Dino Crisis

Therefore a few of the Japanese mega-companies - Konami, SCEE, Sega and, in this case, Capcom - turn to the PC to make their revenue graphs peck up. This Playstation game of yesteryear will soon be making its debut on the PC, in all of its third person shooter glory.

Poly Gone?

Dino Crisis is from Capcom's stable of Resident Evil-u-like third person shooters. However, unlike it's zombie daddy, the backgrounds in Dino Crisis are fully composed of polygons, while Resident Evil employs pre-rendered settings.

The PC version of Dino Crisis sees the natural incease in both detail and resolution levels. Each dinosaur is composed of hundreds of polygons, so blowing out their pea-sized brains is even more beautiful and poignant (ahem) than ever before.

Not only the visuals have been doped up though - full surround sound is now included, as well as enhanced stereo support. The atmosphere created by the surround sound ought to help make the hairs on your necks stand up to full attention. Can you feel it?

Play

The original Playstation version was competent, if hardly spectacular. The usual run-shoot run-shoot gameplay is par for the course, except there are some new missions to fight your way through now.

Comparisons are naturally drawn with its zombie-oh cousin, Resident Evil - this is where the game drew most of its influence from. Capcom clearly saw the success of Resident Evil as a green light to churn out third person shooter after third person shooter, and Dino Crisis was one of the better games from this mob.

Unlike Resident Evil, movement with weapons drawn is allowed, so the action is somewhat quicker and more spontaneous. Unfortunately the game is still stricken with what I like to call 'Caretaker Syndrome'. The level designer leaves a number of items and clues around, and you must run around cleaning them up. Get keycard A, solve code B, go to area C, and such...

Conclusion

To be honest the plot was about as exciting as lettuce, an identikit action hero storyline with the characters splitting up to seek out the mystery for themselves, and much suspense thrown in via cut-scenes.

This may not be a bad thing of course. If there is one thing we all need, it's some random acts of senseless violence every now and then. If you are looking for something a little more substantial, you would probably be better off looking elsewhere. But as a pure action game, Dino Crisis looks as if it will have all you need.