Just as the original Devil May Cry retained some of that unmistakable Resident Evil DNA but also firmly established its own identity at the same time, so too does Dino Crisis 2 look superficially like its survival horror parent with added dinosaurs but in reality was created around its own clear vision: To enable you to behave like the sort of of nigh-invincible action hero the game clearly wants you to be – the sort of person who sees an enormous monster from the distant past lurching into view and thinks “Yeah, I’ll fight that, it’ll be fun”. There’s nothing wrong with games that are like that – everyone needs a “brain off feet up” kind of game (or film, or TV show, or…) – but what elevates Dino Crisis 2 into bestest-forever territory for me is how perfectly the design of the game itself compliments the dinotacular mayhem of the story. Left at that the game would be an excitable puppy of a diversion – a bouncy and happy weekend’s worth of entertainment but with little substance beyond hoping being bouncy and happy was enough to keep you interested. The plot’s in the style of the very best kind of B-grade (I feel a “B” might be a little generous there) action popcorn flicks, the sort of thing held together with little more than lots of shouting and sticky tape. But rather than dismissing this bananas scenario as the product of an overactive imagination tied to limited writing skills or a childhood spent watching too many eighties cartoons (can anyone really watch too many eighties cartoons?) it’s important to note that Dino Crisis 2 is perfectly aware of and sincerely revels in its own absurdity – at a point in time when games were trying very hard to “grow up” in a mainstream sense (sadly discounting the mountains of mature stories from years passed) and impress their still relatively new adult-leaning audiences all this title wanted you to do was feel good about playing it it’d take a heart of stone to not get swept along with such an enthusiastic ride. I’d argue that the game swiftly backs my somewhat unusual claim up with hard evidence in the form of an opening FMV featuring a time-travelling boat before swiftly following that up with a literal Dino Crisis (there is sadly no title drop – I’d have loved to hear someone say in a deadly serious military-style tone “We’ve got a real crisis here Regina, a dino crisis, and only you can stop it”) and judging by the direction the story takes after that fabulous introduction I can only assume the whole development team entered into a blood pact with the Old God Streigh t’Veedyo, using their dark powers of bonkers script writing to continually escalate the situation no matter how ludicrous the scenario sounded on paper: After all if they’re going to start with temporal trips to beat up dinosaurs that everyone’s treating so casually they make The Doctor look like a rank amateur then it’s only natural for later events to include taking a tank for a spin against a vindictive one-eyed T-Rex or for Dylan’s barely-communicative teenage daughter from the future to show up in short-shorts and what can only be described as a futuristic motorbike helmet before trying to kill him. Promise! And that’s not because I’ve finally taken leave of my senses (not that I’d deny that I have) but down to them both focusing on doing the same single thing: Making sure the player’s having as much fun as is humanly possible at all times. I am of course talking about Dino Crisis 2, a game that actually feels much closer in its core design philosophy not to the survival horror classic it owes its very existence to but a completely different type of PlayStation game entirely: Bishi Bashi Special. The movement system, the fixed camera angles, the… well, the everything – it’s all wrong. So it may sound just a bit contradictory to go and dedicate an entire blog post to singing the praises of a PlayStation action game by Capcom starring tank-controlled 3D characters (and at one blessed point, a tank-controlled tank) laid on top of lush pre-rendered backgrounds but I’m just going to have to plough on through this mess and pray my apparent about-turn all makes sense by the time we hit the bottom of the page. Now not so very long ago I went to great foaming-at-the-mouth lengths to explain exactly how classic-flavour Resident Evil just doesn’t work as an all-out action game – it’s simply not built for that sort of thing. Looking for something in particular? Search for: Click here to be taken to a random article! Archives Archives
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