Dino Crisis 2: Natural Selection According to Capcom!

So, when the disturbing images of bloody flesh and sharp jaws with the advertising tagline “You are food” began to flood video game magazines, we all understood that Capcom was going to do something big: Dino Crisis immediately became a must-have, with that successful mix of action and exploration, in effect a “Resident Evil with dinosaurs”, reductive but effective.

Correva l’anno 2000, sull’onda del successo forse anche un po’ inaspettato del predecessore, Capcom published the official sequel, Dino Crisis 2. The premises for another great success were all there: practically the same development team and her, the protagonist, the unforgettable Regina, who for the first time put at the center of the stage a heroine with curves (today body-shaming is rightly crucified in the cafeteria, but twenty years ago things were not much different, know that) and many, many dinosaurs hungry for human flesh, ours. Alongside her another playable character, a certain Dylan, who was in fact never meant to steal the spotlight from our favorite redhead (and how could he have done so?).

From the outset, the pre-rendered backgrounds stand out, the very ones that had caused such a stir with Resident Evil and the iconic mansion to explore through many indoor areas rendered perfectly by the graphic engine available. In Dino Crisis 2, Capcom makes a leap in quality and it shows, and how: the 3D environments are among the most beautiful things you could see in those years, all the more so knowing that the machine in question would soon give way to its hyper-technological and much-anticipated daughter, the PlayStation 2, destined for greatness even before seeing the light of day.

Regina proves herself to be a character up to the level of the various Lara Croft, Jill Valentine and Mai Shiranui (always at the top, my favorite) who were all the rage in a tumultuous video game landscape, and anyone who catches the reference wins a sharp chakra: the tension you feel wandering through the base’s corridors, or in the outdoor sections of the game’s treacherous island setting, is incredible. Every dark corner may hide a Jurassic predator ready to skin us alive, a feeling that is perhaps slightly lessened compared to the first chapter; nevertheless, Dino Crisis 2 does its dirty work splendidly, both in terms of fun and in conveying those adrenaline-fueled atmospheres that its cinematic inspiration source only hints at, in a few well-chosen sequences.

Che Dino Crisis drew inspiration from Jurassic Park, Crichton's novel turned into a hit film thanks to that buccaneer of the silver screen named Spielberg, is well known: but where the film stops, in fact giving up the distinctly horror vibes that the novel instead illustrated, even explicitly, Dino Crisis and especially the sequel step on the accelerator in this regard, giving us epic gore sequences and a legion of dinosaurs whose only goal in their rebirth in modern times is to use Regina and Dylan as dental floss.

Will we allow it? Well, no. The weapons available to our two avatars are varied and you can equip two of them, one primary and the other secondary, like the famous electric baton wielded by Regina, who never backs down when it’s time to throw punches. Making your way through with a pump shotgun or unleashing deadly rain thanks to the dual machine guns still gave me satisfaction even now, replaying it after twenty-four whole years! My only regret is that, in fact, Regina’s story remains unfinished to this day, because the third official chapter of the series was set in a far-off science-fiction future removed from Regina and her team, inexplicably I would say.

But who knows, maybe someone will fish the franchise back up from the depths of time and give us a new adventure!

E no, the raptors in Dino Crisis 2 haven't learned to open doors, fortunately for us.

O sì? :)