| Dino Crisis | |
|---|---|
European box art |
|
| Developer(s) | |
| Publisher(s) |
Capcom
|
| Director(s) | Shinji Mikami |
| Producer(s) | Shinji Mikami |
| Artist(s) | Kazunori Tazaki Yasuyo Kondo Yuichi Akimoto |
| Composer(s) | Makoto Tomozawa Sayaka Fujita Akari Kaida Shun Nishigaki |
| Platform(s) | PlayStation, Dreamcast, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation Network |
| Release date(s) | |
| Genre(s) | Panic Horror |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
| Rating(s) | |
| Media/distribution | Optical disc, download |
Dino Crisis (Japanese: ディノ クライシス Hepburn: Dino Kuraishisu) is a survival horror video game by Capcom, originally released in 1999 for the PlayStation and later ported to Microsoft Windows and Dreamcast in 2000. It was directed and produced by Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami, and developed by a team of staff members that would later become part of Capcom Production Studio 4.[2]
In the game, a special forces team must find a way to survive in a secret government facility that has been infested with dinosaurs. It features survival horror gameplay similar to the Resident Evil series and was promoted by Capcom as "panic horror".
It was followed by two sequels, Dino Crisis 2 and Dino Crisis 3, and a light gun-based spinoff in Capcom's Gun Survivor series, known as Dino Stalker. A Game Boy Color version of Dino Crisis was planned by UK developer M4, but the port was apparently cancelled.[3]
Contents |
Dino Crisis is best described as a "panic horror" game, with the focus of the game not on action, but high suspense, and often puzzle based gameplay. There are, of course, times when resorting to using weapons is your only hope of survival, but weapons and ammunition are often hard to come by. However, this can be aided by creating your own forms of darts. The game's storyline is carried out exclusively at night, aiding the eerie and often disturbing feeling of the game. The music also contributes to the sense of isolation in the facility, and there is often no warning as to when a dinosaur may ambush the player.
The weapons of Dino Crisis include a handgun, shotgun and a grenade launcher, with varying forms of ammo found in the facility, including tranquillizer darts that can be modified using various substances into deadly poison darts. Generally, the larger the enemy, the more firepower is required to kill them, with Therizinosaurs and Pteranodons being the hardest animals to kill.
The game integrates a range of puzzle solving into the storyline, with various disks and password keys needed to open doors. Other puzzles involve logistics, such as moving pipes and crates in the right sequence to allow gameplay to proceed. During puzzle solving, there are generally no dinosaurs to harass the player. Also, whenever a DANGER sequence occurs, the player has to hit all control buttons (excluding the Start, Select, and Analog buttons as well as sticks).
The game takes place on a fictional location known as Ibis Island in the year 2009. The Secret Operation Raid Team (SORT) has sent an agent, Tom, to investigate a research facility. During the recon mission, he learns that Doctor Edward Kirk, a world-renowned scientist who was reported dead three years ago, is leading a secret weapons project within the facility. SORT sends four agents (Regina, Gail, Rick, and Cooper) to acquire Kirk and return him to custody.
They arrive onto the island via parachute. Cooper is blown off course and lands in a jungle. A Tyrannosaurus rex appears and chases him a short distance before eating him. The other three agents, unaware of his death, proceed with the mission.
Once inside the base, they discover the mutilated and partially devoured corpses of security personnel and scientists. Shortly thereafter, they discover that dinosaurs are the reason behind the bloodbath at the base. They evade and dispose of many dinosaurs. During this, they find Tom, badly injured. Rick takes him to the medical room, however a Velociraptor attacks them, and Tom sacrifices himself to kill it, saving Rick. Later, Regina and the team manage to locate Kirk and apprehend him. As they are preparing to leave via helicopter, the T-Rex returns and destroys the helicopter, forcing them to flee back into the base. Kirk escapes them during this time. After the T-Rex manages to enter the base after killing three survivors in the elevator, Regina and Rick locate keys to a watercraft, but find a vortex in the way of getting to it. Regina enters a passageway and is held up by Kirk,. He is about to kill her when the gun is shot out of his hand by Gail, and they arrest him again.
Kirk reveals that the dinosaurs were brought to their time by an experiment he was running using his Third Energy technology. A rift in space was created and a pocket of the island from their time was exchanged with the same from the past, bringing dinosaurs back into their time. Kirk then tells them that if the reactors are set to overload, the energy coming from them and the vortex should cancel each other out if they come into contact. After Regina gets the stabilizer and initializer and uses them to overload the reactors, the energy shakes the base, causing a vent to fall on Gail allowing Kirk to escape again. Regina, Gail and Rick get to the control room branching off to the waterway to escape, but Gail says they still need to get Kirk. He starts to hobble away on his gun to go after Kirk, and orders Regina and Rick to leave without him if he does not return in twenty minutes. Rick orders Regina to do something, and she is given a choice, go after Kirk with Gail or escape with Rick, and the story takes one of three endings.
There are three possible endings based on choices made by the player. Near the end of the game, the player has the option to either go after Kirk or find their way off of the island.
The first ending (chase Kirk) results in Regina and Gail capturing Kirk. As a twist, Gail reveals that the whole mission was a front and the government did not want Kirk, but instead wanted the Third Energy to use in warfare. Gail gives Regina a disk containing all the data on the Third Energy. Shortly afterward, Gail dies from injuries suffered when the vent fell on him. Regina, Rick, and Kirk, during their departure in a watercraft, battle with the T-Rex. Regina kills it using a remote explosive, and they escape.
The second ending (escape the island) results in Regina, Gail, and Rick escaping without Kirk. During the final battle, Rick fires a rocket from a watercraft. The rocket hits a fuel tank, causing a massive overload in the Third Energy generator and completely disintegrating a portion of Ibis Island in the process killing the T-Rex and all of the other dinosaurs. The three agents escape safely, but the status of Kirk is unknown.
The third ending can be achieved by choosing to leave Kirk, but actually going after him. It can also be achieved by going after Kirk, but first finding the helicopter. Regina and Gail locate Kirk in a hangar, preparing a helicopter to escape in (which becomes their only way of escape because the T-Rex destroyed the hovercraft while she chased Kirk). Regina knocks Kirk out, and informs Rick of the situation. The T-Rex chases Rick to Regina's location. Then Regina, Gail and Rick board the helicopter and flee. During their escape, Rick drops a bomb from the helicopter onto the dinosaur, killing it. All three agents get out alive with Kirk.
| Dino Crisis Original Soundtrack | |
|---|---|
| Soundtrack album | |
| Released | 1999 |
| Genre | Soundtrack |
| Language | Japanese |
| Reception | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Publication | Score |
| GameSpot | (PS1) 8.5/10[5] (DC) 7.1/10[6] |
Dino Crisis was a commercial success. The PlayStation version of game has sold 2.4 million copies worldwide, being listed as the 11th-best-selling Capcom game.[7]
|
|||||||||||
|
||||||||
|
|||||