Dino Crisis 2
After the events of the previous game, unsafe research into time-distorting Third Energy has resulted in an entire research base, military institution, and fictional metropolis of Edward City to be transported to another time, along with all of its inhabitants. Secret Operations Raid Team operative Regina returns as one of the main playable characters, sent along as an adviser to the rescue team that travels through time to find survivors of the time displacement and recover data on the Third Energy experiments. Dylan Morton, the rescue team leader, is the second playable character. Despite Dylan and  Regina initially going their separate ways, they end up joining forces to find a way back to the present. The player switches between controlling Regina and Dylan at specific points during the story. Gameplay. "Dino Crisis 2" is an action-adventure game that uses predetermined camera angles. Capcom Production Studio 4 changed the series' focus from the survival horror of the first "Dino Crisis" by creating a more action-packed arcade-style experience that featured more open areas, greater varieties of weapons and enemies and less emphasis on puzzles. As players kill dinosaurs in succession, countering attacks and avoiding damage  in areas, they can earn "Extinction Points" a form of in-game currency that tally up as player moves between locations. Throughout the game, the player can locate and use computer stations that act as a save point where players can save and load games. They can also spend Extinction Points on new weapons, upgrades, health packs and ammunition. There are also bandages (used to stem bleeding). This type of injury occurs when a player takes damage from certain attacks, and it results in slow draining of the health bar. There are two forms of weapons in the game, main  and sub-weapons; the player can only equip one of each at a time. Main weapons provide the most damage and are used for the majority of attacks, for example shotguns, flamethrowers and rifles whereas sub-weapons are used to get past obstacles, like the machete for cutting plant vines and the firewall gun that creates a temporary wall of fire against foes. Over the course of the game players switch roles between Regina and Dylan, the two have different weapons, making some passages blocked for one but accessible for the other. Among the action-adventure gameplay are sections of  on rails shooting, such as a chase where the player shoots at dinosaurs that are chasing an automatically driven vehicle and, like the previous game, several puzzles. Throughout the game, the player finds data files and documents that progress the story and give details of certain areas. Hidden "Dino Files" can also be found; these go into detail about each dinosaur in the game. Upon collecting all the available Dino Files, the player is granted unlimited ammunition for weapons on the next play through. Extra Crisis. Upon completion of the main game, there is an unlockable mode known as Extra  Crisis with two gameplay modes: "Dino Colosseum" and "Dino Duel". Colosseum is a survival mode where a chosen character with their own pre-set weapons fight off series of attacks by certain dinosaurs, the larger and more deadly being the latter. Upon completion the player is graded and awarded a trophy on how well they performed. Dino Duel is a mode that allows the player to take control of a dinosaur and battle another in the style of a fighting game. Completion of the game on harder difficulties allows more characters and dinosaurs to become available for purchase, using the  final Extinction Points gathered from that play through. These include Gail and Rick, two characters from the first game. Dinosaurs can also be used in Dino Colosseum, but they must be unlocked by completing the game in normal or hard mode. Plot. On May 10, 2010, the United States Army's TRAT unit is deployed to investigate the disappearance of Edward City and its surrounding countryside. Their mission: Travel through the Time Gate, locate 1300 survivors and collect data remnants on the Third Energy Project. Intelligence operative Regina is brought along as an adviser due to her past experiences. During  insertion, the team's camp is attacked by a pack of "Velociraptor", leaving Lieutenant Dylan Morton, Regina and TRAT operative David as the only survivors. The velociraptors flee when a "Tyrannosaurus rex" attacks the group. David damages the tyrannosaur's eye with a rocket-propelled grenade to ensure Dylan and Regina's escape. Regina returns to the transport ship while Dylan heads into the jungle, spotting a mysterious helmeted figure while investigating a military facility. Upon arrival, he is confronted by the wounded "T. rex". While escaping to the barracks, he is shot at by helmeted attackers. Later, he attempts  to retrieve a key card, triggering a security alert that imprisons him. Regina receives Dylan's distress call and rescues him. While rescuing Dylan, Regina captures one of the mysterious attackers, a blonde teenage girl who is unable to speak. When they return to their ship, they find the engine room ransacked, stranding the heroes in the past, while the teenage girl exhibits a familiar connection to Dylan. At the Research Facility, Dylan discovers human containment chambers and a starter battery for the ship in order to get it mobile. Dylan returns to find the girl has escaped and theorizes  that the helmeted attackers could be from a different time period. They use the repaired ship to reach the offshore Third Energy facility. Regina uses a diving suit at the facility to investigate the underwater reactor. Once topside, she and Dylan receive a distress call from David, who has found survivors at Edward City. However, Dylan and Regina arrive too late. Upon splitting up, Dylan engages the "T. rex" with a tank before being jumped by another helmeted figure. The blonde girl saves Dylan and runs away. Deciding they have no business at Edward City anymore, Regina heads to a  missile silo in the jungle. Regina discovers the Third Energy data at the silo, but is confronted by the "Tyrannosaurus". Her savior is a gargantuan "Giganotosaurus" that kills it in a vicious one-sided brawl. The "Gigantosaurus" follows Regina inside the missile silo, causing damage that triggers a countdown to launch. Regina ignites gas vents to incinerate the "Giganotosaurus"'s head, rendering it comatose. Regina stops the countdown, but the beast awakens from its coma and smashes the missile to the ground, destroying the base. While evacuating Regina, Dylan is attacked and injured by an "Allosaurus". In order to save  him, David sacrifices himself by throwing Dylan into the river before getting eaten by the allosaur. Dylan arrives at another research facility and encounters the blonde-haired girl. Inside, she plays a hologram recording of an elderly Dylan from 2055 and learns the origins of the disaster. The overload in 2009 caused time alterations to the Cretaceous Era, affected the earth's history dramatically, creating an alternate timeline where humanity did not exist. To fix this, an international organization enacted the "Noah's Ark Plan": utilizing the Timegate technology, they would transport the living organisms of the Cretaceous to a  different time period, three million years in the future, with similar environments, where they could thrive unaffected by the alterations. With the distortions prevented, the organisms would then be returned to their original time period. However, when the Noah's Ark team attempted to return, the gate overloaded and was destroyed, stranding both the dinosaurs and humans in the future. The helmeted attackers are revealed to be the only remaining children of the survivors, who were brought to the safety of a facility and placed in special life support chambers for growth and learning. The side-effects of the chambers  cost the children's ability to speak and allowed them to co-exist with the dinosaurs, attacking anyone who threatened them. Dylan also learns at this point that the blonde girl is his future daughter, Paula. The hologram instructs Dylan there is a basic gate they can use to go home, but it will work only once, asking Dylan to take Paula with him. The facility's self destruct system is activated by the sole surviving helmeted figure. Paula flees, and Dylan and the helmeted figure wrestle each other to the floor, but the brawl is cut short when the  Giganotosaurus appears from the shadows. The helmeted figure is tossed off a foot bridge and killed, while Dylan incinerates the beast with an orbital laser. While attempting to evacuate with Regina, an earth tremor leaves Paula trapped by falling equipment. Unable to free her and with the building ready to explode, Dylan stays with his daughter, telling Regina to return home with the Third Energy data and save them at an earlier time period. Reception. The PlayStation version received "generally favorable reviews" according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. In Japan, "Famitsu" gave it a score of 32 out of  40. In his review, Ben Stahl of "GameSpot" commented that the first "Dino Crisis" was as if Capcom "replaced the zombies with carnivorous dinosaurs" for a "Resident Evil" spin-off. However, he found "Dino Crisis 2" "an original, enjoyable experience that can no longer be considered just another entry into the survival-horror genre", as it "avoids the stereotypes of the genre and delivers one of the most refreshing takes on the action-adventure genre to date." Douglass C. Perry of "IGN" concurred that the game had been "stripped of its slow-paced "Resident Evil" shell and its haunting, creepy  shockeroo tricks." Perry had even more praise for the game, saying, "The creatures and the design are both excellent, and the jungle backgrounds, and especially the underwater environments, are simply top-notch." "GamePro"s review commented that "sound is solid, with an unobtrusive musical score that blends well with gaming effects, i.e. the telltale rustle of foliage preceding a raptor's leap for your throat isn't drowned out by J-pop." "Edge" gave it six out of ten, saying, "What "Dino Crisis 2" does exceptionally well is take all the elements from the survival horror pantheon and hone them for  popular consumption. [...] Even the underwater sequence, which is well presented and excellently executed, is not enough to submerge the feeling that corridor-based survival horror has hit something of a creative dead end." Marc Saltzman of "The Cincinnati Enquirer" stated, "Overall, "Dino Crisis 2" is a fantastic sequel that delivers more adrenaline-pumping action, beautiful scenery and a hearty dose of terror." Saltzman added that "tasks such as running around looking for keys can be tedious. And some of the action portions of the game can get repetitive, too." A.A. White of "GameRevolution" felt the "arcade-like" gameplay "detracts a  bit from the whole survival-horror theme." He also noted that "the back and forth gameplay gets tired after a while," and that it can be "very easy to get distracted from the storyline and get sucked into the process of amassing an arsenal." Greg Orlando of "NextGen", however, said, "Beautiful graphics, solid control, and furious action still can't overcome the dull protagonists and severely foreshortened running time." Like its predecessor, "Dino Crisis 2" was a commercial success, with the PlayStation version selling 1.19 million units worldwide. Capcom would later re-release the game for PC, and bring it  to PlayStation Network in the US and Japan. The PlayStation version was a runner-up for "GameSpot"s annual "Best PlayStation Game" and "Best Adventure Game" awards.