Once Upon a Time

Dino Crisis, when dinosaurs defeated zombies

Name: Dino Crisis, when dinosaurs defeated zombies
Item: Dino Crisis
Rating: 8
Author: Simon Larocca

by Simon LaroccaMay 11, 2025

I can still hear it, even after all these years. Its menacing breathing, while I was searching for clues in the role of Regina, the one who had stolen my teenage gamer heart in those golden years (sorry Lara, I can explain and it’s not what you think). The Tyrannosaurus Rex made its legendary appearance in Dino Crisis in the most traumatic and spectacular way possible, making me jump out of my seat and throw the controller into the air.

Non was only the beginning of something great, too simplistically dubbed Resident Evil with dinosaurs: Capcom intended to launch a saga that would depart from the heart-pounding atmosphere of urban survival, but which at the same time would evoke Shinji Mikami’s most famous work to ride its success.

Così, in 1999, Dino Crisis was released for PlayStation and brought Regina into video game history, an iconic heroine with soft curves and lethality equal to that of a T-800. I remember that in those post-Jurassic Park years, the inclusion of at least one dinosaur in many console and PC titles had become a kind of unwritten law, a tribute to Crichton’s literary masterpiece made even more famous by Steven Spielberg’s film: from Tomb Raider to Turok, Regina’s quintessential enemies could be found just about everywhere; however, the version created by Mikami was very different from everything else seen up to that point. You could forget the playful atmosphere of Cadillac and Dinosaurs, in short.

Leveraging the worldwide success of Resident Evil and its horror universe, Mikami devised a solid adventure story, capable of blending unbridled action sequences with sections filled with riddles and puzzles of various kinds: from simple “pick up the key and find the right door” challenges to complex riddles whose solution justified the presence of gray matter in players. I remind you that back then you could rely almost exclusively on industry magazines for tips and solutions, unless you owned the Holy Grail of the PlayStation world, the famous Action Replay cheat code unlocker, which served up on a silver platter much of the solutions you were looking for (and often took away a large part of the fun: someone had to say it).

The plot woven by Capcom leads us to a remote island, more precisely to a state-of-the-art laboratory where experiments were being conducted that had to do with space-time and various other oddities: Regina’s team is sent to the site to check on the condition of the scientists and staff present, since they have had no further news from the base set up in the middle of the deep jungle.

You already know where this is going, right?

Incidenti non previsti, scoperte rivoluzionarie e creature di un lontano passato che ottengono una seconda occasione per trasformare tutti noi in succulento, saporito, appetitoso… cibo.

Adopting an almost perfect direction that plays on the sense of danger evoked by the base's long corridors, made even darker thanks to the light/shadow dichotomy and a cinematic handling of the cameras, Mikami lets us fall into a waking nightmare where there are no hordes of zombies ready to snatch us in claustrophobic environments, but rather packs of furious and hungry dinosaurs that do not intend to let go of their prey until they have tasted their flesh.

L’approach of the player, in the end, must be oriented toward not seeking at all costs a confrontation with the beasts of the past, despite the satisfaction felt by emptying the magazines of Regina’s futuristic weapons into the scaly bodies of dinosaurs!

Graphically, Dino Crisis earns its keep without shame but without too much praise either: polygons ruled supreme in those years and it certainly couldn’t be called a miracle.

But the game’s strengths still remain today, in a historical gaming moment where there is a lack of a title that delivers thrills and goosebumps around every explored corner, with the constant feeling that you are not the amusement park bully, but just the next meal for predators far, far more dangerous than human beings.

Pro

A Resident Evil alternative capable of instilling pure terror, balancing action and exploration within classic gameplay that does not distort the adventure genre

There are dinosaurs! There’s the Tyrannosaurus Rex! There are many places to hide and lots of weapons to take them out! There’s Regina.

Frantic shooting sections that counterbalance the moments devoted to puzzles, where the pace drops sharply

Contro

A science-fiction plot that is by itself “nothing new,” adding nothing new and including some clichés that are honestly avoidable

Complete

48,14 €

New

103,50 €

Graded

161,11 €

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Simon Larocca

My name is Simon Larocca, and I am a gamer, collector, and lover of pop culture in all its forms. I go to the cinema whenever I can, I have been reading since I started wearing glasses, so, basically forever, and I have a passion for storytelling in all its forms, so powerful that it became my profession. But as Doc from Ritorno al Futuro would say, there would be no present if one did not look at the past with respect and admiration, and it is the Simon child of more than thirty years ago, give or take a year, who is to thank for that.

Simon Larocca

Dino Crisis, when dinosaurs defeated zombies

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