This is especially worth noting due to the fact that the game is going for $9.99 on Steam. Playing Dinocide was a dull experience to begin with, but when I beat the second boss and expected to find myself at most halfway through the game, I was flabbergasted to see that I had beaten the whole thing in almost exactly an hour. There are also two boss fights that are passable, but little else. Level design as a whole is mostly bland, with little in the way of surprises or variety throughout the adventure. You suddenly go from never needing the powerups to needing them constantly. Unfortunately, rather than a gradual climb, the game decides to abruptly get trickier in the last third or so, throwing swarms of enemies in a row and placing big, impassable ones that take a lot of time to beat. The first 2/3 or so of Dinocide is still a total breeze even without most of the powerups, to the point where you can either go around most of enemies and ignore them completely, or make use of the brief invincibility you get when damaged to run right past them. Various precious stones can be found in each environment, which you save for a few in-game shops along the way that let you buy and save a finite quantity of weapons and dinosaurs for whichever level you see fit. You can also find eggs that hatch various dinosaurs you can ride who provide their own special moves, like fireballs or charging forward. While your default projectile weapon is an endless amount of small rocks, you can find more powerful alternatives like axes and boomerangs throughout most levels.
Thankfully, you’re given some perks to make the journey easier and more varied. Since you can’t take time to be careful when approaching them but also can’t take much damage, there’s ultimately an unnecessary sense of frustration with certain parts. This gives the game a bit of urgency, which can be annoying in later levels when you deal with enemies that are harder to take down. It can thankfully be refilled by finding various fruit powerups strewn throughout each level, since it’s meant to represent the protagonist’s hunger and subsequent stamina. You’re provided with a conventional-looking life bar that drains when you take damage, but it also gradually drains on its own even when you’re unharmed.
The main concept in Dinocide that makes it stand out from other platformers is its health system. The story is limited to a 20-second cutscene at the beginning and a single graphic and text box at the end, so it’s up to the gameplay to give players their money’s worth. Players control a nameless caveman who sets out to rescue his girlfriend from the evil Dinosaur God, traversing forests, deserts, volcanoes, and underwater levels in conventional sidescrolling fashion. The result is a stinker of a platformer that doesn’t feel like there’s any real audience for it, retro or modern.
#DINOCIDE BADGE SERIES#
And while many retro gamers regard Hudson’s series as enjoyable outings, Dinocide suffers from level design that feels boring and sometimes cheap, with lackluster presentation to boot. Not only does Dinocide play exactly like a less well-thought out Adventure Island, but the bulk of its gameplay and visual motifs are also heavily recycled. In reality, similarities might be a bit too generous. Developer AtomicTorch has made it clear in promotional material that the game draws inspiration from the classic Adventure Island series, and anyone familiar with those games will notice similarities between the two, both visually and mechanically. Still, it’s not often that you see something like Dinocide.
Early classics like Pac-Man saw their fair share of imitators, many companies tried to capitalize on the “animal with an attitude” aspect that Sonic the Hedgehog introduced, and bigger companies have tried in recent years to duplicate the success of titles like Call of Duty.Īll three of these aforementioned examples usually resulted in far from successful products, but the practice still continues to this day. That old saying about imitation being the sincerest form of flattery is one that can be applied to video games from day one.
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