Gaming Target - Xbox: Dino Crisis 3

Written by Nick Doukas on August 21, 2003

First Impressions: They're moving in herds. They do move in herdsЕ

I love survival horror, and I love Capcom. I'll never forget my friend Brian showing me an EGM with a huge story on the upcoming Resident Evil. Brian already owned a Playstation, while I was being a bit more pragmatic at the time, preferring PC gaming after the Genesis/SNES era dwindled away. I'd been playing titles like Ecstatica, Bio-Forge, and Dark Forces, so I was completely enamored with 3rd person action and FPS, the days of 2D sprites rapidly fading into videogame history as far as I was concerned. Surely no console could possibly produce that kind of gaming experience! Well, as soon as I saw the pictures and read the piece I was off to the store for a PSX. Within a week or so I was engrossed in a milestone game that really represented a turning point in the industry. I'll never forget the feeling of playing the first RE, the feeling that you were involved in some great adventure, so immersing and realistic, that you actually felt afraid to play late at night with the lights off (but most certainly did anyway). Capcom struck again in 1999 with Dino Crisis, a twist on the survival horror formula that landed you on an island full of T- Rex's and Velociraptors, which of course led to the inevitable fighting for your life with kick-ass weapons scenario. A year later Dino Crisis 2, the superb sequel, surfaced to rave reviews, and now Capcom is hard at work developing Dino Crisis 3, and lo and beholdЕ..it's Xbox exclusive boys and girls.

As DC 3 opens, a 6-mile long Earth research vessel, the Ozymandius, has returned to our orbit after a mysterious 300-year absence. The year is 2548, and you'll play as Patrick, the leader of a Special-Ops force that's sent to explore the ship and obtain information regarding the disappearance. As Patrick and his team board, they discover that the entire crew has vanished, and the tremendous craft is overrun with vicious dinosaurs. This is a huge departure from the first two installments of the game, both in setting and play style. While DC 3 remains a 3rd person adventure game, the addition of a jetpack to Patrick's stable of tools creates the potential for dizzying air and ground combat. The Ozymandius is tremendous, with incredibly long, twisting corridors and cavernous rooms several stories high, which sets the stage for some truly amazing scenarios. Imagine fighting a pack of Raptors chasing you down one of the endless hallways, or battling a T-Rex in one of the monster cargo holds.

Besides the jetpack, Patrick will have the use of numerous weapons, and access to an armament called Wasps. You'll be able to send the Wasps after a target, and they'll hunt it down, surround and destroy it. Each Wasp has a different application: some will only be useful in close quarters combat, while others will have much greater range, and can be sent ahead to scout and destroy any threats that are lurking about. Your default weapon can be discharged in rapid fire mode by tapping the X button, while holding X will result in a charged blast. The jetpack will allow you to boost high into the air with the B button, while squeezing the Right trigger let's you glide, strafe, and move forwards and backwards. You'll be able to upgrade at save points scattered throughout the phantom ship, and use points earned from your dinosaur kills to obtain new weapons and equipment as you explore your surroundings.

Speaking of your surroundings, DC 3 is being built from the ground up for the Xbox, and it shows. The ship interiors look stunning, as do the character models of Patrick and the dinosaurs. Beautiful lighting and texture mapping bathe the rooms and corridors with stunning realism, and weapons fire and other environmental effects look positively gorgeous. Little details like volumetric lighting and reflections in the floors and walls add polish to an already great looking game, and DC 3 looks to be a true graphical showcase for your system when it releases. The game should run in 480P (perhaps if we're lucky, 720P) so HDTV owners will get the added benefit of Progressive Scan mode, which will surely send the visuals into overdrive. Audio is presented in 5.1 Dolby Digital, and the added tension from the eerie sounds that permeate the ghost ship will help to fully sell the experience, and further immerse gamers in the task at hand (think Event Horizon with dinosaurs).

Rather than go with standard adventure game puzzle solving, Capcom ups the ante with a truly unique idea: The entire ship is actually one big puzzle, and accessing certain areas and performing certain tasks will completely change the architecture of the vessel. Some rooms will become closed off, floors may be rearranged, and areas that were unattainable earlier will now allow you to enter. Eventually, the Ozymandius will be reduced to a shadow of it's former self, as the mission becomes critical, and time grows drastically short. Dino Crisis 3 already looks like a major winner, and with the talent at Capcom behind it, not to mention the power of Microsoft's hardware to work with, the game looks to be a truly proud addition to the Xbox library.