Dinosaur Hunting Hands-On

For those who wished Dino Crisis 3 took place on planet Earth and didn't have The Worst Camera Ever™, Metro 3D may have the alternative in the upcoming Dinosaur Hunting. As the name suggests, you play a dinosaur hunter, only your goal is capturing and rescuing the dinos, not killing them. That's because the Jurassic Park-like island these creatures live on has an active volcano that is about to erupt. The only way to save the dinos is to hunt them down, put them to sleep, and get them shipped off the island.

Despite the slightly odd concept, rest assured that none of the dinos are willing participants in the hunt. While you work to slow them down and knock them out, they will try and trample and much on you. You play as any of five characters across 10 different stages. The characters each have their own look and feel, but don't appear to have much of a backstory. The one exception is Arthur Conan Doyle. Yes, the author of the Sherlock Holmes series and The Lost World is, for some reason, in the game as a hunter. Uh, okay, cool. The primary character, Malone, also gets an assist from his dog, Algo, who finds clues and also runs around dinosaurs that are absolutely spazzing out. It's a bit bizarre, but he is kinda cute.

Each area offers a specific goal -- the capture of one particular dinosaur. However, there are plenty of other dinos (all of them based on the real deal) that inhabit the area that you can also take out for money. By take out, I mean put to sleep. You do this by shooting them multiple times with your handgun, shotgun, and rifle. Once their health is fully depleted, the beasts fall to the ground, giant Zs drifting up from their sleepy heads. You get cash for this, which can be used to buy ammo, items, and drugs (for healing yourself, not for snorting). And remember, all of this is for a worthy cause -- you're saving dinosaurs, who are, of course, very productive members of society.

Controls for Dino Hunting are relatively simple. Left Trigger is lock-on, Right Trigger fires your weapon, holding Y pulls out your Rifle (which has three levels of zoom), X pulls out your shotgun, and A inspects items. The White and Black button can be mapped to any items in your inventory, which is very helpful. The HUD is pretty helpful with clues offered as scrolling text at the top of the screen, but I'm not sure how useful the "Threat Gauge" will be when playing through the game. This gauge warns you of how agitated a dino is. But it's pretty easy to figure out a dinosaur is pissed off when they are trampling on your sack.

Based on the first two areas of the game, there's a lot of area to explore and plenty of dinos to put a sleeper hold on. This is strictly a third-person shooter, however. Don't expect any adventure elements. Instead, you'll do your best to navigate the large map, following dino footprints and discarded meals to find the main target. You're given a time limit, but it's extremely generous -- three hours for the first mission alone. That's longer than any of the J Park flicks, so you know there will be plenty of dino action to be had.

Since this game is all about shooting dinosaurs to make them sleepy (couldn't you just drug the water?), shooting controls will be key to the game's success. Well, after about an hour of play, I had a few issue with those controls. For the most part they are fine, especially when using the rifle, but at times it's tough to aim at a dino with the shotgun or hand gun, especially when there are multiple targets. This got a little frustrating, especially when shooting at some aggressive dinos freaked out -- and pissed off -- a bunch of herbivores, who then came charging at me. Overall the control isn't bad, but it needs a little work. With only a few weeks left until release, however, I have my doubts.

On a more positive note, the various species of dinosaur have different AI patterns so that there are aggressive buggers, peace-loving hippie grass-eaters, and of course, the king of the island, the T-Rex. Different actions will change a dinos mood and there are even nests you can stumble on. Get near some eggs and watch mama go on a freak out.

Dinosaur Hunting is set to ship near the end of June. Will it make up for that other lackluster dinosaur game on Xbox? Well, that's what a review is for. Look for ours later in the month. Until then, enjoy the new screens and flicks. Good hunting.

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