Love this game

Let's get something straight from the beginning. Resident Evil players are a different breed. They are in love with the third person view. Why? Having someone beating you up first person is not the same as having to protect a character you have grown attached to. There is a sense of responsibility and a dread of having to lose your character to the "jaws" of fate. Point two; RE is more exciting because in Doom you are able to peek around corners and prepare yourself for any battles. In Dino Crisis you are more in suspense, not knowing what is around the bend. In RE you are not shooting up monsters around every bend, neither is the case with Dino Crisis. RE players love the adventure of exploring and solving puzzles combined with a great story line. I have played Doom and Doom clones and know one can become a hardened player, so much that nothing surprises you, and that survival actually becomes a "game" and nothing more. Don't get me wrong! I loved Star Trek Elite Force, but though it was exciting, that unique fear factor found in RE type games was not there. That being said, let us move on to our review.

GRAPHICS: No matter how much I tried my system would not go beyond 640x480 resolution. I did however find that the F7 key smoothed out graphics considerably, though I saw nothing in the manual about it. The characters at this resolution naturally were a bit blocky, but looked good for this resolution setting. Depending on your system the graphics should not disappoint. The color department is typically RE; colors do not come out and shout at you, giving you that "actually there" gloominess that Resident Evil games are known for. Good work, Capcom. Although there were some scenes where motion looked choppy, they were few and far between. You must bear in mind that I played this game with a laptop; 15" screen, 750 Pentium III, 4200 RPM hard drive, and something some do not divulge in their opinion ratings; my ATI RAGE PRO only has 8 MB Video Ram. I have 256 MB of regular RAM. You should AT LEAST have a system as good as mine for this game.

GAME PLAY: Since I played on "easy" I had an over abundance of ammo, not like some who complain of not having enough. A true RE player knows when to avoid danger, not confront it continually. I actually had to store ammo in some of the rooms, having too much to carry. Perhaps some believe the ammo boxes are like the storage chests in RE, that wherever you go, each storage chest holds the same items; not true in Dino Crisis; each ammo box on the wall holds it's own items. Not realizing this, some people may complain of ammo shortages and not seek previous boxes for extra ammo.
Some woman hungry Dinos croaked after only four shots. I am sure the "normal" setting will be different, as it took as much as 8 shots to kill the same Dinosaur. (Whew! Do you think that Dino suar us?). Anyway, Only after reaching the heliport did I have to watch my ammo reserves very carefully. Frankly I thought I had played through the length of the game, and would have been happy the game was over...but things were just getting started; the Dinos became harder to put down.
I must confess I still jumped at some of the unexpected action, although I was not on a constant killing spree. I do admit in some areas game play grew a bit dull, having to back track when necessary and in the area of solving puzzles. There are some great tips on the internet if you find your puzzle impossible. Using a Gravis Gamepro USB pad with this game was really cool, reminding me of the good old days of playing RE on my Playstation, as the feel and look of the controllers is practically identical. One more thing: I could not find any indicator on how damaged my character was...one moment she looked fine...the next moment she became Dino-fodder after a sound thrashing, caught between the Dino's jaws. Reminded me of someone slinging around a dish rag...for what seemed an eternity... Small children should turn away...HEY! IT WASN"T FUNNY TO ME AT THE TIME... OKAY???

SOUND: Those who complain of no sounds of footsteps, etc have probably forgotten to install the feature DURING installation; all sound features should be enabled with a check mark BEFORE installing is complete. I heard footsteps, gunshots, dinos walking, etc with no problems. The sound quality of gunshots may seem bad to those used to other games, but to RE lovers the sounds are basically the same; no better yet no worse. The music was of good quality and suspenseful, only a few pieces did not quite measure up to RE standards.

In short, RE lovers will not regret buying this game, but I would not advise buying from CAPCOM; other internet sites can give better deals.

Do not read the following if you want to spend weeks solving puzzles....read at your own risk, although I do not think my tips will be enough to spoil the game for you, especially if you hate spending an hour (or a day) just to solve a puzzle.

SOME LIGHT TIPS:
Read all employee "notes" you find during this game; otherwise you will not find key codes and instructions essential to solving puzzles. Write down important info.

The color order of levers are in the same order the battery cylinders should be arranged in. Without these few tips the odds of solving a puzzle are one in as much as 10,000.

Sometimes you must stand on your head to let the knowledge seep in...hee hee...

The moving of boxes before you can get to the heliport is one great puzzle I will leave to you. I had to sleep on it, but it can be done by moving the boxes a certain way. Remember: if you mess up, exiting and re-entering this area causes the box positions to reset so you don't have to reload the game in order to start over, just like in former RE games....Good Luck, and watch out for the Meat-o-sauruses...there ARE NO friendly Veggi-sauruses.
What do you think this is... Jurrassic Park???