Dino Crisis 2
Concept: You play as two different soldiers sent back in time to stop an experiment gone horribly wrong. An experiment so haphazard that it warped an entire military base, research facility, and nearby city straight back to the Jurassic period. Which would be amusing if it weren't for all the psychotic bloodthirsty dinosaurs roaming around. Now it's up to your small team to find any survivors, recover the data from the failed experiment, and return safely back to the future. Simple enough... however your adversaries are not simply dinosaurs, an unknown enemy soon comes onto the stage to further complicate and endanger the mission. Luckily you have at your disposal a truly massive arsenal of guns, explosives, and pharmaceutical items to aid your onslaught and rescue operation. Will you survive against leagues of raptors, dive bombing pterodactyls, and a rampaging t-rex? Or will you succumb to the most dangerous enemy of all... your own desperate fear?
Design: Aside from wandering around killing dinosaurs, Dino Crisis 2 also has light puzzle aspects, and a heavy exploration angle. But what really separates this survival horror from previous others is its "extinction point" premise. Every time you kill a dinosaur you are rewarded points which can be spent like cash at save stations. You can buy new weapons, or modify existing ones. You can buy new armor and tools, and you can purchase health items to use in the field to stay alive. Save stations are plentiful, and you can save as often as you want. The extinction point angle definitely encourages you to kill every last dinosaur you see. And because you get bonuses based on your speed and survival, you'll feel the need to do so with increasing efficiency.
Controls: Well the game uses tank controls, let's go ahead and get that out there. The reason games like this use tank controls has everything to do with the constantly switching camera angles. If the control were relative to the player's viewpoint, as soon as the camera switched your character would no longer be walking straight but would suddenly veer in a different direction. Hence with tank controls, they keep walking straight no matter how much the camera changes. Anyway, I'm pretty sure nobody loves tank controls, but once you get use to them, it's no big deal. The good news is, you have a target lock-on feature. Simply hold down R1 and your character will lock on to the nearest dino and then you can blast them away. Plus, you can shoot while moving, a feature previously unprecedented in prior Capcom survival horror games. You also have an instant 180 button (as in turn all the way around quickly). Those three aspects combined with a sleek and fast menu system, means you will have no trouble running & gunning your way to victory. Not to mention you are able to equip a man and sub weapon simultaneously. Lastly, a seriously useful L2 assigned map is included in game, which changes automatically based on your location. Control wise this game is brilliant and I had no problems playing at all.
Graphics: Dino Crisis 2 was a late-gen PS1 game and it shows. The prerendered environments are beautiful (though could use more animation), the 3D models are well designed, beautifully textured, and animated fluidly. The CG movies are great fun to watch, and look nearly as good as the ones Square did back in the day. Many of the camera angles are dramatic (in a good non-annoying way). The menus are even aesthetically pleasing. Overall I'd say this is one of the top 5 best looking PS1 games I've ever played. Especially in ePSXe making the 3D models higher resolution and all that.
Audio: Sound effects range from adequate to amazing. There are small touches like babbling streams and the crunch of your footsteps. Yet some of the larger dinosaurs have bass shattering roars, and the bigger guns blast so loudly it'll shock you. All speech is live recorded actor talking... and none of it is too cheesy. The music is highly pleasant with a few stand out moments... pumping KILL 'EM ALL tracks, and quieter atmospheric pieces (the save game room music is my favorite). However, there's not enough songs in total in my opinion, since half the game is spent walking around in silence. I imagine that is to increase suspense. Overall though, the sound effects and music are great... no big complaints.
Best moments (lite spoilers): Buying a huge machine gun and rampaging through the jungle blowing every raptor into bloody bits which previously menaced your lowly pistol equipped self. Going underwater in a dive suit and being creeped out by the murky darkness filled with flashing fangs. Stalking your way through lava filled caves. Thinking you've got the story figured out only to be thrown asunder by crazy plot twists. Finding out the t-rex is a runt compared to something far more sinister. Actually being scared a few times (well, surprised by dinosaurs jumping out of nowhere).
Worst moments: Keys? Keys? Who's got the keys? Let's find keys! Playing hide'n'seek with a keycard stealing dino. Those @$)!*$! pterodactyls. Surprise ruining "dino fact files" (protip: don't read them). Really, Regina can't cut some vines? Timed sequences, man I hate timed sequences. The first third of the game is kinda vanilla compared to the second and third parts. Ultimately the game is too easy, I NEVER DIED ONCE.
Overall: I was seriously blown away by how good Dino Crisis 2 is, especially compared to the first game. While by no means perfect, Dino Crisis 2 never forgets the number one rule of game design, FUN. It's always fun. That's probably thanks to who the director was, Shu Takumi, the man responsible for the Ace Attorney series no less. A cool story, tight controls, a great audio/visual package, lots and lots of surprises (mini games) and plot twists all add up to one damn fine survival horror game... definitely the best of its genre on the PS1. This is definitely a blast from the past, and I recommend Dino Crisis 2 to any action game aficionado who has missed it in the last decade.
Time spent: Six hours and I finished it.
Score: 8.5/10
