GOG has revealed Dino Crisis 1 & 2, now available on PC once again after twenty years.
Like many PlayStation titles, fans may have easily forgotten that these games came to Windows as well as on Sony’s entry into the video game industry. GOG did not make a remake, and their work may not necessarily count as a remaster. As they explain it, they have made improvements to the game so that it will work on current Windows PC builds DRM-free.
Dino Crisis 1 & 2 are also part of their GOG Preservation Program. This means, even if the deal with Capcom ends so they are no longer allowed to sell the game, they will continue to provide tech support for these titles of their own accord.
Dino Crisis originally released on the PlayStation in 1998, and came to Sega Dreamcast and Windows in 2000. Because this game was produced by the same team that made the original Resident Evil, it shares many similar aspects.
One could argue that Dino Crisis is Resident Evil, only with the zombies being swapped in for dinosaurs, but unlike zombies, these dinosaurs moved fast, picking up the pace for Capcom’s design for survival games.
Subsequently, Dino Crisis 2 was released to the PlayStation in 2000, and came to Windows in 2002. For the sequel, Shinji Mikami gave way to a new team headed by Shu Takumi. And just like Resident Evil 2, Dino Crisis 2 switched its genres to now be more of an action adventure title, with a closer emphasis on arcade style action.
So, to be clear, this isn’t quite an action adventure game designed for consoles in mind, in the same way Devil May Cry was. Dino Crisis 2 would take you through rail shooting segments, where you shoot at dinosaurs while riding an automatically moving vehicle through a pre-determined path, to solving puzzles.
Both Dino Stalker, a light-gun spinoff, and Dino Crisis 3, would fail to live up to the legacy of these first two games critically and commercially. As is clear, this was the reason Capcom lost interest in the franchise. But these rereleases come months after they published both games on PSN.
We don’t know if fans should take this as a sign that Capcom wants to revisit Dino Crisis. But of course, at the very least, this was the kind of rerelease fans were waiting decades for, and it narrows down the list of old Capcom games that are still unavailable on modern platforms.
