11/18/03
 

Dinosaur Hunting – Experience Something Entirely Different From The Norm

by Louis Bedigian

GameZone digs up clues with the Director of Development. 

Rain poured from the sky, helping to drown out the loud thump in the background.  The thump came from something large, something meaty, something hungry.  Despite the sound of the rain, which had continued to increase as it turned to hail, the thumping grew stronger.  Each thump was intense, striking fear in us all.  If this had been the first time we heard it we might not have been afraid.  But we knew what it was coming from.

Run for your lives!!! 

Actually the thump came from a Tyrannosaurus Rex, the most beloved carnivorous dinosaur known to man.

In most games your job is to hunt and kill (or scream and run from) the Tyrannosaurus Rex.  Metro3D has put a whole new spin on the genre with a game called Dinosaur Hunting.  Dinosaurs are scarce, so in this game you must find a way to save the species.

How will you do it?  How will you keep the once-thought-to-be-extinct creatures from getting permanently extinct?  And what makes all this a fun gaming experience?  Masanao Kita, Director of Development, gives GameZone the details. 

In Dinosaur Hunting, the player's mission is to preserve the species, not kill it.  How is this done?

Masanao Kita: All weapons used in the game are tranquillizer guns.  In this game, the mission is cleared if the player successfully puts dinosaurs into sleep.

How do the dinosaurs react to humans who are trying to "save" them?

MK: For dinosaurs, humans are just invaders and unwelcome outsiders.  They might welcome humans as something to munch on.  Dinosaurs will attack, threaten, and evade from those humans.

Scientists have been successful in cloning existing animals and believe they will someday bring extinct animals back to life.  Do you think it will ever be possible to re-create (that is, clone) a dinosaurs?

MK: Technically it could be possible.  Whether or not it is a good thing to revive dinosaurs in today's world, which is totally different from the environment they lived in, is a different matter.

Lining up the perfect shot.

What types of dinosaurs are being created for the game?  What is the ratio of the potentially harmless herbivores to the life-threatening carnivores?

MK: Dinosaurs [that] lived in the Jurassic period to late Cretaceous period, plus some other more recently extinguished dinosaurs appear in this game.  There are all 52 of them, with 6:4 ratio of herbivore to carnivore.

Are all of the dinosaurs real, or have any new types or half-breeds been created for entertainment purposes?

MK: All of the dinosaurs in this game have either fossils to prove their existence or a credible report that they actually lived.  For entertainment purposes, some of them are exaggerated in appearance.  We believe we have realistically represented the true dinosaurs in both appearance and movement.

Do you have the option of killing a dinosaur – to save a human's life, perhaps?

MK: No, all of the missions are cleared by putting dinosaurs to sleep.

Where does all the action take place?

MK: The action takes place in the South American Amazon Guiana Highlands circa 1910.  This was the time when adventures were real adventures.   It is inspired by the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novel, "Lost World".

The screenshots appear to reveal two different camera perspectives. Is that true?  If so, please tell us about them, and how the player switches back and forth between them (and the purpose of doing so).

MK: (1) Third person view behind the player – this is the main camera view.  If you want to look around, you can do so by wriggling the right thumb stick.  Also, because the back of your own character is in view so it will make it easier to size the dinosaurs.

(2) Scope perspective (first person) – When the player is holding and aiming a rifle, this perspective is automatically selected.  It will give a superior sense of tension.   Also, in some mini games, there is a third person view showing the player escaping from a carnivore dinosaur.

This ain’t no Barney, that’s for sure!

How does the game control?

MK: Basically, R trigger is for shooting.  Various weapons are assigned to each of the buttons, and you can press the button to aim and R trigger to shoot.  However, the handgun can be fired just by pulling the R trigger.  L stick is for general movement.  If you push down L stick, you can lay down flat.  By doing this, you can temporarily hide from dinosaurs and can deceive some of them.  The game progresses in stages by clearing each mission by capturing different dinosaurs.  Of course each stage has several kinds of dinosaurs; the player can choose to capture all of them, or concentrate on the dinosaur needed to clear the stage.  Also, once you clear the game in Story Mode, you can try again all of the stages in Free Hunt mode.

Have you played any of the other dinosaur-hunting games out there (such as Dino Crisis)?  If so, were you impressed and/or inspired by any of them?

MK: I played Dino Crisis 1, 2 and Gun Survivor.  In Dino Crisis 1 and 2, the zombies in Biohazard are replaced by dinosaurs and I had fun playing them.  Both of them are pure gun action games and dinosaurs appear as enemies.  Also, I have played "Primal Prey," the 3D dinosaur hunting PC title.  Even though the player is equipped with many weapons, including a tranquilizer gun, sniper rifles, sound shock wave gun, rail gun, landmine, horoscope, night vision gun, the player is all alone in a jungle, and there is a tension that you never know when you will be attacked.  But this game had only one stage, and the dinosaur, weather and time were all predetermined according to missions.  I wish they changed that.

Behind you, behind you!

Some developers have tried to add a new dimension to gaming by experimenting with smell.  Peripherals like the ill-fated iSmell from DigiScent promised to immerse the player even deeper into the experience.  If the technology could be perfected, do you think that it would really add something to our gaming experience?  Would it be good for developers?  Or would it just be a pain?

MK: It will depend on how you use it.  It can add an interesting dimension to the gaming experience if it matches the overall game vision and visual concept.

With the Japanese version finally complete, can you give us a hint as to what your next project may be?  Are there any other unique concepts you'd like to attempt?

MK: Unfortunately we cannot comment on our next project, but we would like to work on something new, something original.

Thank you for your time.