Views: The Extinction of the Dinosaurs... in Video Games

The year was 1999. We were living in a post-Resident Evil 2 world, with Nemesis just around the corner. The trappings of survival horror had been established, the genre was already widely adored, and Shinji Mikami was the name on everyone's lips. He, and Capcom, then decided to try something a little different. Something that turned out to be a stroke of genius, and went on to become one of the most successful games the company ever produced. I am, of course, talking about Dino Crisis. 

Says it all

The idea was brilliant; essentially taking the aspects of what made the Resident Evil games special, and bringing them over into a world with an enemy far deadlier than any zombie. Capcom marketed the game as "Survival Panic" and it's easy to see why. Dinosaurs were a new, and completely different threat to the zombies we'd seen before. The game played so similarly to Resident Evil 2 and yet every combat experience was so much more intimidating and stressful. The pace of the dinosaurs, their resilience, their sudden and unpredictable movements and overwhelming strength; it all combined to create a game that did indeed instil panic. In the same way that the slow-moving, yet fearful and gruesome living corpses of Resident Evil had instilled horror. 

It's a game I played again recently, and it brought to mind that question we all asked as a child: what happened to the dinosaurs? Zombies have certainly gone from strength to strength to saturation as the years have gone by, but dinosaurs glimmered briefly before disappearing off the face of the Earth (no pun intended). Are the games themselves to blame? Well, zombies can nowadays rely on titles like Left 4 Dead and Dead Rising to cement their mainstream status; these games have built on the incredibly solid foundations left by Resident Evil, House of the Dead, Evil Dead and even Half-Life. Dinosaurs on the other hand had to bank most of their money on the remarkably mixed bag of Jurassic Park titles, a few odd lightgun games, and the Turok series - which enjoyed a brief moment in the sun but never really reached its potential, and these days the dinos have very little representation in the market. They show up from time to time of course, but mostly in guest appearances than starring roles.

Perhaps its telling that "Zombie Video Games" has its own Wikipedia page featuring well over 100 titles in an incomplete list while our Triceratops and Velociraptor friends enjoy no such online encyclopaedia recognition. It's clear that zombies have a far greater catalogue of games to support them, but I'm not trying to start a war here between the flesh-eating living dead and the bone-crunching theropods. It's clear that both of these perfect video game villains could have co-existed, with the popularity and success of zombies only going to show what might have been had developers taken more of a chance on the dino. 

This is why dinosaurs should be at the forefront of gaming

With the right support, we can imagine just how rich the dinosaur game catalogue could be, with the beasts offering an incredibly amount of flexibility in terms of gameplay. There are a few brave souls out there still trying to keep the idea alive, but mostly on the modding scene: a far cry from global powerhouses like Capcom. Dino D-Day, a humorous "What If?" WW2 multiplayer-only shooter featuring Dinosaur vs Soldier combat, was released a few years ago. It wasn't the finest game on the market by any stretch but I had some fun little moments with it. There are also some very impressive Left 4 Dead mods that replace the zombies with raptors, etc. Apart from that, pickings are mighty slim, and it's a shame. 

Dinosaurs present us with so many options, and for the video game industry to continually fail to take notice of that fact is a cause of grief for all of us 'saurus fans. The open world genre could be hugely-enriched by the presence of dinosaurs; imagine a Far Cry 3 or Dead Island style survival game for instance. First and third-person action games, survival horror, hunting, the adventure genre, there are so many ways to incorporate these prehistoric creatures into our games that it boggles the mind that there are so few examples out there. 

These creatures offer the sort of experience that normally we'd have to delve into the world of fantasy to find. They are, essentially, real monsters. Whether or not that counts for many people, I don't know, but it certainly seems like a big deal to me. Knowing that these creatures truly existed rather than the orcs, goblins and dragons we plough through in our D&D titles just adds a little something. They're terrifying, they're something we would have such little chance against in unarmed or melee combat, they're predators above the level of man, with heightened senses, more impressive speed, and impressive force. Couple all of this with the fact that there are so many species with such variation, and you've got some pretty decent video game opportunities, right?

So what was it that led to the downfall of the dino? Well the unfortunate decline in quality of the Dino Crisis series, especially when compared to the success of RE, certainly helped. Just take a look at RE4; it turned out to be one of the biggest and arguably finest games ever made. It was a winner of numerous GotY awards for 2005, forging the way for the future of the third-person action genre, and was so successful it earnt a release on almost every available device, plus a HD re-release on 360 and PS3. Compare that to the "equivalent" release in the Dino Crisis series: 2003's Dino Crisis 3. A game almost universally critically panned, with a whole bunch of gameplay issues of which the star performer was the camera; a camera that, to this day, might be the worst I've ever seen in a high profile video game. By the way, DC3 was set in space. Oh and the dinosaurs? Well, they were more genetic experimental mutants rather than the traditional species we all know and love. Apparently the developers decided classic dinos - you know, the countless species of clawed, winged, sharp-toothed, ferocious, man-eating monsters of innumerable shapes and sizes - were just a bit too dull, they needed to jazz them up a bit.

Capcom development meeting: Any ideas for Dino Crisis 3 guys? DINOSAURS! Yeah but we've sort of already done that. People probably want more, no? MUTANT DINOSAURS! I like where this is going... can we take it further? MUTANT DINOSAURS IN SPACE! Sold.

Thus, when you've got a GotY groundbreaking trend-setter in the blue corner and a the gaming equivalent of a poorly mashed potato in the corner, there can only be one winner. Dino Crisis 3 was the last we'd see of the series, while Resident Evil hasn't exactly gone from strength to strength in too many people's views but it's at least still going. It is, of course, unfair and untrue to say that zombies and dinosaurs have relied exclusively on Resident Evil and Dino Crisis, but the parallels between the paths of these series and their respective choice of enemy serve as a good example. Another, more modern illustration can be seen in the Telltale adventure games Jurassic Park and The Walking Dead. The latter, a hugely successful GotY winner whose second season will imminently commence, the former a disappointment to almost all who played it. 

A number of other bizarre factors has led to the current state of dinosaur affairs. For example, the fact that one of the biggest publishers in the business had a great little dino game on their hands, and chose not to bother supporting it with their immense marketing powers. I'm talking about Jurassic: The Hunted, a very under-the-radar Activision 2009 release. I challenge you to go and try finding a copy of that thing in any shop near you. Go on.. I'll wait. Weirdly, almost as if they were ashamed or scared or just didn't give enough of a damn, Activision kept the project as secret as the nuclear launch codes, sending out a minimal press release just before the game was announced, and choosing not to bother selling most versions of the game throughout Europe and elsewhere.

Right idea, wrong publisher

Jurassic: The Hunted was not fantastic by any means but it was certainly solid, just the sort of solid the dinos will need if they're ever to come back. It played exceptionally similarly to CoD and included some ludicrous characters and dialogue, a nutty story, and a fantastic ability where you develop temporary X-Ray vision in order to target your shots at specific dinosaur organs! It was fun, and if you get a chance to pick it up cheaply sometime I'd recommend it. What Activision did to it, and consequently Slovakian developer Cauldron, was a travesty that has continued to set the dinos back even further. 

With the new generation of consoles about to begin their journey, could this be the time for the comeback the dinosaurs richly deserve? We can only hope. The face of a T-Rex or Spinosaurus has never had the potential to look better in full HD and 60FPS, and with zombies perhaps slowly reaching the end of their time in the sun, the stage is set for the dinos to have their moment. All it'll take to start a trend is one developer brave enough to successfully tackle a full-on dinosaur game. And with all the potential these beasts offer us, I can't even imagine it being such a hard task, especially in the right hands. 

Perhaps the forthcoming release of Jurassic Park 4 (or Jurassic World as it is now presumed to be known) might get the train rolling and spark a few ideas in some clever developer's heads. Perhaps the rough ride endured by Resident Evil recently could inspire Capcom to reboot their once world-beating Dino Crisis brand. Whether these sort of things will happen remains to be seen but I, for one, will live in hope of the return of the dinosaurs.