E3: Dinosaur Planet impressions

[05.17.00] » I WANT THE SEXY DINOSAUR.

    The last of the games to be announced in the N64's E3 line-up, Dinosaur Planet represents Rare's first stab at a more complete adventure-style game. The game chronicles the journeys of Krystal and Sabre, best described as anthropomorphic foxes, as they explore a prehistoric world in an effort save it from a scaly villain (one who remains nameless at this time).

    Animal protagonists aside, the game immediately comes across as more serious and dramatic than you might expect. The first scene, which the demo dubbed Galleon Battle, places Krystal on the back of her sidekick, a "pterodactyl princess named Kyte." Flying through a rainstorm, she is overtaken by a gigantic and quite evil-looking ship before the ship's rear mounted guns begin shooting fireballs at her. After taking out the guns and the ship's propeller, Krystal and Kyte board the galleon and first encounter the game's villain.

    While the expansion pak-necessary graphics were certainly impressive, by far the most outstanding element of the game thus far was the sound. Even a loud show floor couldn't obscure the huge amounts of speech included in the game, all decently voice acted, nor could it cover an epic soundtrack that plays off jungle rhythms for atmosphere even better than the acclaimed music from the original Turok. The excellent use of Dolby Surround Sound present here will be a treat to listen through come the end of the year.

    The battle system was "early" according to one Nintendo tester, and while it promises to be quite comprehensive, a bit of simplification could be in order. At this alpha stage, Krystal's spear and Sabre's sword were difficult to use smoothly, and certain average enemies took a huge number of strikes to defeat. This made challenging the demo's two massive bosses a next-to-impossible task. The different elements of the system were already in place, however, with the up C button going into first person view, right C using different objects, down C bringing up magic spells, and left C commanding your animal sidekicks.

    The "sidekicks" portion of the demo allowed for use of Sabre's small triceratops friend Tricky, but calling him over was still somewhat difficult. The other sidekick, the pterodactyl Kyte, boasts such abilities as setting Krystal's spear on fire and dive-bombing opponents. The game also sports a Z-targeting system similar to Zelda 64's, including the side step and back-flip moves. The forward flip was not an attack, however, leaving gamers without the most powerful and useful of the melee moves found in Ocarina of Time. This will take a bit of adjustment on the player's part should it stay in the final version.

    Dinosaur Planet certainly has the potential to be a blockbuster adventure title, and its developer certainly has the track record to bring all these elements together into one memorable game. Rare still has four games left to release in the last half of 2000 alone, and with Nintendo's already crowded winter schedule including Zelda sequels for both the Nintendo 64 and Game Boy, Dinosaur Planet has been given no firm release date as of yet. Look for it this holiday season.