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?

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.

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.

Deathtrap Dungeon, Demo 1, Dino Crises, Dino Masters, Dinotopia the Sunstone Pirates

Deathtrap Dungeon-PlayStation
There's like this Tyrannosaurus rex in it on the circus level and if you preordered the game you got this cool little card game with it too. That also had a T.rex in it albeit a card. Deathtrap Dungeon was both very hard and cool. You should get a copy of it today. In fact, better still send me copies!

Dinosaurness: Malheuresement, there was only one dinosaur in DD and that was the "king" of all dinosaurs T.rex

Scientific Accuracy: Not good. I'd say a 2/10. The T.rex is anatomically fair enough but I'm not sure about it's presence in a Circus themed dungeon miles underground. More research is needed by scientists to discover the possible origins of this Tyrannosaurus rex. Maybe it was transported from elsewhere or maybe it was found underground. Either way Science needs to find an answer.

Buzz Bonus: I don't really like Tyrannosaurus rex, as a species it totally sold out man. There are totally cooler dinosaur species which are like so underground right now, you probably haven't heard of them. For example one of my favourite bands, Yanchuangosaurus, I have all their albums and they haven't actually released any commercially yet and I saw them play behind one of the stages at Reading and like they were the best and I know someone who totally went to school with their ex-drummer.

Demo 1-PlayStation
Not a game as such but the Demo 1 disc that came with the original Playstation had two tech demos, one of a Manta Ray and one of a frikkin Tyrannosaurus rex. He would stomp along the screen to a bum, bum, de bum, bum theme tune. You could spin the camera and zoom in and zoom out. There was also a button you could press to make hime OPEN HIS MOUTH! Unfortunately, the Manta ray one was much better. The music was better and you could press buttons to make ALL THE FISHES SWIMMING AROUND IT go away or come back again! Screenie needed for this one.

Dinosaurness: Again. Only a T.rex :(

Scientific Accuracy: It wasn't bad. Of course nowadays it looks dated. However, the T.rex was running in a black void. How did he get there? Was it cold? Like all the good science questions and like the end of every Panorama or Horizons TV episode more research is needed to answer these questions.

Buzz Bonus: Fishes go away, fishes come back. Fishes go away, fishes come back. Fishes go away, fishes come back. Fishes go away, fishes come back. Fishes go away, fishes come back. Fishes go away, fishes come back. Fishes go away, fishes come back. It was hours and hours of fun I'm tellin' ya.

Dino Crisis- Dreamcast, PC, PlayStation

Capcom's dinosaur version of Resident Evil. There's a thing and then there's dinosaurs and then shooting of said dinosaurs. However, Regina (above) must have the same crippling disease that the Resident Evil crew have in that she can't run and shoot. Women are supposed to excel at multitasking though! Ha.

Dinosauriness: On a recent playthrough, the dinosauriness is a lot less than I originally remembered. Anyway here's the list. Compsognathus, Deinonychus, Therizinosaurus, T.rex and Velociraptor. Clicks for Pteranodon too.

Scientific Accuracy: Quickly glazing over the time travelling aspects (naturally) some of the dinosaurs appear to be anachronistic with regards to each other, Compsognathus known from the Jurassic and Deinonychus known from the early Cretaceous. The others are pretty much coeval without too much of a leap in time. By and large the titular creatures seem quite accurate in scale with the exception of Velociraptor but what'cha gonna do about it? 6/10

Buzz Bonus: Beating the game in a certain time unlocked extra outfits. Beating the game again unlocked Regina's cave woman outfit. Yes it did.

Dino Crisis 2-PC and PlayStation
Yes hot on the heels of Dino Crisis came the imaginatively titled Dino Crisis 2. Following the mysterious events in a mansion on the outskirts of Racoon City. Sorry, following the events of some time travelling doo-dah, there is another oppurtunity for shooting some dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures! Yaaay! Since the previous game Regina and company mastered running and shooting, significantly increasing survival chances.

Dinosauriness: The roster was boosted for the second game. This time Allosaurus, Compsognathus, Giganotosaurus, the Permian gorgonopsid Inostrancevia, Mosasaurus, Oviraptor, Plesiosaurus, Pteranodon, Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor make up the dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures list.

Scientific Accuracy: Ummm yes. Time travel aside some big anachronisms with the spp. present. But it's an action game so get on with it.

Buzz bonus: Regina's outfit was unlockable in Resident Evil 3 (see above). Brad looks horrified Regina!!

Dino Crisis 3-Xbox
As is inevitable with any series there is a strong impetus to 'ramp it up' from one game to the next. Unfortunately, in the instance of Dino Crisis 3 this particular sequel ruined an otherwise nice series of games. In a bid to keep the series alive the setting was shifted to space and the real dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures were unceremoniously changed to electric zombie versions. The controls were also changed from intuitive to very bad. Sad but true.

Dinosaurness: No real dinosaurs per se but lots of modified versions of real spp. Here is the list; Ankylosaurus, Giganotosaurus, Spinosaurus, Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor. Really breaking the mold with that selection. Yes sir.

Scientific Accuracy: After we take of points for setting it in space and then further points for the mutated DNA storyline. I won't spoil it but the accuracy here is low. 3/10 is an arbitary measure I have decided to give it.

Buzz Bonus: Despite the B movie plot, awful controls and camera this game is very nice looking and if you get a chance watch some of the cutscenes on Youtube because they are good in a dinosaur stompy way.

Dino Masters- Nintendo DS

Dino Master is a little game I had been trying to get hold of for a long time. And thanks to Santa Claus, I now have it! Initial words from the internet slated this game, unneccessarily so. Gamespot criticised the controls system, claiming that stylus input is "unpredictable". This simply isn't the case. I say that Gamespot should stop employing monkeys who can't hold a stylus to review games. Of all the criticisms that could be aimed at this game, stylus input isn't one of them. I've had more trouble with the touch screen on Metroid and the Phantom Hourglass but you don't hear the shallow ninty-philes whinge about that. How dare they! Anyway, simply you have to collect fossils, reanimate them and then there is an option to use them in battle against a handful of bots or over wi-fi (I cannot imagine this game has ever been played over wi-fi). So far, so Pokemon or Fossil Championship Tournament league (or whatever it's called). Well after extensive gmeplay I can tell you it is the greatest DS game to date. Definitely the game of 2007. Try and find a copy, you won't be upset!

Dinotopia: The Timestone Pirates-GBA

This little gem for the GBA, despite having a high potential to be another tie-in rubbishness is.........actually alright. It plays solidly, the graphics are nice, even if the whole thing is a little bit generic. There is a platforming section, a side scrolling shooting section and a submarine section. Downsides: The main character looks like Frodo Baggins and It's hard to get drawn in to the story which is basically: Frodo fights pirates who took eggs to get to the Timestone. It's up to you to work through several get from A to B levels, using your sunprod to find T.rex eggs and unveiling the mystery behind why pirates might want a Timestone. A stone that controls time. Hmmmm I wonder?

Dinosauriness: Due to the nature of the source material, a series which, weirdly, completely passed me by, there are a plethora of dinosaurs in the game and other prehistoric creatures feature either as rudimentary vehicles or nice background animated features also in the "cut scenes". However, I have yet to complete this game so this list may not be comprehensive:

Brachiosaurus, Dunkleosteus, Parasaurlophus, Plesiosaurus, Protoceratops, Pteranodon, Quetzalcoatlus, Tyrannosurus Rex. Dinosaurs that look like Triceratops and Kentrosaurus appear in one of the cut scenes featuring the Dinotopia council. I don't know if that officially counts though.

Scientific Accuracy: Yeah, it's got legs, I'm not so convinced about some of the scales of the dinos and the 'shipwrecked humans living with sentient dinosaurs' bit is a stretch too far. The Frodo cross over is just a hollywood cash in. God damn you Hollywood and your cash-ins.

Buzz Bonus: I have nothing interesting to say about this game. Except check out the clips of Dinotopia on YouTube. It's awful. Wentworth Miller acts like he is twelve years old and has been starched for a week. Ha ha! "Wentworth". Ah.........

Timesplitters, Timesplitters Future Perfect and Tomb Raider 2

Timesplitters 2 and Timesplitters: Future Perfect-Playstation 2, Xbox, Gamecube

The original Timesplitters was one of the greatest games of all time. Seriously! But they then went and made the sequel infinitely better by adding a dinosaur character to the roster. He is just called Dinosaur.

Dinosauriness: Well surprise surprise it's just another T.rex. This species seems to be overwhelmingly popular with game makers.

Scientific Accuracy: I highly doubt that T.rex could fire or even hold automatic weapons. Indeed Bakker even says so much in the seminal volume the Dinosaur Heresies (Bakker 1986) in the chapter: Gun-toting, how sauropods and large theropods are at a serious disadvantage in all out gunfights. But it is Timesplitters 2 so I'm going to stick my neck out and say that this version of T.rex is perhaps the most accurate reconstruction ever to grace the screen. 10/10

Buzz Bonus: Timesplitters 2 was and still is the greatest game of all time. Timesplitters Future Perfect is and will always be the worst sequel of all time. This isn't the place for this rant but take my word for it. However, Dinosaur was in both games so we can thank the God of small mercies at least. Oh, also, according to the character gallery in Timesplitters 2 Dinosaur: "breathes fire and has vestigal forelimbs". I think the breathes fire bit might affect the scientific accuracy but it's too late to change it now. *sigh*

Tomb Raider 1

Tomb Raider 2-PlayStation & PC
On the first level, the Great Wall of China, right near the end of the level after the gauntlet and before the death slide to the Goon with a "Tommy Gun" on his keyring there is a pit with TWO Tyrannosaurus rex in it. There is also a secret with a grenade launcher.

Dinosaurness: Once again just T.rex the Jimmy Carr of TV for dinosaurs in games.

Scientific Accuracy: Low. Very Low. How two Tyrannosaurus rex got into the big pit is a mystery. Were they transported as babies and then fed until they grew into adults? In that case how come they aren't etiolated there isn't much light in an underground valley? Also who put them there? Why did they put them in the pit and not by the gate? Where did they find T.rex? All these questions and more. Also a population of 2 isn't going to be enough to keep a constant population of T.rex in the pit after a couple of generations, assuming that a)There's a boy and a girl, b)They aren't Homeosaurs ha ha ha and c)It doesn't matter anyway they aren't real and Lara kills them.

Buzz Bonus: I saw a real life T.rex in a pit once. I didn't go in though- too dangerous.