I'll be honest, when Combat of Giants: Dinosaurs first came onto
the radar there was more than a little bit of eye rolling. Like a crufts judge getting a handful of the testes to check pedigree lets quickly metaphorically check the nads of CoG:D. This is a quietly released, Ubisoft DS game. Chances are it isn't going to be picking up GOTY awards. Even the front cover doesn't really give anything away. I was expecting something between the awful awful 101 Dino Pets and the pokemon-alike-games like Dinosaur King. Unfortunately, critical damage to the touch screen of my original DS meant that even though I had CoG:D I couldn't play it. The lovely DSiXL changed all that....
Well reader, much like the newly diagnosed hermaphrodite teen I was pleasantly surprised by this game! You get to choose a dinosaur (you have to start with the sauropod and unlock others later) to take through various arenas with the objective of collecting 100 gold eggs and completing a five part fossil skeleton. Some of the eggs are rewarded for unsurprisingly, beating other dinosaurs in combat and the fossil bits are hidden in uninspiring looking domes of mud that you have to visit on your way around the arena. The arenas are also filled with non egg-rewarding dinosaurs which you may wish to avoid or combat. The combat itself requires choosing and attack and then having to accurately draw a line shape. The stronger the attack the more complicated the line in the shape of a dinosaur head, arms, leg or whole body. The better and quicker you fill in the line, the better your attack. So far, so what right? But the brilliant bit comes later. When you earn enough eggs you can buy various upgrades for your dinosaur allowing a surprising amount of customisation. After the first couple of arenas you unlock the ability to change the colour of your dinosaur but also you can buy 'evolutions' for a number of slots on the body. These take three types. You can either boost attack by buying bony spikes, boost the amount of health you regain using defensive moves by buying what appears to be metal plate armour or boost the number of attacks you can make by decorating your dinosaur with feathers. The best bit is that you actually see the upgrades on your dino. If you get a bit battered in combat then you can replenish health by drinking water or eating bananas? You can also attempt to dissuade the NPDs from battle with a vocal warning meaning you don't have to fight every single dinosaur per arena to proceed. In yet another bizarre twist, occasionally when looking for the fossil pieces you stumble across a mystery combatant which takes the form of commonplace static objects.
I never really realised how much I wanted to play as a pitch black with green tiger stripes, armour plated
Brachiosaur with bony spikes coming out of it's face and fancy feathers on the tail attacking a particularly vicious phone box until it happened. I won't regale the epic clashes with a house or a tractor either. Let's do this.
Dinosauriness: I'm yet to play through all the arenas and unlock em all but there are a healthy number of dinosaurs as well as a bunch of inert objects. I'll update the list here when I'm done.
Scientific Accuracy: Well, armour plating, phone boxes, automobiles and nose bone weapons aside I hate to bring down the mood by calling foul on this one. Bananas are suspect too and when the combat starts to get heavy, dare I say it, the sauropods start to do 'combos'. The feather problem normally par for the course in dinosaur games is cleverly dealt with with the crazy customisation tool. Physiologically shall we say, challenging, combos.
Buzz Bonus:On the upside though, this is by far the most comprehensive dinosaur customisation in video games (Spore doesn't count because everything looks like a muppet any approximation to a dinosaur you make is but a muppet dinosaur rather than a dinosaur muppet).
One day, descendants of the dinosaurs that invented space travel and set off to explore the universe in the late Cretaceous will come back to survey the planet they evolved on and to check to see how the hairies have done since they left the primitive beasts 65 million years ago.
"Avert your eyes crewmates! They've ruined the birth planet. Look at it! It is sick and dying yet still they rape and pillage it."
"We should destroy them with our space dino lasers and wipe their fragile little existence off of the face of the birth world. Give me that order sir and it will be done without a moments hesitation"
"Belay that order! Let them revel in their own filth, dirt and dust until they suffocate themselves. Let the last remaining hairy ones look each other in the eye under a scorched sky and realise that they have doomed themselves into extinction. They won't last another century I'd wager."
"Sir! Our scans have shown that they... I can't believe it sir! Our scans of their limited technology shows that have desecrated the remains of our ancestors and recreated them in virtual play pens where the hairy ones hunt down our naked ancestors. They depict our glorious lineage as nothing but featherless savages who exist only to endlessly fight each other in desert and jungle type localities."
"Why would they simulate the hunting of our poor defenceless brethren? What perverted race creates such sycophantic fantasies? Imagine if they ever created technology that allowed them to escape this hell they have created for themselves? This seals their fate. Ready the space dino laser!"
