the beginning of the game) and the whole sorry mystery folds and unfolds in a mmmbop (that's a good one, come on).
Not only the plot sucks with almighty sucking power in its own right once uncovered, but the way it is presented is the most sorry excuse for a twist I've seen since I can remember. You can't twist a plot if there's no plot. You're just bringing the plot late into the game.
It's like, about 5 minutes before the game ends, the plot strolls in saying 'yo! It´s me, the plot! sorry I´m late, am I still in time to unfold?'.

That said, a mystery remains: why can't I stop playing it?
Let's find out. Follow me up to 'the good' (or click HERE).

The Bottom Line
BOTTOM LINE, you ask?
Well the review title says it all.

I'm a storyline-driven guy. I'm a BIG fan of games such as THE LEGACY OF KAIN SERIES, the SILENT HILL SERIES, and the almighty DEUS EX. In this regard, I don't trust Capcom as I'm already quite familiar with the confusion they have between 'plot-line' and 'flat-line'. Unsurprisingly, Dino Crisis 2 has no better storyline than any other Capcom game. In fact, if not for the Street Fighter series, this might be their worst storyline ever.

The game is a PSX port, as in 'a PC game released in 2002 which looks like the worst games of 1998 used to'.
The music is average-to-bad, and the voice acting sucks.
I HATE this game.

However, the control interface is one of the smoothest things ever, the gameplay has some interesting variety to offer, there are lots of replay bonus, and overall, DINO CRISIS 2 IS ONE OF THE 5 MOST <u>FUN</u> GAMES I'VE EVER PLAYED.

That's all I can say. Even though I hate it, I can't help but recommending it to anyone who wants to have a GOOD time.

The Good
Although the graphics may be considered a bit poor in our more modern society, the interaction and complexity of the game more than make up for it. When first starting out the game, it took mere seconds for me to understand the movement and weapons systems needed for the first bit of the game.

Now usually game's start out with (and trust me, I know) a nice, calm, tutorial like level. I personally can't stand this. Let's get to the damn action! However in this game, they hit you right off the bat with THREE enemies to destroy. It's a wholey enjoyable way to start off the game, thrilling you, while not providing too much of a challenge.

After exploring a bit, the storyline begins to unfold. Perhaps this isn't the greatest plot, but I've seen worse in modern movies than in this older game.

The dialogue, if maybe a bit wooden (which you can expect from a made-for-japan game), really helps to carry the story along. Aiding in this is easy play-ability and a sense of constant thrill. I found myself spending all my spare time at the game.

I recommend if the first time you play the game, you don't do so great, try and try again. It wont become boring, and you can only improve.

A great game in my opinion, and one of my favourites.

The Bad
Character detail is a bit sloppy, but the backgrounds and interactivity make up for it. Cliché plot and dialogue are rescued by the thrill of the game.

Only main bad point - not enough variety in the dinosaurs.

The Bottom Line
If you're looking for an intriguing, action-filled, and fun to play game, then this is it. 3.5 stars.

The Good
The original Dino Crisis was something special. It was Shinji Mikami's first survival horror game rendered in 3D and his first survival horror game in general outside of the Resident Evil series. Dino Crisis featured a lot of game play mechanics that would be introduced in later Shinji Mikami works and although these things had been used before (quick turn, firing while walking - see: Deep Fear) Dino Crisis popularized their use.

In Dino Crisis Mikami created a new niche which he personally dubbed "panic horror". It was interesting, and although it doesn't contain zombies Dino Crisis was, in a lot of ways, scarier than Resident Evil.

Dino Crisis 2 was about as big a departure from the original formula as Resident Evil 4 was from the series leading up to Nemesis and Code Veronica. Much has changed, but a lot has stayed the same. You still fight dinosaurs, you still play as Regina and you still have a constant sense of dread and panic about you as you romp around the jungle. The way panic is elicited in the player is different here though than in the original game.

In the original Dino Crisis panic and apprehension was generated by dinosaurs following you into rooms, suddenly jumping through windows or being basically invincible (see: T-Rex) but Dino Crisis 2 is different. In Dino Crisis 2 you are overwhelmed by dinosaurs. They spawn almost endlessly from the jungle around you and while it's a little unrealistic, it certainly gets your heart rate up.

Unlike the original, which is a wholeheartedly survival horror affair with the requisite save rooms, items boxes and inventory management Dino Crisis 2 is more of an action orientated affair. It isn't necessarily about horror anymore, but the panic is still there. Your guns hold insane amounts of ammunition and you will use it, especially on the harder difficulties. You can hold a sub weapon in tandem with your main weapon which is activated by pressing the circle button. This is used as a defensive measure or to solve puzzles. I liked this mechanic, it kept things interesting by making me think about what I had equipped. It's not perfect, which I will discuss later, but it keeps the game interesting.

That is one of the hallmarks of Dino Crisis 2; it remains interesting and fresh throughout the entire experience. The game play is constantly being mixed up. One minute you're blasting dinosaurs in the middle of a steamy jungle and the next you're shooting triceratops from the back of a jeep. Each of these little departures from the main formula is well balanced and a lot of fun. My personal favorite was using a flare gun equipped as my sub weapon to rain hell down onto allosaurus trying to block my path to Edward City.

The core game play is solid enough. Regina and Dylan control very much like Regina did in the original Dino Crisis. The controls are essentially identical, however she moves a lot quicker and of course, has access to sub weapons. Your character will auto aim at the nearest enemy and while it doesn't always work, it is handy when a dinosaur is off screen.

This brings me to the biggest deviation from the original formula; the use of pre-rendered backgrounds. I personally think it's a good thing, I have no qualm with it. The backgrounds are beautifully drawn and although they are just drawings, they are anything but static. Mysterious particles float in the air, shadows dance and water shifts. It's nothing like what Square achieved with Parasite Eve 2, but Capcom did an admirable job of providing players with a beautiful, believable environment to ramble around in. The static camera angles combined with the emphasis on action does take some getting used to, make no mistake. You do acclimatise to it though, and when you do you won't notice the difference or you just plain won't care.

Other than the beautiful pre-rendered backgrounds Dino Crisis 2, from what I can tell, uses a very similar rendering engine for everything polygon based as Dino Crisis. Regina looks fundamentally identical, if not a little smoother and Dylan looks quite good as well. The scale of some of the dinosaurs is very impressive and there were virtually no drops in the frame rate while the massive end boss was being rendered. It's all very smooth, quick and pleasing to look at.

The soundtrack, on a whole, is fairly solid. There are some real standout tunes and some excellent ambient work (3rd Energy Facility comes to mind...) and if you're a Dino Crisis veteran every guttural scream, squawk and screech emitted by the dinosaurs in the game will be familiar.

Dino Crisis 2 doesn't lack replay value. There is an interesting little Dino Coliseum you can unlock complete with the original roster of characters from Dino Crisis. You can also unlock several of the dinosaurs to fight with and go head to head with another player.

The Bad
Coming from Dino Crisis I would be remiss not to mention how different everything is. It plays similarly, albeit with a different rendering method for the backgrounds, and this takes some getting used to. This is especially true when one considers the way the game throws dinosaurs at you like rotten fruit at a beheading. I loved the challenge, but someone expecting a repeat of Regina's first adventure in the jungle will be sorely disappointed. If you don't enjoy action games, you will NOT like Dino Crisis 2.

One of the biggest issues I could see is dinosaurs flying off the edge of the screen onto your character. They are pre-defined spawn points, but unless you know they are there you will get torn to pieces. I'm not criticizing the new challenge or game play style, but this kind of cheap shot mechanic does not fly with me.

I would have liked weapons to be balanced a bit better. At a certain point in the game when you can buy the anti-tank rifle and heavy machine gun respectively you have essentially turned yourself into a walking weapon of mass destruction. I would have liked weapons to have specific advantages and disadvantages that played into the characteristics of the dinosaurs. Instead it's a one size fits all kind of situation. I think that would have worked well here, but unfortunately that isn't the case.

The Bottom Line
Dino Crisis 2 is a departure from Dino Crisis, but not in a negative way. Shinji Mikami keeps what made Dino Crisis so fantastic; the panic, and presents it in a different way. You're constantly surrounded by dinosaurs and the only way you can survive is by shooting your way out. You will get overwhelmed, torn to pieces and will keep coming back for more.

Don't expect this game to be anything like Dino Crisis. Apart from some engine and control similarities, these two games are really nothing alike.