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 Fighters, Fossil League Dino Tournament Championship, Go Diego Go Great Dinosaur Rescue, Ice Age, Ice Age 2, Ice Age 3, Jurassic Park, Jurassic Park Trespasser, Jurassic Park Dino Defender, The Land Before Time: Into The Mysterious Beyond, Lost World: Jurassic Park, Siphon Filter, Splashdown 2, Syberia, Syberia II, 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.

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.

Clever Kids: DinoLand

Yeah, so the old format wasn't working too well so from now on I'm going to update the site every time I play a new dinosaur game. So what better way to re-launch the site than to look at Midas' Clever Kids Dino Land.



The gaming establishment said that the PS2 era was over. They said that next-gen is the way forward. This game proves them all wrong. I picked up my copy for a mere £8. Perhaps the best 8 pounds I ever did spend.

The game (philistines may claim it is aimed at the kids) is a series of dinosaur themed minigames set in the titular DINOLAND. Dino Land appears to be nothing more than a 2D landscape with 6 dinosaurs in it but oh what a land! Lucky players have to solve complex puzzles (with upward of five pieces!) in order to unlock such wondrous dinosaur themed games as 'Trax', Slide Puzzles, Target Practice and Spot the Difference. The game is so forward looking that you don't even need a memory card! A mere passcode will work (hint star, star, cross, square is the code to unlock all the minigames). What a future looking title, if only some of the triple AAA games would take a leaf out of the CKDL book. Anyway, on with the overview.

Dinosauriness: A number of dinosaurs are present as well as the usual extinct prehistoric critters: Amargasaurus, Brachiosaurs, Deinonychus, Euplocephalus, Mammoth, Plesiosaurus, Pterodactyl, Pteranodon, Shunosaurus, Spinosaurus, Stegosaurus, Triceratops, Troodon, Tsintasurus, Tyrannosaurs and Velociraptor.

Scientific Accuracy: For a low budget Edutainment (or is that Infocation) title there are a surprising number of misnomers, weird language use and factual inaccuracies. Mammoths, plesiosaurs, pterosaurs and icthyosaurs are unashamedly called dinosaurs and there is no attempt to highlight that they aren't. The game also claims that Ultrasaurus is unequivocally the biggest dinosaur known. Firstly, Ultrasaurus is the genus of an insect not a dinosaur so it should be Ultrasauros but even then the correct name for this species is Supersaurus and was changed over 10 years ago, so triply wrong. Furthermore, it's not too clear if it even is the biggest dinosaur (Sauroposeidon is a recent candidate for bigger). Doesn't anyone fact check these games? Also, the sentence "Tyrannosaurus was born in the late cretaceous" wouldn't sit well with most palaeontologists either. Some of these mistakes have been seen time and time again and are always pointed out by some nit picking scientist and it's a bit saddening to see them reproduced here especially for a title aimed at the "kidz". Overall it's a bit too naughty and lazy 3/10.

Buzz Bonus: On the pause screen you can check your progress in the minigames. Completing all the games, slide puzzles and spot the differences will get you a higher result on the "Dino meter". I have a serious problem with slide puzzles though so I only ever managed to reach Brachiosaurus status :(

What is it?

Blood? I hope this isn't Chris's Blood.

Hi my name is Cunzy1 1, formerly one of the co-authors of That Guy's a Maniac, the world's second greatest video game blog of all time and I have a passion reader. A guilty passion. That is for dinosaurs in video games!

Every child or larvae has a fleeting obsession with dinosaurs (and other extinct prehistorid animals). They are big, scary and mysterious. But then girls get more interested in being women. A bit later boys get interested in the women that the girls are trying to become and dinosaurs kinda fall off the radar. THAT NEVER HAPPENED TO ME. Not to say I didn't become interested in women, WOMEN FRICKIN DINOSAURS. But then as I entered 'kidulthood' I began to become interested in videogames. After a time my two passions fused and collided, neurones were formed in my brain which bypassed all my "Don't obsess over dinosaurs in videogames" parts of my brain. Fortunately, my real day to day job brings me into contact with dinosaurs so this kinda counts as research.

Why this blog?
After clogging up That Guy's a Maniac with posts about dinosaurs I took it upon myself to become the World's Authority on Dinosaurs in Video Games. I'm going to collect them all, bust them wide open and make notes on the scientific accuracy of the games and their dinosaurness.
If you know of a game featuring dinosaurs* and other prehistoric animals** let me know and I'll add it to the 'must get and play' list. Then only then will I be the world's leading expert on dinosaurs in games. Hah!

*I mean real dinosaurs. That means no Yoshi or Bub and Bob. Possible evolutionary descendants of dinosaurs or genetically enhanced ones are allowed (e.g Dino Crisis 3). Godzilla is right out I'm afraid.
** You know what I mean mammoths, coelodonta, pterosaurs, icthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, ammonites, trilobites, vendezoa, carpoids etc.......