TheBritish Wolf

So, having owned both the first and second game on PS1, I've experienced both fully. While the first game had you making choices, being cautious, mashing buttons in cutscene QTEs and dodging the insta-kill T-Rex bite, the same isn't said for this one. In Dino Crisis 2, the first half of the game, if not the first two-thirds, can be dealt with by LITERALLY run and gunning. In fact, it's actually a great way to rack up Extinction Points early game as you can get No Damage bonuses easily this way. There's two characters now, Dylan and Regina, along with three turret sections, one "need NPC assistance" section, and underwater section, one escort mission (brief but it can be annoying all the same), and one tank section. Plus Dylan and Regina take unique paths due to their machete and stun rod, with Regina getting a number of puzzles that aren't just Dylan's "push button to do thing". So why am I giving it three stars? Well... It's very much a matter of "Jack of all trades, master of none". The machete and stun rod have very limited use beyond being an attack, the puzzles mostly amount to "go back and forth collecting things", the underwater section has an annoying boss, the turret sections are just tacked on, the tank is one of many times a boss dinosaur will NOT be stunlocked (which also happens with the final boss, which can smack you upward of eight times and you can't do anything to dodge) so you WILL take damage all the time, the Extinction Points are used for an in-game store which is rather annoying to use (plus some items MUST be bought to progress, forcing you to grind for points to buy new items and ammo), and enemies have a bad habit of throwing you around the map. And the story STARTS good, you go through time to try find survivors in a settlement that's go silent, but it never goes anywhere. A mystery girl? Quick summery of who she is at the very end, that's all. A surviving soldier? Pops up for a bit, pointless to the plot. Dylan's past? Lore dump with no conclusion. What happens at the ending? How did Regina get to the lab when she got split from Dylan? Where are the other mysterious people and why are their eyes glowing red if they're human? Who killed the baby triceratops cos, clearly, it was dead before the humans and raptors killed eachother? Why is there a missile silo in a POISON GAS FIELD!? Why did the helicopter your friend pilot randomly crash? There's so many questions, so many loose ends, and not a single one gets answered (worse still given we never got a major sequel, given Dino Stalkers was only kind of a sequel and Dino Crisis 3 was unrelated, we'll never have any kind of answer of resolution). Dino Crisis 2 does have moments were it feels like a decent game, but it suffers from a major identity crisis. It wants to be an action game, but also can't decide how it wants to play so throws everything at the wall and hopes it sticks but accidentally throws the plot too and it ends up damaged. It's still alright, the cutscenes are good for the time and it still has one of the first instances of "aim and move" in a game with tank controls, but it lacks the polish and the direction the original game had. I'm not gonna say to avoid it, you should try it, it's not bad. But I just wouldn't expect an amazing time because it has quite a few flaws.

I remembered two things about this: The nightclub level and the game over screen. And the nightclub was on the back of the box, so that should've been my first warning. Lemme tell you how this works: you're given essentially useless weapons to fight enemies with, you have bombs which are VERY IMPORTANT to progression in some levels and running out means restarting the game, in the future you can't kill cops and you shoot way slower cos you keep pulling the gun out of your coat (the Terminator himself was easier to take down, you just spam to the shoot button, wait for him to stand up, repeat) and the game doesn't understand that spamming enemies at you isn't difficulty, it's bad design. I know the Terminator is supposed to be humanity against impossible odds, but there's a difference between "Humanity's last hope of stopping the end of days!" and "This game is broken." It's not a good game and it's frustrating as hell. I'd definitely give it a wide berth unless you want your sanity terminated.

I will clarify, this is for the Mega Drive release: It's impossible. And no, I don't mean it's hard or difficult or really tough or annoying or being overdramatic, it is LITERALLY impossible. Why? Because, RIGHT before the final boss, there's two axe throwing men. Their axes KILL YOU INSTANTLY. At first I thought this was a difficulty thing, so I put it on easy. Nope. Dead. So I put on cheats. NOPE. D E A D. This game is a massive pain in the arse. You have tons of enemies who can instantly kill you, tons of situations where failure will IMMEDIATELY lose you the game and if, IF, you manage to get as far as I did, your reward is a game over! No ending, the original was winnable, stupidly hard but winnable (honestly, if not so cheap and artificially difficult, the first game only lasts about 30 minutes). This one? Broken. Actually broken. You can't beat it, I'm not joking, you can't even cheat to the end state. I don't know about the Amiga version, I hear folk have done that one, but Mega Drive, do not bother. It's not been play tested and literally unwinnable. One for gaming history's trash bin.

As someone who replayed the game four times, I can certainly say it's not worthy of the scorn the PS2 magazines I read gave it. There's a multitude of possible endings in all scenarios, one of which leads to a unique final scenario which closes off the SOS/Disaster Report 1 storyline with Keith still being a thing, and each character has a special scenario limited to themselves with a cross over from different stories should you make certain choices. My only reason to give it 4 instead of 5 stars is that the controls and camera can work against you. Jumping to safety with someone on your back in scenario 1 is janky, sneaking in scenario 2 is janky, and driving in scenario 3 is weird, and running from the weirdo in scenario 4 isn't easy. The camera was slagged off WAY too much in PS2 magazines, but honestly it's a liveable annoyance. The game is good, the camera isn't perfect, and the controls aren't great, but they're all liveable and the game is perfectly final for 99% of the time. Try it. Try the entire series, it's all good for different reasons. Disaster Report 2, as it's known, is a worthy entry and deserves better than it got.

I actually love this game. It's nice and easy so anyone, from a kid to an adult, can easily finish the game. The controls are good, the music is jaunty, the levels do get a little repetitive at times but they're still all stylised beautifully. Plus the change in gameplay when you become Krampus, along with unique music, is a nice touch. The present dropping levels do seem somewhat pointless though, but there's only three and they're all pretty easy. I honestly didn't find myself hating this game at any point. It was always a nice little experience from beginning to end and didn't feel like it was trying to cram Christmas down your throat like other games have, you could feasibly remove all holiday themes from it and it'd still work as a game. Would definitely recommend to anyone who's looking for a Christmas game to play.

I just finished this game as I post this review. I had it as a kid and thought I'd revisit it because I could never finish it. I played a version of the game that had been altered to make it easier thus cut chunks out, added safety nets, extra lives, extra time, removed damage, gave you infinite tomatoes to throw... AND I STILL NEEDED TO CONSTANTLY RETRY THE SAME BLOODY PARTS. Do not play this game. Don't. Youtube the ending. Do not play this game. And if you do play this game, here's other things recommended to you based on your gameplay history: Testicular torture, sitting on a pineapple right side up, pushing barbwire down your urethra. Because clearly, CLEARLY, you like suffering if you ignore my warning.

I finished this game a long time ago. I've been wanting to return to it but, after selling my PS2 (I still have the physical copy of the game), I waited a long time until an emulator could run it again. And you know what? It's a bittersweet joy to return to it as my memories of it were a lot nicer to the game. For starters, the plot is pretty normal for the time, just your generic "Hero dog takes down evil human", it's not terrible and it shows the age of the game pretty well. The game itself isn't bad with tricks, minigames, a scent mechanic, it's a perfectly average game in every way. But, that's the thing: It is just average. Every level is three minigames and a collection of 50 purple scents, plus a few missions which don't vary much (collecting items for people, doing a thing, using another dog with a slightly different ability to finish a mission). The music is nice, the sound effects do hold a special place as "early 2000s" in theme, but the audio mixing is terrible if anything else is playing: Is the radio on? Is a guy playing a guitar? Well, let's just suddenly cut off the global music and force you to over hear that thing the SECOND you get near it! Plus, there's no music slider. Or subtitles, which is bad cos the voice acting is... A thing. It feels like everyone was told to be the whackest they could, including a grandpa who talks about mud wrestling cheerleaders (a dirty joke that went WAY above my head). I don't hate the game. But I honestly hate that I've now tainted those vague memories I had with reality. It's a decent game, but it's nothing more than decent. I haven't met any bugs or glitches, the game is properly tested and works great, it's just that it's a great functioning "Meh" game. Certainly would suggest you try it, but I wouldn't expect you to play it more than once.

So, let's get the negatives out of the way first because they're far fewer than the positives. Now, there's very obviously ugly cutscenes, the voice acting bounces between "actually fairly good" and "WHY is DuBois SUPER gay!?" (honestly undermines his role in the game later), and it's easy to not know what to do. My biggest problem was combat, as damage is RNG. I was hit by a boss, loss 20% of my health. I was hit by the third enemy type to appear, I lost 60%. It's not great. Plus, you can accidentally miss VERY important weapons, as if you don't keep picking up new ones you soon find enemies die too slowly to beat. A lot of items you might find vital are only found by just mashing the "interact" button on the background, which isn't always bad (for example, shelves are obvious) but sometimes it's not so obvious. And with enemies on ceilings, underwater, or ceilings underwater, targeting will suck. BUT, honestly? I love this game. If not for those combat flaws, I would give this 5 stars. I entered every room with my gun drawn, I barely used first aid because I was cautious and they were infinite from kits anyway, ammo is also infinite and you can upgrade how much you hold by finding shell boxes or magazines. You don't HAVE to use grenades a ton, nor worry about oxygen that much, and the plot is actually good, the characters are well written (just not well voiced), in-game models are animated more than I expected, the reason you don't mutate is sensible and not Deus Ex Machina, and the music and atmosphere is amazing. I was genuinely shocked by some deaths because I didn't expect them to kill off what seem like "safe" characters. I loved this game. Hell, I was AWESOME at this game and I normally struggle with Resident Evil clones. But by the end of the game, I had a powerful shotgun, a ton of ammo, a high powered machine gun that made short work of the final boss (who did major damage when she hit, so thank god I was cautious and saved up a TON of health kits!), I wasn't afraid of dying at that point, I felt like I had overcome the mutants with the power of bullets! It really is a hidden gem on the Saturn and I'd gladly play again.

There's a reason the CD-i didn't last. This game is... Well, what you would call cringe. The voice acting bounces between terrible and actually not bad, the cutscenes are an interesting idea but, again, bounce between terrible and actually not bad, but the actual graphics of the levels is genuinely beautiful with a good style. The only problem with that is they expect you to know the difference between "solid floor" and "drop into death". The gameplay itself... Oy vey, the inventory is awkward, using items can be annoying, and while I like the shield if you stand still it's a coin toss if it actually helps. Your jump is weak, you run out of resources you NEED to progress insanely fast (some enemies can only be killed with certain items and some levels can only be progressed with certain items) and it's very hard to figure out where to go because every level except for the VERY FIRST is just an endless swarm of annoying flying creatures and ranged attacks you will NOT avoid. It's an endless swarm of being beaten to death and retrying over and over. So, why did I put it at 3 stars and not 1? Well... It's not BAD. I mean, it's a headache, a pain, you WILL regret picking it up. But this is the thing, if you learn patterns, if you stock up on required items and if you take it slow or rush areas (depending on area)... You actually progress pretty well. And the game itself, despite the gameplay being horrific at times, is actually kind of optimistic about its abilities. You can feel there was an idea here, just one that was poorly executed. Honestly, enjoy the memes and youtube videos of others playing. But if you really, REALLY want to suffer, then this isn't the worst game out there to be tortured by.

This game was actually the first Disaster Report game I played, which introduced me to the little loved genre of "Man Vs Disaster". I loved the idea of running away from danger, of having a faceless enemy in nature itself trying to kill you. And, at the time, I used to love this game. But here's the problem... I've played Disaster Report 2 and 3 now. And suddenly all of the flaws in this game became very apparent revisiting it. Now, for starters, this is still a decent game with a bit of a good plot. The gameplay is alright and the set pieces aren't bad either. But compared to later games, you kind of realize that this game is almost exclusively set pieces. It's not like future instalments where it feels natural, where the set pieces feel like they're not scripted, this one feels a lot more forced, like you know it's coming and it spoils the drama. Likewise, dialogue can be painfully slow and overall it's kinda ugly. Cutscenes are very "baby's first game" and it's hard to get the "true" ending of this game (not that you'd want to, but still). There's just too much clunk that makes this game painfully obvious it's the first in the series. Not to mention, there's some very uncomfortable vehicle sections (people said the driving in Disaster Report 2 was bad but that was a breeze in comparison) and an instant death stealth section which... Honestly, it's pointless, it just feels lumped in. I would definitely start with this game if you're playing this series as it's vital to the plot, but I would very much play this only ONCE. Get the origin story, get a feel for how the story will play in future games, but leave it at that. It hasn't stood the test of time very well, but it's playable and unique. Just get used to cheap deaths, this game is somewhat unfair compared to later games.