Dino Crisis 2
Developer(s)	Capcom Production Studio 4
Publisher(s)	Capcom Virgin Interactive (Europe)
Designer(s)	Shu Takumi (director) Hiroyuki Kobayashi (producer) Shinji Mikami (executive producer)
Engine	Quake Engine (Modified)
Platform(s)	PlayStation, Microsoft Windows
Release date(s)	PlayStation JP September 13, 2000 NA September 29, 2000 PAL November 24, 2000 Windows JP 2003 EU April 11, 2003 NA August 20, 2003
Genre(s)	Survival horror Third Person Shooter Scientific Fiction
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer
Rating(s)	ESRB: Mature (M)
Media	CD-ROM

Dino Crisis 2 is a third-person shooter for the Sony Playstation, developed by Capcom Production Studio 4 and published by Capcom in North America, released on September 13, 2000 and publish by Virgin Interactive in Europe, release on November 4, 2000. The game is the sequel to Dino Crisis and was followed by Dino Stalker in 2002 and was ported to the Personal Computer that same year.

The story follows the events of the last game, where Regina is now on another mission involving a facility located close to the fictional Edward City, where a major anomaly has caused the whole island to be transported back in time to the era of the dinosaurs, along with all the human inhabitants. Regina is sent on a rescue mission with her new ally Dylan Morton, who has a strange connection to the events on the island. The player's control switches between Regina and Dylan at specific points in the game.

Gameplay

Dylan firing on a velociraptor.

Dino Crisis 2 is a third-person shooter meaning that the player controls characters in a third person view, yet the perspective changes with movement into new areas and fields of view as the game uses pre-determined camera angles. The game also departs more from the survival horror of the first Dino Crisis and is more action-oriented, with more open areas, more items and less emphasis on puzzles.

As players kill dinosaurs in succession, countering attacks and avoiding damage in areas, they can earn "Extinction Points" that act as a form of in-game currency that tally up as player moves between locations.^[1] Throughout the game the player can locate and use computer stations that act as save point where players can save and load games, along with spending Extinction Points on new weapons, upgrades, health packs and ammunition. There are also bandages that are used to prevent bleeding that occur when a player takes damage from certain attacks that results in slow draining of the health bar.^[2]

There are two forms of weapons in the game, main and sub-weapons, meaning the player can only equip one of each at a time.^[3] Main weapons provide the most damage and are used for the majority of attacks, for example shotguns, flamethrowers and rifles whereas sub-weapons are used to get past obstacles, like the machete for cutting plant vines and the firewall gun that creates a temporary wall of fire against foes.^[3] Over the course of the game, players will switch roles between Regina and Dylan, who have different weapons, making some passages blocked for one but accessible for the other.

Among the third person shooter gameplay are sections of on rails shooting, such as in a chase of firing on dinosaurs that are chasing an automatically driven vehicle and like the previous game, many puzzles. Throughout the game, player also find data files and documents that progress the story and explain the back story or hidden details of certain areas along with Dino Files that go into detail about each dinosaur in the game. Upon collecting all Dino Files grants the player unlimited ammunition for weapons on the next play through.

Extra Crisis

Upon completion of the main game, there is an unlockable mode known as Extra Crisis with two gameplay modes: "Dino Colosseum" and "Dino Duel". Colosseum is a survival mode where a chosen character with their own pre-set weapons fight off series of attacks by certain dinosaurs, the larger and more deadly being the later and upon completion the player is graded and awarded a trophy on how well they performed. Dino Duel is a mode that allows the player to take control of a dinosaur and battle another in the style of a fighting game. Completion of the game on harder difficulties allows more characters and dinosaurs to become available for purchase, using the final Extinction Points gathered from that play through.^[1] Dinosaurs can also be used in Dino Colosseum.

Story

Characters

The two protagonists of the game are Dylan Morton and Regina, with Dylan being new to the series and Regina reprising her role after the events of the first Dino Crisis. Dylan is a Tactical Reconnoitering and Acquisition Team (TRAT) commando who-s been sent back in time with the rest of the team in what was originally supposed to be a search and rescue mission.^[4]

Another prominent character is another TRAT member, David Folk. At the start he is separated from Regina and Dylan after enraging a Tyrannosaurus he shot with a rocket launcher but later saves them at Edward City from Velociraptors in an attack helicopter. Another recurring character is Paula, a teenage girl who apart of the mysterious syndicate who are hostile to the main characters.

Dinosaurs

Throughout the game, the protagonists encounter various dinosaurs that innhabbit the whole jungle region, along with its waters and skies. Those that appear frequently include Velociraptor, Allosaurus, Oviraptor, Pteranodon and Inostrancevia. Mosasaurus and Plesiosaurus also appear as a common enemy yet only during the Third Energy Facility level, most of which is underwater. Others like Compsognathus however act towards the game's puzzle aspect such as a segment where it steals the player's key card and Triceratops that appear in one of the on-rails shooting sections of the game.

Plot

It is 2010: one year has passed since the events of Dino Crisis. Third Energy research continues, this time at the hands of a government agency. However, an accident has occurred: Edward City, an entire town devoted to the research, has completely vanished, and been replaced by a prehistoric jungle. A search and rescue operation is set underway by TRAT to travel back in time and recover the survivors and locate the missing Third Energy research data. In this team are commandos Dylan Morton and David Fork, and Regina due to her experience from the last encounter.^[5] Upon landing on the island, the team sets up camp but is attacked by velociraptors, with most of the team killed except for Dylan, Regina and David. A Tyrannosaurus Rex chases Dylan and Regina to a slope, where they become separated.

Regina heads back to their ship while Dylan heads off into the jungle where he is attacked by packs of velociraptors. When Dylan reaches a military facility, the Tyrannosaurus Rex attacks him; however, before taking shelter in one of the barracks he is shot at by unknown helmeted figures. Inside, he attempts to retrieve a key card but sets off a security alarm and is imprisoned. Back at the ship, Regina receives a distress call from Dylan and sets out to rescue him. Along the way she takes an alternate route towards the research facility. There she encounters more of the helmeted figures, but one fails to escape and is handcuffed by Regina. She removes the figure-s helmet, revealing the figure to be a blonde teenage girl who cannot speak. Regina leaves the girl there while she rescues Dylan back at the military base. She brings the girl from the research facility back to the patrol ship, but finds that it has been ransacked. Before he leaves to look for ship parts, Dylan handcuffs the unknown girl to the ship; strangely, she halts her struggles upon looking at him. Dylan recovers a ship battery at the research facility, which also houses human containment chambers and is overrun by oviraptors. He arrives back at the ship to find the girl gone. They pilot the ship to an offshore under-sea base called the Third Energy facility where Regina turns the prime Third Energy reactor back on. She returns to the surface where she and Dylan get a distress call from David who claims to have found the survivors at Edward City. After being chased by a triceratops they crash just outside the city into a field infested with velociraptors: however, David saves them in a helicopter, but only to find that the dinosaurs have killed all the remaining survivors in the city. There Dylan encounters the Tyrannosaurus Rex once more and escapes in a tank. He is ambushed by yet another helmeted figure, but the figure is thrown off a bridge by the blonde girl before she leaves. Dylan recovers something in the aftermath of the struggle: a necklace worn by his dead sister, that the blonde girl had been wearing.

Regina locates the missile silo and retrieves the Third Energy data disc. Just outside, she witnesses the Tyrannosaurus Rex get killed by a Giganotosaurus that then follows her into the silo, which triggers a countdown. Regina fends it off by dousing it in flammable gas and igniting it. After she shuts off the missile, the Giganotosaurus get back up and smashes the silo foundation, starting a fire. Outside David and Dylan are waiting, having opened the bay doors for their escape; but David is eaten by an Allosaurus, which also knocks Dylan into the river, taking him away upstream. He wakes up in an unknown area where the blond girl leads him into a large base complex, where she shows him a recording that reveals the truth.

After the incident in the first game, the humans decided to study the dinosaurs. Widespread Time Skewing was carried out, with disastrous results that threatened the end of the project when it became clear that dinosaurs and humans could not coexist. The military decided to transport all the dinosaurs three million years into the future, where they could thrive, before they were to be sent back to their own time when the third energy time gate was perfect; it was called the Noah's Ark Plan. However, the time gate overloaded and was destroyed, leaving both the team and dinosaurs trapped. Even though the survivors were killed by the dinosaurs, their children were brought to the safety of the habitat support facility, where they were kept in life support chambers, which protected them and allowed for growth and learning. The children learned how to survive around dinosaurs, and because of the nature of the Noah's Ark Plan, they were taught to protect the dinosaurs, but lost the ability to speak, becoming the helmeted figures. One of the members of the team that came to the future was Dylan himself, who made the recording, but much older and with a daughter Paula, the blonde girl. As a result of the overload, Edward City itself had been transported to the future. The future Dylan tells his past self there is a basic gate to take him, Regina and the children back to their time: however, they can only use it once.

Dylan is attacked by another helmeted figure who has set off the base's self-destruct, before their fight is interrupted by the Giganotosaurus. Dylan manages to set off a satellite laser blasting the dinosaur, incinerating it completely. Regina turns up at the last minute, but Paula-s legs are crushed by falling equipment. Unable to free her and with the building ready to explode, Dylan decides not to leave her and so sends Regina back through the time gate with the research disc, asking her to build a time gate to return and save them. Regina runs through the gate, promising to return. Both Paula and Dylan are about to be crushed by falling equipment but at the last split second the building explodes.

Development

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Reception

Dino Crisis 2 received a positive response from critics, with an average score of 82% at Game Rankings based on 22 reviews^[10] and an 86/100 at Metacritic based on 13 reviews.^[11]

In a review by GameSpot, they mentioned it was possible to argue that the first Dino Crisis just "replaced the zombies with carnivorous dinosaurs" as a Resident Evil spin-off. However they found Dino Crisis 2 "an original, enjoyable experience that can no longer be considered just another entry into the survival-horror genre", as it "avoids the stereotypes of the genre and delivers one of the most refreshing takes on the third-person action shooter to date."^[6] IGN concurred by saying it was "stripped of its slow-paced Resident Evil shell and its haunting, creepy shockeroo tricks". They particularly praised the game-s artwork and level design that "the creatures and the design are both excellent, and the jungle backgrounds, and especially the underwater environments, are simply top-notch."^[9] On the game-s sound effects, GamePro stated the "Sound is solid, with an unobtrusive musical score that blends well with gaming effects, i.e. the telltale rustle of foliage preceding a raptor's leap for your throat isn't drowned out by J-Pop."^[7]

As a survival horror however, Game Revolution felt the "arcade-like" gameplay "detracts a bit from the whole survival-horror theme". And while they praised the sequel for not over-using puzzles and key fetch objectives, "the back and forth gameplay gets tired after a while" and can make it "very easy to get distracted from the storyline and get sucked into the process of amassing an arsenal."^[8]

References

External links

• Dino Crisis 2 at MobyGames
• Dino Crisis 2 at Wikia