Retro Replay: Dino Crisis

We’re taking a break from all of the JRPGs we’ve been playing lately to jump into one of the forgotten PSOne era survival-horror games: Dino Crisis.

There really was little in the way of true horror games before the release of Resident Evil in 1996. Though it was cheesy, and didn’t age particularly well, it introduced horror gaming to the 3D generation and created the sub-genre of survival horror titles. However, while it was new for games, RE was pretty standard stuff by horror standards. A strange virus creates a town full of undead zombies, blah, blah, blah. Three years later Capcom decided to change things up a bit, and blended the gameplay style of the RE series with a Jurassic Park style dinosaur story.

This change in enemy made a huge difference. Instead of slow shuffling zombies, players now how had to deal with fast, ferocious dinosaurs. The most common enemy was the velociraptor, who were very quick but only required a few shots to kill. They are essentially the replacement for the bog-standard zombies and dogs from RE. In fact, near the beginning of the game the raptors even imitate a scene from the first RE game, jumping through a glass window and scaring the crap out of you as you walk down a deserted hallway.

There are, of course, other dinosaurs in the game, but for the most part you are battling raptors and the tiny scavenger compy’s. But for the major threat, the game shares a lot in common with RE3. Whereas that title had the ultra-powerful Nemesis who chased you throughout the game providing a constant threat, DC had a tyrannosaurus rex. This massive dino would pop out at the most unexpected moments, and because the game didn’t use pre-rendered backgrounds, was able to smash through walls and buildings to get to you. This created an extra layer of tension in an already tense game.

These battles with dinosaurs weren’t all that common though. Walking through the abandoned building was a quiet and lonely experience, so the infrequent skirmishes were perfect punctuation marks. You never knew when they would come, so when they did, they were jump-in-your-seat scary. They may have been cheap scares, but at the time they were really all we had.

Like the RE games though, Dino Crisis wasn’t all that great when it came to the plot. As a member of a infiltration unit sent to save a research scientist previously thought dead, you are sent to a remote facility that is teeming with dinosaurs. There are virtually no humans left alive, except of course for the mysterious scientist. While researching energy alternatives, Dr. Kirk accidentally opens up a time portal, taking the prehistoric lizards from their time and transporting them to ours.

It might not even be B-movie material, but it served its purpose, creating an environment where you are forced into constant conflict with dinosaurs. Sure, it was pretty much a Resident Evil game without the zombies–complete with similar puzzles and inventory management–but in many ways this made it better. The new threat was much more terrifying then a mob of the undead, and nowhere near as cliche. Sadly, the worst part of Dino Crisis has to be its sequels, which essentially killed the franchise for good.

Coming up next week, we take a look at one of the early PSOne racers, Ridge Racer Revolution.