Customer Rating: 
Summary: enjoyable, but not quite a classic
Comment: I remember back in 1999 when I received Dino Crisis as a Christmas present. This was my first exposure to a survival horror game. Believe it or not, I actually didn't bother with the Resident Evil series until six years later, in the summer of 2005, which is when I played Resident Evil 2 for the very first time.
Now, let's go back to 1999 for a moment. The world of 3D gaming was in full swing at that point in time. 1999 was a year when people were anxiously awaiting what the Playstation 2 would give us, while at the same time, we were appreciating what the original Playstation was offering. The original Playstation, as you may already know, is where the survival horror genre *really* became popular. Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and, the now underrated and unfortunately forgotten, Dino Crisis series.
Over time, people haven't treated the Dino Crisis series with *nearly* as much respect as the Resident Evil and Silent Hill series. It probably has something to do with Dino Crisis 3 being a really bad game with horrible camera angles, which meant, after that failed experiment hit the market, people weren't interested in any more Dino Crisis games. But, you know, even before Dino Crisis 3 was released, people didn't respect the Dino Crisis series as much as the other survival horror games. I really have no idea why. Dinosaurs can be *just* as cool as zombies. Believe me. Perhaps it has something to do with the animation? Even though killing dinosaurs is fun and addicting, Capcom made killing zombies slightly more interesting, thanks mainly to better animation from pointing and shooting your guns at a zombies head. It just looks and feels better in Resident Evil. This in NO WAY should be reason to avoid Dino Crisis. This also doesn't mean Dino Crisis is flawed in the shooting department. Both Resident Evil and Dino Crisis offer tons of enjoyment. TONS of enjoyment. They are just separate beasts.
The original Dino Crisis is supposed to be about making the right decisions when it comes to either keeping your ammo and health in one place, or making the decision to bring the ammo and health with you. It's supposed to be about guessing whether or not the ammo or health will eventually be necessary as you progress through the game. However, on easy mode, none of this makes a difference. The game is *so* easy on easy mode, that you can literally get attacked by dinosaurs about five or six times before you even need one of those Med Pack M's (used to bring your health back to 100%). Seeing as how there aren't many dinosaurs in the game overall, you will only need to use one of these health packs maybe two or three times throughout the entire game. Dino Crisis is *that* easy! This means you will only have to bring one or two Med Packs with you, and leave the rest behind.
To be fair, you can't just mindlessly shoot every dinosaur you arrive to, because you aren't given a whole lot of ammo. Certainly not as much ammo is given to you compared to how many health packs are available throughout the journey. Despite that, running out of bullets probably won't ever be a problem. Just make certain you avoid some of the weaker dinosaurs in the early parts of the game. That way you will have enough bullets for the bigger and deadlier dinosaurs in the later parts of the game (which obviously require more bullets to kill).
You are given the ability to mix things together, to create dangerous darts. These darts are used to kill dinosaurs *very* quickly, sometimes in a single shot. The problem here is that, on easy mode, the game is so simple that mixing darts together isn't even important. You don't have to worry about dart-mixing on easy mode *at all*. You can simply shoot or avoid all the dinosaurs you come across on easy mode and not have to worry about dart-mixing EVER. That kind of ruins the whole "survival horror" aspect of the game. You should have been required to use at least one or two of these darts.
People criticize Dino Crisis 2 for being just a mindless shooting game where you have to kill as many dinosaurs as possible to progress to the next area and collect bigger guns, but the honest truth is, the original is a MUCH easier game overall because you can simply run past all the dinosaurs that stand in your way. You can't do that in the second game. You have to stand up to them and shoot. So Dino Crisis 2 is a harder game, in my opinion. Oh sure, you are given an option to up the difficulty (in both Dino Crisis games) but the problem here is that the difficulty goes up SIGNIFICANTLY, making the game nearly impossible.
Another problem I have with the game is the amount of cutscenes. You CANNOT skip over them, so you are forced to watch almost every single one of them. Most of them are kind of boring because most of the cutscenes feature the main characters just talking to each other. Sometimes you will see a cool-looking dinosaur attacking something, though. But Capcom *really* should have given you an option to skip over the cutscenes like they did in the sequel, because most of them are flat-out boring. These conversations are supposed to create a spooky mood, but it doesn't work in my opinion.
I also have a problem with the INCREDIBLE amount of puzzles you come across. I am not kidding, there's over 25 puzzles in this game. Some of them are just a matter of typing in the correct series of numbers, or the correct words to access the next area. Some of the puzzles are more along the lines of finding the right way to complete them, such as the puzzle where you're pushing these Up, Down, Left and Right buttons to figure out how to sucessfully lift up and put down boxes using a giant crane. These are extremely hard puzzles to figure out by yourself unless you have a walkthrough. Once you figure them out, the sequence is exactly the same the next time you play the game, though. They're not random like in Resident Evil 3.
The game is also *very* heavy on searching for the correct key cards to gain access to the next part of the game, which can be annoying. Simply put, the game is dominated with puzzles and key cards, which are always required to access the next area. A bit much, to say the least.
Despite the above problems, Dino Crisis is STILL a pretty fun game because the dinosaurs are animated beautifully and the graphics as a whole are really good for 1999 as well. The actual gameplay has some problems mentioned above, but there's also plenty of action to be found. Also, the game is pretty scary and intense, and the dinosaurs are simply wonderful looking and it's interesting the way they can attack you because they attack differently each time. Sometimes they will bite at your arm, other times they will pick you up from off the ground, and more.
Oh, and the music and sound effects are amazing. Perhaps the best music and sound effects in a survival horror game ever. Instead of featuring melodic themes, you are treated to sound effects and musical notes that seem to play randomly, almost making it sound like improvised music, like something from a King Crimson record. This means, if you listen to the music carefully, you can hear a bunch of unusual and creepy sound effects in the background. You hear something different each time. It's awesome, and works great. It's not a typical soundtrack in any shape or form, even by survival horror standards. It's so good.
Overall, even though Dino Crisis has almost zero replay value, and too much time is spent running around inside a facility doing one puzzle after another (and collecting one key card after another) the game is worth the experience. It's not a classic, just a nice game.
