Resident Evil's Red Headed Stepchild: A Look Back at Dino Crisis.
By Yummylee 35 Comments
Or... at least the first two anyway.
I'm someone that generally enjoys going to back to old games a fair bit, especially of the survival horror variety. It's often as to simply jog the noggin', maybe for the sake of working on its wiki page, or... just to better to keep my accumulated knowledge of the videya intact. Dino Crisis is a game I actually got to pretty late, I think maybe in 2009 or something, but it's one such game that I was a little disappointed by.
And for no particular reason whatsoever, I decided to head back to it again and then sloppily slap my thoughts together. That's right, even when I'm not writing about Resident Evil I'm still basically writing about Resident Evil!
It's Resident Evil, but with dinosaurs!
...is a suitable summation as any of Dino Crisis, the survival... sci-fi game once again lead by Shinji Mikami himself. Throughout much of that era of Capcom, spanning the PS1 and early-mid PS2 days, most of their games were almost something of a skin draped over what was (and to be fair still is) their biggest selling franchise. They had a foundation in place--camera angles, exploration, key hunting, puzzles, (sometimes) tank controls--and made liberal use of it to then lead the way for many other series, such as Resident Evil with dinosaurs, samurai, scissors and demon hunters.
For as apt as it may be, there are still a number of differences that help set it apart, for both better and worse. Though sticking with the similarities for now, this is indeed a survival horror game, one starring a spunky red-headed special ops lady, who controls like a tank, is crippled in the ways of moving and shooting, and is forced to undergo a significant degree of backtracking while the camera determines what you player should be focussing on.
So far so familiar!
However where it begins to diverge is, perhaps predictably so, the ''with dinosaurs'' part.
Boat Controls
I had touched upon this in an earlier blog of mine where I lead the defence force for survival horror controls. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of framing dinosaurs as the terrifying bipedal meat grinders that they are -- feathers be damned. However the controls of Dino Crisis can sometimes put you at an unfair advantage, or rather even more so than, say, classic Resident Evil games. See, in the survival horror era of Resident Evil games you were actually surprisingly nimble. Tank controls aside, the animations were always fast and snappy, and once you began running you were off. That's not quite how it is in Dino Crisis, however.
For starters, there's actually a slight build-up for when you begin to run, and actually turning mid-run feels a lot more sluggish than it does in its contemporaries. Controlling REgina (OH GOD WHAT HAVE I DONNNNNE) feels more akin to steering a boat than it does a tank. Then there's of course the dinosaurs to account for as well.
Now you may not be surprised to learn this, but dinosaurs are a helluva lot faster than zombies! Not only that but they're also bigger, and so trying to maneuver around them within the game's many tight corridors is often far more tricky than wall-hugging your way past a zombie. Resident Evil does have enemies such as zombie dogs of course, but even they are often just ever so slightly slower than you, so as long as you kept on the move you could keep them from chewing out your ass.
Dinosaurs are also understandably rather sturdy, and the velociraptors you'll be facing throughout a large majority can take up to like 13 regular handgun bullets. Plus for as strong as they are, your starting pistol also has shit all for stopping power, and it's got a rather slow firing rate to boot.
As such, the opening few hours of Dino Crisis can be fucking brutal, and your pistol is so useless that you'd likely have better luck in using harsh language to ward away the dinosaurs. Your main tactic is to basically just run away from all encounters, but as mentioned earlier that can be much more difficult than in Resident Evil games. Because of the limited ammo throughout, you may have to rely on tranquiliser darts instead, which make for a great risk/reward mechanic in that while they'll instantly put a dinosaur temporarily to sleep (for varying amounts of time depending on the strength of the tranq) they are of course still alive and will eventually wake up. Oh, by the way they can also follow you into other rooms too, and certain attacks can force Regina to drop her weapon requiring you to then recollect it for use. Also, bleeding -- god fucking dammit this game is hardcore! At least, in the beginning stages.
Weirdly enough Dino Crisis actually gets much more manageable as it progresses. There's only actually three weapons in here--handgun, shotgun, and ''grenade gun''--which'll you'll instead locate upgrades to make them more effective. A certain upgrade for your handgun will allow you to use a more powerful brand of ammunition, while one for your shotgun will allow you to fire without the need pump another shell per shot. Ammo is never in enough supply that you'll ever feel truly comfortable (which is a good thing I should add!), but you'll likely find you have enough to keep most at bay as the game goes on.
It's a really strange balance that, for as manageable as the game progressively gets, it also makes the game feel a little less... interesting in spite of it.
Throughout Dino Crisis, there are number of laser fields you'll soon have the capability to turn on and off at will. What this will often mean is that you'll be able to use them to your advantage to halt the advance of the dinosaurs, or at the very least allow you to get in some easy potshots -- 'bout the only time the pistol actually feels useful. Like the tranquiliser darts, they make for a great alternative to just shooting dinosaurs in the face. During the early game in particular it makes for an intriguing gameplay device that fits in with the core component of survival horror -- the act of improvisation and using other means beyonds guns to your advantage. It can be quite a rush as you ready yourself to turn the lasers off and then attempt to sprint past any nearby dinosaurs, preferably timing it at the second when they connect with the lasers knocking them over.
However that's kinda all there is. There's one, single instance where you can press a button to spray... something from above that'll potentially stun the dinosaurs a little bit, but that's it, beyond the laser fields. Had there been more environmental interactions you could use to your advantage then this would have made for an interesting take on survival horror games, and would have at the very least helped carve a niche within a niche as a means to further separate it from its granddaddy and help it establish its own identity.
Though as mentioned before, ammo becomes a little more plentiful so you'll likely resort to plain ole shooting dinosaurs in the face as it progresses. Fortunately ammo is again typically scarce throughout (or you at least never have enough to kill every dinosaur in sight), and even with the ammo on hand the dinosaurs are so aggressive that combating them can still prove tricky.
It's Resident Evil, but without a lot of what makes Resident Evil great.
Despite my misgivings with the combat of the game, however, that's not actually my primary complaint. Instead it's how the game lacks much of the personality found in Resident Evil. All of the environments in the game are made up of boring, sterile facility buildings, and the story progression simply involves you moving from one building to another. Resident Evil games on the other hand of course often feature a variety of locales, and even though they do tend to rely on gothic mansions a little too frequently, they're still a sight more interesting to explore than the drab, empty hallways of Dino Crisis.
That Dino Crisis utilises 3D backgrounds as opposed to pre-rendered doesn't help, either. Because this is of course a PS1 game, 3D backgrounds means the backgrounds are rather, well, plain. Pre-rendered on the other hand forever offered all kinds of details littered throughout every room, but without taxing the hardware nearly as much as it would if 3D backgrounds was to attempt such a feat.
One other notable nuisance is how you won't archive any of the files and memos you'll read throughout the game. I for the life of me cannot understand why they would intentionally design it this way, but... there you have it. I mean even the very original Resident Evil nicely archived all files you encountered.
On one hand, this forced me to then actually jot down notes and passcodes and the like in the manual, which elicited a surprisingly warm feeling of nostalgia of years gone by. On the other, there are certain door puzzles that have specific methods for unlocking, some of which are a little tricky to jot down in a manual. I could have gone out of my way to practically write it all down, but that would have started to turn the nostalgic note-taking into a feeling of needless busywork. It as such resulted in me encountering locked doors that I simply couldn't wholly remember how I was supposed to unlock, and I certainly couldn't remember where the specific file was to refresh my memory. So, I would occasionally use an FAQ in that regard to get me through it. Still felt a little dirty doing it... but that feels like it's the fault of the game more than anything. Again, it need be reiterated that even the very original, 1996 Resident Evil allowed you to archive files.
On the topic of the game's personality, or lack thereof, the puzzles too don't accompany the same surrealness as Resident Evil, either. I suppose because this is more sci-fi than horror it would make sense that you're having to operate machinery and find passcodes rather than inserting gems into everything, but the passcodes in particular often take precedence over anything else. And while I'm usually not too bothered by backtracking, because of the pervasive blandness of the environments it's not particularly engaging to have to run through these hallways over and over again. One particular section nearing the end of the game where you're trying to turn on this giant third-energy machine or whatever poorly telegraphs what you should be doing at that, and the size of the thing demands that you constantly keep running from one place to the next all in the service of just... turning on a machine.
The dinosaur variety is a little slim, too. You'll primarily encounter velociraptors throughout most of it, to where they're replaced by a stronger, though slightly slower, variety of dinosaur. There's some pterodactyls flying around in a couple of areas, but they don't really do very much. Dino Crisis obviously features a T-Rex at least, with a noticeably awesome roar behind it. Though that also brings to mind how the game doesn't have many boss battles, either. I think there's only actually two, both of which involve you simply holding off against the T-Rex for a short while.
The story's certainly of a similar caliber at least, with a lot of silly dialogue (This isn't a joke, you idiot; we were just attacked by a big-ass lizard!) and Regina has a little more pizzazz than Jill Valentine could ever hope for. Her voice actress also strangely sounds an awful lot Jennifer Hale for whatever that's worth. The way you will also sometimes have to choose between two ways to proceed--one typically involving the combat, the other a puzzle--is a neat little story device, if hilariously hamfisted with the way your squad leader Gail will quite literally ask you to ''make your choice''. It also has a rather fantastic Save Room theme at that, and it's impressive for how it essentially sounds like a sci-fi rendition of a Resident Evil save room theme.
Oh! Conclusion!
Clearly I've been laying the negativity on pretty thick here, but many of the ideas presented in this I still really like the sound of. It all on paper essentially comes across as a more hardcore version of Resident Evil, with even more of an emphasis on generally staying out of combat. It's not... a bad game by any means, least not by my standards, and I think the best way to sum it all up overall is that it's just kinda boring. Certainly not Mikami's finest way in any case. At the same time, while I drastically prefer its sequel, it's a shame that the series couldn't have refined itself a little more and have another stab at it, rather than simply dropping it all and opting for something completely different. I think it would have been interesting to witness a mix of the two--Dino Crisis & Resident Evil--even, with zombie dinosaurs and shit. It's a series I'd love to see Capcom at least attempt to revive in some way, because hey, a big fuck-off T-Rex still sounds like something that could be legitimately terrifying in the right circumstances.
While I do plan to blog about Dino Crisis 2 in the near future, as always said future is always a little hazy with me, on the account of me being a lazy twat. I've still got these damned Resident Evil retrospective blogs to do at that, and I really wouldn't mind writing up something about Alien: Isolation. And then there was that Hitman blog too, and oh remember when I said I'd shortly do a write up about the GBA CastleVania games like a decade ago????? Oh btw about that, Aria of Sorrow's pretty cool, the other two less so.
Outro Music Sure Why Not
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