Post by Ayen on Dec 19, 2011 14:00:59 GMT -6
Capcom; who hasn't heard the name of the Japanese Developing and Publishing video game company best known for their work on Mega Man, Street Fighter, Ghosts'n Goblins, Resident Evil and Devil May Cry. Even if you aren't familiar with them chances are you heard one of these games listed above. In 1999 with the success of Survivor Horror games Resident Evil it only made sense to further cash in with a new title and that brings us to this week's review.
The game stars Regina; a young intelligence and weapons expert voiced by Stephanie Morgenstern who I swear I heard somewhere else before but I can't quite put my finger on it...
Oh my god it's Sailor V!
So Regina, alongside her comrades Gail, Rick and Cooper drop down on
But disaster strikes when our beloved Cooper, a man we've known for under a minute, is blown away from the others as they parachute down from the chopper and taken away from us tragically by a Tyrannosaurus Rex! It's okay. I'm sure our heroes will go looking for him and avenge his death!
Gail: Leave him.
He was only a plot device anyway.
With Cooper out of the picture it's up to Regina, Rick and Gail to finish the mission. Reaching the guard house they find that something is wrong as there is no one nearby. Rick enters the facility to secure the control room while Regina and Gail are left to survey the outside area and we're finally allowed to move the main character around.
Now if you've played Resident Evil you're going to notice a lot of similarities not just in graphics and game play but in the controls.
The X button is your action button. It what you use to open doors, collect items and fire while holding down R1. Unlike Resident Evil however you can move around with your weapon at the ready by holding down R1 while moving around with the directional buttons.
The Square button allows you to run, L1 allows you to change targets while shooting at enemies and the R2 button has your character perform a quick 180 degree turn.
The game focus less on action and dispatching enemies and more on suspense and puzzles. You never know when a dinosaur is going to show up on screen to try to attack the player and there are many puzzles throughout the game you'll have to solve in order to progress further. The story isn't anything amazing but it's not terrible either and the banter between characters is pretty fun at times too. Like for example when they lose Gail in the beginning (boy they don't keep track of their teammates very well)
Rick: Good news: I've got the control system back online! What's the situation over there?
Regina: It's Gail... I've lost him.
Rick: So what's the bad news?
Another feature on the game is there are certain parts where your character is thrown into a life or death situation where you have to tap on buttons very quickly in order to avoid certain death. I'm not entirely sure what game developers were trying to do with this but depending on your preferences it can get real annoying real quick. There isn't much strategy involved when these events happen you just tap quickly and hope for the best.
The inventory, which you can access by pressing the Circle button, allows you sort out your supplies, items and examine items and weapons. You can also create new items or update some with the mix tool. Like Resident Evil if your inventory is full there are certain rooms you can go to to empty out your inventory.
Cons: The number one critique I could give this game runs down to one simple fact: if you've played Resident Evil you've basically played this game. Now I understand that it was made by the same people who worked on Resident Evil, same director and all that but would it have killed them to at least try to make this different from the Resident Evil series? Aside from a few minor differences Dino Crisis is basically Resident Evil meets Jurassic Park.
It doesn't just copy game play mechanics and graphics it even copies story points from Resident Evil. The member of the teammate you know virtually nothing about and dies in the opening FMV, the build up to meeting the first enemy of the game and losing a teammate who you meet up with later. But hey at least the first Resident Evil had a better reason for why they couldn't just call in the chopper. Here it's:
Rick: I say what we outta do is call in the chopper and get off this deathtrap.
Regina: That's a great idea but Cooper has the radio and he's missing.
That's right. They only have one radio. What, did they blow all their money on weapons, equipment, outfits, the helicopter and parachutes that they could only afford one radio?
Anyways Dino Crisis isn't a terrible suspense thriller, the voice actors for the game are decent and the characters are fun for the most part. I just believe the game better qualities are buried by the fact it's basically a Resident Evil clone. There are only three games in the whole franchise. The first two being available for the Sony PlayStation with the last one being available only for the XBOX. If they just found a way to give the game it own identity and not make it so much like Resident Evil I think it could have been loads better. So far the only thing I know that they did different from the Resident Evil games is take it out to space. Dinosaurs. In space. Well they're not technically dinosaurs but that's beside the point.
Overall score: 4/10
