Escape the Museum and Jurassic: The Hunted.

Ever since gaming got mainstream, the hardcore have complained that games have been ruined. More people now play hidden object games or social games through facebook than those really good games about big marines shooting aliens. Gaming proper is officially dead. Long live gaming.

Except when your hidden object game has dinosaurs in it! In which case, screw hardcore gaming we didn't like it anyway and step up Escape the Museum for the PC and now for the Wii!

We haven't played it yet because it is still £14.99 and we'll wait until it drops to around £5. We have to be careful though because once games go to £5 they next just dissappear from the internet and you have to go looking in dirty pawn shops and antique shows in order to find them again.

SURPISE DINOSAUR GAME! Also expect to see Jurassic: The Hunted in stores soon for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Wii. It looks like next gen finally got on the dinosaur train. And we haven't been this happy for SEGA. It is a shame that Activision didn't get Flash Bang's memo about feathers though :( A possible step backwards for dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures in games.

Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise- Xbox 360

I am painfully aware that there should be an accent somewhere over one of those letters up there in the post title. I apologise but it doesn't matter anyway because SHOCK HORROR do we have a drop in standards by covering this game?

Very early on, I made it clear what exactly constituted a dinosaur and/or prehistoric creature and hence what kinds of things I would and wouldn't be covering. So for example, Yoshi would not count as a dinosaur but Rampardos would. Where is the rationale you might ask? Well it's my blog and I'll do what I want. Plus those Pinatas are so adorable I just had to include Choclodocus even though I imagine it won't exactly flourish in the following analysis:

Dinosauriness: Well a Choclodocus (should I italicize it? yes, yes I should) can take many forms, shall we say 'taking inspiration' from such dinosaurs as Ankylosaurus, Stegosaurus, Triceratops and some kind of Sauropod.

Scientific Accuracy: Well it does look very cute. Look at his liddle face. I don't think we need to ruin the atmosphere by going on and on about scientific accuracy. Do you?

Buzz Bonus: I was rooting around the internet and came across the following coded message "Place the skull, ribs, spine, and amber gem into a store house. Eventually they will fuse into a Choclodocus egg. This egg can be hatched by a Cluckles wearing a Jurassic Hair accessory". Presumably that means something to somebody but alas that person isn't me.

How to get dinosaurs into your game

Boy! Playing all these dinosaur games for this site is tricky. Especially when your dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures don't appear until right at the end! Syberia I'm talking about you. So today I'm gonna be taking a different tactic so that this site isn't months and months between updates.

The inaugural post in this series is how to gets them Dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures into your games. Are you making a game right now? Trying to find an angle to get some of them extinct beauts in? Then you've come to the right place.

Clone 'em in! Largely inspired by Jurassic Park many games including the JP games use artistic licence with current scientific cloning knowledge to justify them dinos. Just dig up some fossils, umm clone them, voila. Ici est un dino!
Scientific Accuracy: Way off. Way way off. Like, seriously. Way. Off. Cloning technology for animals that still exist struggles to get it right. Cloning animals when we have some of their DNA is still completely unsuccessful e.g Thylacine, Mammoths. Cloning animals when their DNA has never been found is, as I type, pure science fiction.
As seen in: All the Jurassic Park games and Killer Instinct.

Reconstruct them in! Only slightly different from the above method in that cloning isn't explicitly mentioned. It normally involves some mysterious process off screen. Excavate a fossil pop it into a machine at a lab and hey presto! You've got your dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures. Just don't ask us how we did it. Its science and stuff.
Scientific Accuracy: Since the process is not available for us to assess it is impossible to comment other than to say hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm really?
As seen in: Tekken, Small Arms, Pokemon, Dino Master.

They were hiding all the time! You just weren't looking properly. Lost Valleys, remote islands and inhabitable climates are the staple hiding place for most dinosaurs and other extinct species. But be warned! It makes a little bit more sense if your dinosaurs are in an ecosystem that could actually support them. The dinosaurs in Tomb Raider are all obligate carnivores and in Tomb Raider 2 generations of Tyrannosaurus rex seem to have survived and propagated for millions of years in a giant, featureless pit. It a make a no sense!
Scientific accuracy: This method of getting dinosaurs into your game is probably the least offensive to scientific reason and many modern day 'sightings' of dinosaurs and dinosaur myths seem to centre around remote unexplored regions.
As seen in: Peter Jackson's King Kong the Official Game of the Movie, Syberia, Tomb Raider.


Have a Museum!This is where most people see dinosaur and other prehistoric creature remains and many games have museums packed with skeletons of prehistoric creatures. More often than not though the beautiful skeletons are destructible playgrounds :( Also, this means that your dinosaurs have to be pretty static unless you go for a Night at the Museum thang.
Scientific Accuracy: As long as your fossils aren't coming alive at night due to an ancient Egyptian artifact or zombie curse and all the bones are in the right places you're alright by me.
As seen in: Animal Crossing, GTA IV, Stranglehold, Evil Dead Fistful of Boomstick, Siphon Filter.

Time travel/Bending! Can't find a way to bring the dinosaurs to your characters? Then bring the characters to the dinosaurs. Crazy scientists can be working on a time travel device when it goes wrong, time travel technology just inexplicably exists or you can always invoke an anomaly. Choose your method just don't expect a physicist to endorse your product.
Scientific Accuracy: See cloning.
As seen in: Dino Crises, Fossil League, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, Paraworld.

Just don't explain at all why they are there Hey! It's your game. Do what you want. Most games would be very boring indeed if we stayed within the realms of what is possible in real life. Alternatively, you can go for a mixed message like Dino King which just seems to be very confused as to how the dinosaurs get there. Something about some stones and a meteorite? It doesn't matter.
Scientific accuracy: Nothing is impossible! It's just that most things are improbable.
As seen in: Dino King, DoA 4.

They're just there okay! It's not important how they got there but they are here! That's all that counts. So have fun.
Scientific Accuracy: In a time before Wikipedia things could just be the way they are without an army of people constructing possible causation theories. It's fiction for god's sake!
As seen in: Off Road Velociraptor Safari, Doritos Dash of Destruction, 101 Dino Pets, Deathtrap Dungeon, Timesplitters.

Its all about the timing. Conscious about offending your palaeontologist friends? Unwilling to contravene science with time travel or over ambitious cloning projects? Then simple. Just set your whole game in the world of the dinosaurs and/or prehistoric creatures. That's allowed. But it does mean that you can't have any human protagonists but often I find them overrated anywho.
Scientific Accuracy: As long as your environments are good palaeo environments and there are no anachronistic blunders your game will be good until a new scientific discovery goes and ruins it all.
As seen in: Sea Monsters: A prehistoric adventure, Jurassic Realm, Ice Age, Dinosaur!

In the wind.. Fossil Fighters, Ice Age 3 and Go Diego Go! Great Dinosaur Rescue

Oh what a surprise! A DS based Pokemon rip-off where collecting fossils, cleaning them, reviving them and then battling with them is the order of the day.

This does make a refreshing change (See also Dino Master and Fossil League: Dino Tournament Championship).

I'm going to resist the temptation to review it from prerelease videos and screenshots although we all know it's going to be so-so. And the dinosaurs are all made up :(

Ice Age 3 plods onto every console going as did the first two games of the films. Expect generic platforming. It's hard to get excited about these when the previous ones were playable but mediocre. It's even harder just contemplating the wedging the dinosaurs into the Ice Age format. Still final judgement to be reserved after I play through all fourteen versions.

Go Diego Go! Great Dinosaur Rescue. Firstly why are the not so great dinosaurs not worth rescuing? And also...just no. Just no. I'll be honest, the to do list just got a new last place with this game.

Tot ziens!

Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie-Almost every platform

Widely (and rightly) ridiculed for it's ridiculous name, this game was released on a shed load of platforms. Some of them were surprisingly good considering the film tie in (PS2) and some were pretty bad (GBAand the DS version ). Either way dinosaurs were a feature of the films and games and they are a delight in this title. Fans of dinosaurs in games should endeavour to pick this title up (on the consoles) as rarely have nicer dinosaurs been seen on the little screen.

Dinosauriness: A number of dinosaurs with very silly names. Quite why the silly names I'm not too sure. Perhaps it is so that know-it-all palaeontologists can't later poo poo some of the made up dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures as they are want to do. Perhaps there has been some crazy isolated insular evolution going on on Skull Island which led to the total loss of feathers. And silly names. Anyway there's some sauropod ones, theropod ones, some hadrosaurs, some permian mammal-alikes, ancient giant crocodiles, some pterosaurs and the very silly named Vastatosaurus rex.

Scientific Accuracy: I quite like the idea of making up some dinosaurs rather than lazily skimming described species. This gives you a lot of artistic freedom and a way to ignore the palaeontologists who go to cinemas and concentrate on biodynamics and scale rather than the action/drama etc. I'm giving it a 5/10 but only because it could be a 0/10 (they are all made up) or a 10/10 (they made them up so how can it be inaccurate?).

Buzz Bonus: All dinosaur fans should play this game. It has some nice settings some cool set pieces and spear throwing. Who doesn't love themselves some spear throwing?

Tekken 2, Tekken Tag Tournament-Arcade/PlayStation, PlayStation 2

Like or hate Tekken, Alex is in Tekken 2 and Tekken Tag Tournament. Alex is a dinosaur (albeit a dinosaur cloney job [as they so often are]). Alex is a weird name for a dinosaur fighter guy. Apparently he was created by Doctor Boskonovitch and learned how to wrestle from Armo(u)r King. He currently resides in Australia.

Dinosauriness: Hard to judge really. Alex was created by extracting 'something' from a fossil tentatively from the dromaeosauridae family. Judging from the state of him this is probably correct.

Scientific Accuracy: Well. The usual extraction from fossils, no feathers etc. etc. caveats. All in all 4, no 3 out of 10 for accuracy. Maybe that's too generous. 2? 1? It's hard to say. Make your own mind up.

Buzz Bonus: Alex was in the Tekken animated film. Although it wasn't Alex. They were called Rex. Under no circumstances watch the animated film. It is bad. No. Awful. Word.

The to do list

So little time. So much to do! Here is the to do list in case you were wondering WHY THE HELL I HADN'T GOT ROUND TO LOOKING AT Land Before Time: Into the Mysterious Beyond Yet.

Playing all these through takes time peeps! And some of them are shovelware to the max.

Batman Lego, BUZZ! JUNIOR DINO DEN, Carnivores, Carnivores 2, Carnivore Ice Age, Carnivores Cityscape, Combat of giants: Dinosaurs, Dino Hunter, Dino Land, Dinotopia: The Sunstone Odyssey, Dino Stalker, Dinosaur park, Disney's Dinosaur x 3, DoA 4, Dinosaur World, Evil Dead Fistful of Boomstick, Fossil League Dino Tournament Championship, Ice Age, Ice Age 2, Jurassic Park, Jurassic Park Trespasser, Jurassic Park Dino Defender, The Land Before Time: Into The Mysterious Beyond, Lost World: Jurassic Park, Peter Jackson's King Kong the Official Game Of The Movie, Siphon Filter, Splashdown 2, Syberia, Syberia II, Tekken 2, Tekken 5, Tekken Tag Tournament, Tomb Raider 3, Tomb Raider 10th Anniversary Edition, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, Turok Evolution, Turok (Xbox 360), Turok Rage Wars, Turok 2 Seeds of Evil, Warcraft III, War of the monsters and Zoo Tycoon: Dinosaur digs.

There's more out there, I know it. Apologies peeps.

Small Arms- Xbox 360

Small arms is a poor man's (and suitably cheaper) Super Smash Brothers. The idea is to jump around and beat the other guys but without all the tech. The characters are cutesy and a little more-than-a-little-bit Fur fighters. It's available on Xbox Live Arcade which means that a gazillion people played it for two days before going onto the next PlayStation-era-esque throw away.

Regardless of the merits of Xbox Live arcade, Tyrone, one of the characters in small arms is a dinosaur!



Dinosauriness: Some kind of genericy raptor jobby.

Scientific Accuracy: He was created in a science research facility, a la Riptor from Killer Instinct so it may be possible that he doesn't have feathers, is ludicrously coloured and carries and ice ray thing to fight a mouse, a chicken and a small ninja woman. Overall 7/10.

Buzz bonus: Tyrone falls very close to the line of being a not real dinosaur (like Yoshi or godzilla and therefore not eligible to be covered here) but he has such a nice little face. Look at his face. Lovely.

Dino King-DS

At first glance, Dino King from Sega on the DS appears to fall into the same trappings as Fossil Torunament and the battling sections of Dino Master for the same platform. That is trying to be Pokemon but failing in terms of execution, depth, playability and a lot of thought and some nice extra touches.

Fossil tournament fails purely because even until late in the game, moves consistently miss so even in battles where levels and numbers mean the odds are vastly stacked in the player's favour it is still possible to lose because you just can't hit the oponent for no clear reason. The battling sections in Dino Master (largely an after thought and completely uneccessary considering the Qix and collect section of the game is so addictive) fail because combat is a little too random. On top of mechanics, neither of these games serve up a good storyline and the niche appeal of these titles means you can scour the earth and the internet and you'll never find someone to fight against over wi-fi or DS to DS play.

So it was with some trepedation that Dino King went into the DS. After a couple of hours of play though it appears to actually be quite engaging. The top down view is completely stolen from pokemon and the gameboy link games and the storyline won't be winning any awards anytime soon (the game literally starts off with a device for bringing dinosaurs back to life being invented and two seconds later stolen by the bad guys).

Instead of complex movesets a la Pokemon or the random attacks of Dino Master, combat is actually paper, scissors, stone. This image on the back of the box put me off buying this title simply because I still have Fossil Tournament to beat and I didn't fancy more random battling from start to finish. However, what appears to be a very simple way of deciding combat is actually more complex and all the more engaging for it. Firstly different species of dinosaurs have different critical moves so my Triceratops has a critical move on scissors. But rather than simply guessing your attack, enemies give off clues as to which moves they will be using. This starts off simple enemies telling you: "I'm going to go for my critical attack" to which the correct response would be to look at the enemy critical sign e.g. paper and choose scissors. Later on in the game, characters give you more complex cues like "Critical moves are a no no" meaning they won't use their critical move (e.g. Rock) so you have to choose one of the remaining symbols that beats the other remaining symbol (in this case scissors would be the correct choice).

Maybe it doesn't sound so great but after numerous battles your head starts to overthink the moves and you end up making some silly mistakes but this beats totally random battles or battles that would otherwise be too easy. The moves look good and are animated in 3D and unlike Fossil Tournament the moves aren't exactly copied (names and all; tail swipe, bite etc.) from pokemon red/blue. A black mark on scientific accuracy though as some moves make the dinosaurs perform physics defying, back breaking moves. One move, 'boomerang attack', sees the dinosaur jump into the air, tuck it's tail under it's chin and do a spin attack. From the opening FMV it looks like fire breathing may feature down the line too :(

As is standard for DS dinosaur games the collect 'em up part involves collecting and excavating fossils. This is done by using a radar and a drill and although isn't quite as fun as the cave excavation in Pokemon it's okay. You then have to clean the fossils in order to be able to turn them into cards, to summon, to use in battles. The cleaning section seems broken as your pick (the stylus) seems to break well before you could ever completely expose a fossil but you get the dinosaur anyway. Maybe I'm missing something though.

It'll be interesting to see how Combat of Giants (see yesterday's post for the trailer) compares but until then Dino King is a good title with an unusual amount of effort put in, considering it could have been a very shallow agme. I'm only two hours in but I'll post up more details when I have em.

Dinosauriness: Over 70 dinosaur species according to the back of the box but the species list seems to be quite comprehensive, somewhere between Fossil Tournament and the impressive Dino Master in terms of taxonomic coverage. Tyrannosaurs rex makes an early appearence as the nemesis and Triceratops or Ceratosaurus? are the squirtle and bulbasaur you have to choose from at the start. The first level (Euro Town) has such dinosaurs as Dacenturus, Gorgosaurus, Iguanaodon, Irritator and Wuerhosaurus . So it's clear we're not just dealing with the Hollywood stars.

Scientific Accuracy: The usual bringing dinosaurs back problems as well as biodynamically impossible moves and stratigraphically puzzling sequences are all correct and present. There appears to be some minor scale inaccuracies too. No feathers either but hey that's pretty much every dinosaur game right?

Buzz Bonus: The receptionist or assistant at the D-site is called Minmi which is a cool name for a person and used to be the shortest dinosaur genus until Mei was named.

Super Smash Brothers Brawl-Wii

It did get a mention a while back but SSBB does have something of the dinosaur about it. On the Pokemon Stadium 2 level you can find fossils of Kabutops and Omastar. You want proof? Okay.

Here is the Kabutops fossil complete with palaeontological tools and field map.

Here is the spiral shell of an Omastar awaiting excavation.
Tricky the Triceratops from Starfox Adventures also features as one of the trophies.

Dinosauriness: Ammonites, Trilobites and a Triceratops.

Scientific Accuracy: In a universe where plumbers fight pink blobs who can swallow other people ummmmm? 2/10?

Buzz Bonus: The trophy Diorama mode in SSBB is simply brilliant. That is a truth.

Off Road Velociraptor Safari- PC

Velociraptor Safari from Flashbang studios is yet another great and free dinosaur game. Play it in your browser now you crazy boyos.

The aim of the game is to drive around in a jeep as a monocled Velociraptor and using ramps, speed boosts and a genius spiked ball that comes out the back of your jeep you need to take down some wild Velociraptors, with panache and style. Although it looks simple it can be tricksy but judging from the highest scores you can get a knack from running down your feathered kin.

Dinosauriness: Velociraptor galor, a Triceratops skull sits in the back of your jeep and an unidentified pterosaur flies around in the sky.

Scientific accuracy: Major kudos to the inclusion of feathers (which some gamers questioned). 8.5/10.

Buzz Bonus: The achievements are truly great. This whole game shows more polish and attention to detail than many other current releases. Sad really :(

Doritos Dash of Destruction- Xbox, Xbox 360

Is now free to download on Xbox live. Despite being a free game and one that is corporate sponsored it is probably one of the best single screen co-op games in the world. Much better than the new Battlefront:Lord of the Rings edition by a long shot.

The premise of the game, if that is the right phrase, is that you have to deliver doritos around town but a number of Tyrannosaurus rex and other delivery drivers try to stop you. Pretty straight forward really but very very playable. In multuiplayer if you get stomped by a T.rex you then become a T.rex. First to 20 odd number of deliveries is the winner!

Now for the breakdown.

Dinosauriness: Just T.rex yet again. But it comes in a range of neon colours which some consider a measure of awesomeness.

Scientific Accuracy: No feathers, unlikely colours but scale is okay. Umm 4/10 for this one.

Buzz Bonus: This game is allegedly the easiest XBLA game to earn all the achievments for so now you have four reasons to get hold of it*

*Because it is great. Because it is free. Because you can get easy cheevos and because it has dinosaurs in it.

Happy 2009!

Happy new year all. It's 2009, year of the dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures in games. That may not be true but there is plenty of dinosauriness in games stuff going on. First up, a game that slipped under my radar is Combat of Giants: Dinosaurs, a DS game you won't find in stores because it doesn't have a 'z' on the end. Here's the trailer:



Which I think you'll agree looks kind of cool. The problem is that it is probably yet another wannabe pokemon game. Along with Dino Master, Dino King and Fossil Tournament, both extensions of dig/catch, train and battle games these games suffer from trying to be Pokemon but despite the richer (and realer) source material they often lack the depth and playability of the pokemon games. However, I'll reserve final judgement for when I've played what looks to be the best dinosaur game on the DS so far.

Google Lively-RIP

You may have heard that google recently shut down it's Google Lively service, google's own virtual world. I was ambivelant about the news, having not heard about it until it was shut down. But then, dear reader I saw this screenie in one of the articles.

Yep! Dinosaurs. Upon this discovery I became sad. It's always sad when a dinosaurs in games brother passes on to the other side, let us take a minute to think in silence before the inevitable analysis.













Dinosauriness: Well from this single screenshot it looks like we have (had) yet another Tyrannosaurus rex. Still, even a Hollywood lost brother is a lost brother.

Scientific Accuracy: What accuracy Lively gained from not having to bother with feathers it lost from having an animated skeleton. You would be hard pressed to move that hulk around without any connective tissue or muscle. Still it looked cool so 8.5/10.

Buzz bonus: Google lively, others may not mourn your loss but here we salute your dedication to make games and virtual worlds 1000000% better through the inclusion of dinosaurs. May nobody say a bad word about you without the caveat "but they did include some KICK ASS dinosaurs". RIP.

Dinoworld-PC

Way back when Walking with Dinosaurs came out, the beeb put up a neat little "game" downloadable here. Although basic and very dated now it still offers some surprising enjoyment, some mission based play and even the chance to create your own herd of dinosaurs!

The game/edutainment software starts out with our protagonist mysteriously transported back to the Jurassic. There's very little exposition (you are sometimes treated as a human, sometimes as a disembodied camera) but it's best kept ambiguous in my opinion. You can then explore a number of environments (salt lake, forest, desert) and discover some facts about dinosaurs and other animals as well as observing them milling around and doing their thang.

Surprisingly there is a little bit of progression through the 'game' and you have see and discover certain things (an Allosaurus eating a meal or large dragonflies) in order to unlock the next event culminating in you hitching a ride on a pterosaur to a secret area. In this new secret area you can use a couple of simple keystrokes to spawn your own herd of Diplodocus or Allosaurus or both!

The program is entirely free and runs quite smoothly and definitely worth a try, you could even set it up to be some kind of persistant screensaver when you are away from your desk as all the animals continue to potter around even if you aren't there to see them do so.

Dinosauriness: A smattering of prehistoric critters are here. Allosaurus, Diplodocus, Stegosaurus and a pterosaur (the ID escapes me know) all populate the environs.

Scientific Accuracy: Nothing obviously wrong the environments don't exactly blend together realistically but whatcha gonna do about it. Of course no feathers but this was made almost 6 years ago now.

Buzz Bonus: Climb to a high ledge and hitch a ride on a pterosaur to the secret salt plain where you can spawn as many dinosaurs as you want until your computer crashes. CONFESSION TIME! I spent hours spawning sauropods and theropods trying to arrange two armies to fight against each other. Unfortunately, the AI isn't up to enacting my grand plans so half the dinos would potter around oblvious to the threat whilst the Allosaurus queued up to get beaten to death by a single Diplodocus. Oh well, you win some, you lose some...

Endless Ocean- Wii

Even Endless Ocean can't stray from the glory that is dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures in their games. Endless Ocean is awesome. You should buy it.


Dinosauriness: One can find some splendid vertebrate fossils in the Abyss, including this plesiosaur above and if you look hard enough you can find a lovely Anomalocaris fossil!

Scientific Accuracy: Aside from a bit of ecosystem merging, pretty good. 8, no 9 accuracy. HELL MAKE MINE A 10!

Buzz Bonus: You should make use of the SD card soundtrack possibilities. Disney's Under the Sea is an obvious choice....

Stranglehold Revisted, Xbox 360, PS3 and PC

Hello readers! You may remember recently (ish) that I mentioned the game Stranglehold in the pages of this here blog. Since then I have had a chance to visit the museum proper and boy o they have a lot of stuff on display! Here's a guided tour (ish). Apologies for the broken objects but at the time of the tour I was under some pretty heavy fire you know?

Welcome to the Chicago Field Museum a museum in Chicago! I'll be your tour guide Tequila Yuen! It's a name!


The museum has at least four taxidermy specimens of Thylacinus on open display! You won't see these in the wild unfortunately!


A nice Parasaurlophus skull!



What a surprise! On your right you'll see a Tyrannosaurs skeleton :(


And wow what a treat! A taxidermy Dodo. You won't see many of these around.


You uncultured bastards!


Giggidy


A GIANT Rhamphorynhcus!


Eeeeygh!


Here you will see a Camarasaurid sauropod just past the goons!


This was a tail.


This was some vertebrae with ribs but...


Yafleur!


It's just tommy K


And that brings us to the end of our tour. Please wait here for the tour of the Archaeology section and apologies to those visitors who lost limbs and relatives.



Dinosauriness: Countless of prehistoric creatures in these galleries and some nice recent examples of extinct animals including: Tyrannosaurus rex, Stegosaurus, Camarasaurus, a couple of pterosaurs, a sabre toothed cat, Einosaurus, Parasaurlophus, Triceratops, Mosasaurus, Rhamphorhynchus, an Ichthyosaur, various dinosaur eggs and footprints, Velociraptor, Thylacinus, Raphus cucullatus and a selection of flightless birds!

Scientific Accuracy: Museum conservation issues aside (the taxidermy specimens of the dodo and thylacine shouldn't be on open display) they are striking representations of real specimens with the rare exception of a few enlarged specimens.

Buzz Bonus: If you shoot all of the bones off of the large sauropod skeleton you can run up the back of you get the achievment "Palaeontologist".

GTA IV, PS3, Xbox 360, PC

Hello readers! It's time for an update! Today we are looking at the popular videogame Grand Theft Auto IV and the dinosaurs therein!

Tucked away in Liberty City, where the AMNH would be in the real New York, is a lovely museum! As you can see from the expert images taken here, Rockstar copped out by including the museum "undergoing redevelopment" which is a lazy way of saying we have better things to do than fill a museum with objects.


The museum includes a bunch of Egyptian bits and pieces, a whale skeleton AND SOME FRIGGIN DINOSAURS LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. They have a Tyrannosaurus rex and a Triceratops (species unknown). If you so wish you CAN SHOOT ALL THE BONES OFF AND DAMAGE THEM. Why you would I don't know but vigilant curators magically fully repair the skeletons by the next day. Good work museum guys.

The museum even has labels, where are the anti GTA guys now huh? This shizzle is educational as well as violent. Time for the business however.

Dinosauriness: Just two this time round, the classic match up of Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops.

Scientific Accuracy: The skeletons seem pretty accurate although I did notice abnormal vertebrae numbers and morphology of forelimbs on the Triceratops. Also, the poor Tyrannosaurus seems to be without gastralia. I hope they are just in storage or something. More importantly though, the specimens are repaired every day which certainly is not accurate. It would take months of work to repair thedamage by machine guns.

Buzz bonus: Technically, birds are dinosaurs as any smart arse palaeontologist will tell you so we should include all the birds (the collectible pigeons). Do you have all the pigeons yet reader?

JetPack Brontosaurus

It's an Apatosaurus called Brontosaurus see! And it is wonderful. Watch, listen play here. If it's anything like Velociraptor Safari it'll be proper wicked! And addictive and better than 98% of Ubisoft's recent softography. Oooooh burn from a blogger I bet they are crying into their shreddies* as we speak**!!!

*English use, not ozzy
** Read. Or you read. Or as I type. Whenever. They'll cry whenever.

Warpath: Jurassic Park- PlayStation

Another day, another JP game. This one is "based" on Jurassic Park: The Lost World movie. You know, the worst one.

In this game you get to fight against other dinosaurs in arenas taken from the movie. That is pretty much it folks. One of the great things about this game is that you can eat passing goats/humans to replenish health. For the carnivores fine but for the ceratopsian dinosaurs it doesn't make much sense. Also, the game comes complete with a museum where you can check out all the battling beasties and learn all kinds of factoids about them. WARNING! Do not play this on a PS2 with the fast disc speed setting. It condenses all the narration in the museum mode. Well you could I guess.

Dinosauriness: Acrocanthosaurus, Albertosaurus, Ankylosaurus, Carcharodontosaurus, Cryolophosaurus, Giganotosaurus, Megaraptor, Pachycephalosaurus, Spinosaurus, Stygimoloch, Styracosaurus, Suchomimus, Triceratops and inevitably Tyrannosaurus rex.

Scientific Accuracy: The dinosaurs have all kinds of anatomy defying moves that they probably couldn't have used in real life. However, I have never extracted dino DNA from mosquitos in amber and mixed it with amphibian DNA to make dinosaurs so what the hell do I know about it? 6/10.

Buzz Bonus: Fighting through the levels and different opponents unlocks a host of extra characters and features. One such feature is exhibition match. We regularly set up exhibition matches, betting on which dinosaur is going to win. HOT TIP: Always bet on the Ankylosaurus FTW!

Pokémon!!

Yes! Readers of the other stupid thing I do on the internet will know that I am a bit partial to a bit of the Pokémon. I justify this to myself by claiming there be prehistoric creatures in them thar games. Or parodies of anyway. The above Pokémon and their pre-evolutions represent the first, second and third generation of prehistoric pokémon. From left to right we have Omastar (representing ammonites), Kabutops (representing trilobites), Aerodactyl (representing pterosaurs), Cradily (representing Crinoids many groups of which were mor eprevalent in ancient times), Armaldo (representing Anomalocaris, the prevolution is clearer), Relicanth (representing coelacanths for completeness) and Piloswine (representing mammoths). The fourth generation introduced the first true dinosaur critters, Rampardos (Pachycephalosaurs) and Bastiodon (Ceratopsian dinosaurs) are here on the left. Pokémon players must revive fossils that they find in the game to own these extinct pokémon (Swinub, Relicanth and Piloswine can be caught in the wild). The Pokémon series of games is famously a parody of biological organisms we find today and as fossils. Most of the major groups are represented (some to an agreeable level of accuracy).

Dinosauriness: (Parodies-of people!) Ammonites, Anomalocaris, Ceratopsian dinosaurs, Coelacanths, Crinoids, Mammoths, Pachycephalosaurus, Pterosaurs and Trilobites. I appreciate that crinoids and coelacanths are still around today but this is my website K?

Scientific Accuracy: Well. Once we get past the "not real animals" and the whole "reviving fossils" business I'd say 9.5/10. Yeah. 9.5/10.

Buzz Bonus: As you may know Pokémon can only say their own name or parts thereof. What evolutionary benefit this has no one knows but one person might be able to tell you. That person is OMASTAR!

Exciting Times!: UPDATED

Imagine my happiness when this game turned up in the post today:


Yes I don't know why Top Trumps has been turned into a DS game. What is the merit/advantage over the traditional pack of cards? But it does have dinosaurs in it. So expect a review in two hours when I have finished the Ubisoft shovelware.

Preview based on box art: 5/10. Too many dogs.

UPDATE: Having now played the game it is as nonsensical as it sounds and a bad game to boot. This version has no benefits over the traditional game (aside from the fact that you can't cheat, which may not be an advantage). The two player game is awful because for obvious reasons you can't see both cards so one player guesses which attribute they will win on until they lose then the second player does the same. The element of "I hope he chooses this one" is completely lost. Furthermore, in the one player tournament game you have to play through ten rounds in one sitting without the option to save the session after each round. Even furthermore still there is a quiz option but some of the quiz questions are a bit wrong. So questions like "How many Corythosaurus are on the Corythosaurus card?" create difficulty, firstly because, you can't see the pictures on the card very well and secondly because the answer (one) doesn't appear to be correct.

Review based on playing it for an hour too long: 5/10 too many dogs.

Jurassic Realm PC

Found in a Morrisons for £5 I could not not buy Jurassic Realm especially with these lovelies on the box art. At the same time, I also bought 101 Dino Pets but I'm saving that gem for a rainier day. Jurassic Realm is essentially the game jewelled but given a Jurassic Twist. I say "Jurassic Twist" but quite what handaxes have to do with the Jurassic is anyone's guess.
So the aim of the game is to get rid off the symbols by clicking on ones that are in rows or columns of three or more. Different "slime" and "dynamite" items help you to clear levels quicker by wiping out entire rows or by detonating and destroying symbols nearby. The reward for beating a level is that you get to go to a new level. If you manage to beat special levels within a time limit you get to unlock dinosaurs which you can check out on a rock or something. It's not a bad game and it's not really a dinosaur game. It's a puzzle game with a coat of dinosaur paint on it but it'll munch up and hour or two in the same way that spider or minesweeper might.

Dinosauriness: Lots of dinosaurs and non dinosaurs are unlocked as you progress through the levels. And there are lots of levels currently I have unlocked Dimetrodon, Lesothosaurus and Triceratops but there are still plenty more to unlock.

Scientific Accuracy: It's a tricky one to call. Being first and foremost a puzzle game, the scientific accuracy is kind of hard to measure. I mean what are you supposed to be? Either way the first wheel and handaxes are some of the symbols you have to destroy which, science currently has not discovered in the Jurassic. Or Dimetrodon either. Or Triceratops really. So not winning too many points here.

Buzz Bonus: Once again, Morrisons came up top trumps. I think they may have noticed that someone is buying up all the £5 dinosaur games so are stocking them on purpose. Fair enough I guess.

Jurassic ParkIII: The DNA Factor, Game Boy Advance

Perhaps the King of film to movie spin-offs Jurassic Park spawned yet another game conversion. Jurassic Park on the Mega Drive was classic (and impossible), Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis was nice and Warpath: Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park: Tresspaser have a cult following. Jurassic Park III: The DNA Factor is not so great. In fact this one is pretty much the worst one I've played so far. It's as if they weren't even trying. Gameplay is poor, storyline is non existent, characters are generic.

It's basically a side scrolling dodge em up (you can get a gun or some fruit to use as a lure but running past everything is by far the quickest route to success) and the player has to negotiate dangerous jungle and avoid dinosaurs to collect bits of DNA that fell out of a plane before it crashed on the island. You play as pilot Lori Torres or photographer Mark Hanson and you negotiate 12 levels to collect DNA which you then use in a mini "game" to get DNA sequences for dinosaurs. Except it's all a bit rubbish. The side scrolling parts are repetetive, annoying and bland. The recombining DNA game is easy. Which is a good thing because if you waste all of your DNA before you complete the sequence you have to start the level all over again.

Dinosauriness: I've yet to beat it but I imagine it's all the Jurassic Park lovlies. I'll get back to you on that one later.

Scientific Accuracy: There are no scientific mistakes in this game. It's all feesible and plausible. Just look at the DNA base on the log on the screenshot. That's what DNA bases look like when they fall out of planes on islands.

Buzz Bonus: The copy I purchased from Amazon was listed as "new". So I was surprised when it came through the door. True to the promise it was new and still sealed (with Comet security stickers intact) however it looked like a 10 year old child had been carrying the unopened box in his school bag since the game's release in 2001. Tat-o-rama. Although it doesn't affect the game play experience it did irk me. I was irked.

Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis PS2, PC, Xbox

Yes, the Easter holiday allowed a small amount of gaming time and I was able to spend some time with some of the dino games I've been neglecting because I wanted to savour rather than rush. One such game is Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis.

Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis, or JPOG as I will refer to it, is essentially Theme Hospital but with Dinosaurs. What do you mean what is Theme Hospital? Oh yeah, that's right I forget that kidz these days grew up in a world without Bullfrog. No wonder they're all wrong. So, to begin again. Jurassic Park:Operation Genesis, or JPOG as I will refer to it, is essentially Zoo Tycoon: Dinosaur Digs but without boring modern day animals and with better Dinosaurs in it. You have to build your own Jurassic Park, populate it with dinosaurs and then build shops and other attractions to keep the moronic masses happy because, you know, it's not deemed impressive enough that dinosaurs have been more or less brought back to the earth for your viewing pleasure unless you have a souvenir shop to go with it. So you go about building your park but you have to fund palaeontological digs in order to dig up fossils in order to get enough fossil material to SCIENCE MAGIC HAPPENS HERE then you have dinosaurs. But don't worry because none other than Dr Alan Grant, Dr Sattler, Robert Muldoon, Sam Jackson, Dr Wu (Not that Dr Wo) and John Hammond pop up on average every ten seconds to tell you that something is broken or someone's unhappy or that someone died. If you read the instruction booklet it sounds like managing the park is going to be a nightmare because occasionally the creatures go on rampages or there's a twister that destroys your park. However, these rampages do not occur very often. Twisters do happen but are more annoying than life threatening. By far the biggest challenge is pleasing the miserable visitors. There's a nice feature (taken straight from Theme Park) that lets you check the passport of every visitor to the park and despite the fact that your park may boast up to 100 dinosaurs with countless viewing vents, domes, safari trips or balloon rides some spod will still walk around your park claiming that "there aren't enough dinosaurs" or "This place is alright". This can be remedied though, more often than not the dinosaurs will need a bit of "encouragement" from the player before "accidentally" being let out into the park to begin chomping on Giselle from Ohio who wants to see more blood or Shaun from South Korea who takes issue with the fact that you charge entry for the toilets.

Overall the game is great, you get what you pay for and in today's market you can pick up a PS2 copy of JPOG in almost every preowned Game section in the world for around £9.
Dinosauriness: A number of the film dinosaurs return as well as some old favourites and the did-you-know-they-were-bigger-than-T.Rex newcomers like Carcharadontosaurus. Here's the full list Acrocanthosaurus, Albertosaurus, Allosaurus, Ankylosaurus, Brachiosaurus, Camarasaurus, Carcharadontosaurus, Ceratosaurus, Corythosaurus, Dilophosaurus, Dryosaurus, Edmontosaurus, Gallimimus, Homacephale, Kentrosaurus, Ouranosaurus, Pachycephalosaurus, Parasaurlophus, Stegosaurus, Styracosaurus, Spinosaurus, Torosaurus, Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor.

Scientific Accuracy: Aside from the whole bringing dinosaurs back thing, which is the staple of every second dinosaur game, and a few scale issues it's standard fare. This game also (allegedly) lets you create mixed or single species herds and packs of dinosaurs. I've never seen this though. All I know is that no matter how many Ceratosaurus you create they all get murdered. Seriously. Just don't bother with them.

Buzz Bonus: The music is ace because it is taken straight from the film. You know, the film. Before the awful sequels. You can also unlock the theme tunes to Indiana Jones, Superman, Star Wars (all 6) and E.T! Nice.

Sea Monsters A Prehistoric Adventure- DS

Another week another Dinosaurs in Games update. Phew! You must be on the edge of your seat. Today we're going to look at a contender for Game of The Decade, National Geographic's Sea Monsters A Prehistoric Adventure on the DS. Do not be misled by the screenshot below [from IGN] what it lacks in aesthetic appeal in more than makes up for with Gameplay.
This game (also available on PS2 and Wii) is an adaptation of the National Geographic's recent IMAX blockbuster film of the same title. Now if I think National Geographic-Games-And documentary tie-in then I'm instantly forming an idea of a game in my head that's part Clever Kids in Dino Land, part Catz by Ubisoft and part whatever the latest Pixar lazy mulitplatform effort is. However, I was pleasantly surprised.

Imagine the stealth-hit, Crackdown for the Xbox 360, but replace city heights with sea depths, replace cybernetically enhanced agent with extinct marine reptiles (and a flying one) and exchange hunting down increased abilities with collecting fossils to unlock other organisms to explore the depths with. All of this on the DS! Yes it is that good.
Playing as a Sea Monster you have to explore various marine environments to unlock the full cast of playable characters to then further explore hidden areas in order to beat all the challenges and collect all the fossils. Each reptile has advantages and disadvantages. Players start out with the generalist Thallasomedon who is quite nippy in the water but cannot go too deep in the water column before expiring. Progress then rapidly unlocks the rest of the cast. Henodus is slow, tiny and is restricted to the shallows but can dig in the sea bed to expose hidden fossils, Temnodontosaurus can dive to the sea bottom, Tylosaurus is the top predator and can bash through walls to uncover new areas. Players have to use a combination of the 7 characters in order to complete the game.

Dinosauriness: Of course, no dinosaurs but the cast of prehistoric animals is pleasantly diverse; Archelon, Cretoxyrhina, Dolichorhynchops, Enchodus, Gillicus, Henodus, Hesperornis, Kronosaurus, Nothosaurus, Pteranodon, Shonisaurus, Temnodontosaurus, Thallasomedon, Tylosaurus and Xiphactinus feature .

Scientific Accuracy: Unfortunately, not all of these creatures are coeval but unlike ever other title that makes this mistake there is a disclaimer at the beginning. So, ultimately, forgivable. But unlike the majority of other dinosaur and extinct organism titles, this one is educational but not in the usual obvious "here's a fact way" but in a more subtle learning through experience way. So for example, if I were to ask you how do marine reptiles breath underwater? Would you be able to answer confidently? Play this game and you'll know. To be commended by reviewers who can see past the simple nature of the game.
This game does show some mild strain being crammed onto the DS though. Occassionally the Cretoxyrhina sharks will swim through walls, above the surface of the sea or upside down but palaeontologists have not strictly ruled out this behaviour in organisms in this genus so who knows, it might be correct.

Buzz Bonus: Other reviewers slated this game for being too shallow but in terms of the DS this is a quietly revolutionary title. The controls are difficult at first but then quickly become second nature and the gentle exploration is engaging and relaxing. The sandbox nature of the game is a welcome addition to the DS which up until now has been primarily minigame titles or lazy RPGs that have little to offer in terms of replay value. Oh and Advance Wars. Plus it's always nice to be able to play as the creature themselves rather than continuously running from them (Dino Crisis), managing them (Operation Genesis, Zoo Tycoon) or merely learning about them (Clever Kids Dino Land). 10/10 Game of the Decade and new benchmark for dinosaurs in games (and other prehistoric creatures. In games)

Dino Master- DS

I touched on it way way back when but some dinosaur based games are so good you have to look at them twice.
On the face of it, Dino Master is a relatively simple game.

For half the game, you play as a palaeontologist who has to look for dinosaur fossils in six different sites spread across the globe; Africa, Eurasia, Australia, N.America, S.America and the Antarctic. You have to excavate the sites facing the usual hazards encountered on a typical palaeontological dig. By excavate sites I mean drive around isolating areas Qix style (not Qix style actually, just Qix)and by usual hazards I mean being harassed by gigantic crabs, horseshoe crabs, dragonflies and ladybirds with minions of car sized caterpillars, flies and scorpions. Upon exposing areas in the Qix game you occassionally expose a fossil which you then later get to re-animate
and battle with, either against one of five bots or over WiFi. THis last notion is a joke because I don't even know anyone else who knows about this game and I've only ever seen it for sale online. Which is sad because my Ceratosaurus could KICK SOME ASS. I imagine. The battling itself requires players to give their chosen fighter a number of techniques (which can be attacking, defensive, etc.), the number and type of techniques that can be learned varies from species to species and techniques have to be unlocked with progression through the fossil hunting stage. The battling game is then a slightly more complex version of rock paper scissors. Each dinosaur you reanimate also varies depending on the size and quality of the fossil you uncover so sometimes they will have extra attack power, or low HP which adds another slight element to the strategy which is all academic anyway because I doubt a single person has ever played this game over wi-fi. Seriously. Let me know if you have but I bet the experience was ultimately unrewarding.

Dinosauriness: A whopping 100 different species of dinosaurs and prehistoric animals some you'll recognise, some you won't, some old skool ones and some brand spanking new finds. Here's a not so completed list because I'm struggling to collect the last 22 species. Here's the list so far Abelisaurus, Amargasaurus, Anatotitan, Apatosaurus, Archeaoceratops, Aralosaurus, Argentinosaurus, Borthriospondylus, Breviceratops, Carcharadontosaurus, Carnotaurus, Centrosaurus, Ceratosaurus, Chungkingosaurus, Cryolophosaurus, Dacentrurus, Daspletosaurus, Deinocheirus, Deinonychus, Dicraeosaurus, Dromiceiomimus, Dsungaripterus, Einiosaurus, Elaphrosaurus, Euplocephalus, Futubasaurus, Gallimimus, Gargoyleosaurus, Giganotosaurus, Gondwanatitan, Gorgosaurus, Goyocephale, Harpymimus, Huayangosaurus, Hydrotherosaurus, Ichthyosaurus, Indosuchus, Kentrosaurus, Kritosaurus, Lambeosaurus, Lexovisaurus, Majungatholus, Megalosaurus, Monolophosaurus, Montanaceratops, Nanotyranus, Neovenator, Opisthocoelicaudia, Opthalmosaurus, Parasaurlophus, Pinacosaurus, Pelaneustes, Pelecanimimus, Pentaceratops, Plateosaurus, Pleurocoelus, Prenocephale, Pteranodon, Saichania, Saltasaurus, Sauroposeidon, Scipionyx, Saurornitholestes, Stegoceras, Stenopterygius, Stygimoloch, Styracosaurus, Suchomimus, Supersaurus, Tapejara, Toopkusaura, Torosaurus, Tuojiangosaurus, Trinacromerum, Tyrannosaurus, Udanoceratops, Unenlagia and Utahraptor.

Scientific Accuracy: For the sheer number of genera included this title is by and large very accurate. There are a few issues arising. Bizarrely Plateosaurus is included as a plesiosaur and on the dino rebuild screen, Icthyosaurs, Plesiosaurs and Pterosaurs are listed as Gyoryu, Cubinagaryu and Yocuryu 'kinds'??? Some may complain that real palaeontological digs are not undertaken by driving a jeep around in perpendicular lines whilst being harassed by giant invertebrates but those people would be liars friends. Liars. Listen to them not a word more.

Buzz Bonus: For what the game lacks in the polish that say, Halo might have in spades it is an addictive game that has kept me up until 3 or 4 in the morning on occassion with "just one more go". For dino lovers it's great with a big list of extinct creatures to find and it's also good for passing a bus journey or tube journey with a couple of fossils hunts. Some other """Sites""" that reviewed it complained that the touch screen controls were unreliable. Sadly this is the liars at work again friends. How they live with themselves I do not know. So far in this existence it's my favourite game of all time!

Next week on Cunzy1 1's Dinosaurs in Games: I finally bought myself a copy of Sea Monsters A Prehistoric Adventure for the DS so expect a skit sometime soon. The low down is it could be great. The expectation is it won't be that great. But what is the reality?