After the events of the previous game, unsafe research into time-distorting Third Energy has resulted in the fictional metropolis of Edward City being transported back to the age of the dinosaurs, along with all of its inhabitants. Special Tactics and Reconnaissance 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, creating a more action-packed arcade-style experience that featured more open areas, greater weapon and enemy variety and less emphasis on puzzles.
As players kill dinosaurs in succession, countering attacks and avoiding damage in areas, they can earn "Extinction Points" that act as 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 that are 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, meaning 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, as 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, however, they must be unlocked by completing the game in normal or hard mode.
Characters
Playable Protagonists
- Dylan Morton (Gabriel Hogan) - Part of the Tactical Reconnaissance and Acquisition Team (TRAT), an off-record covert group of shady characters recruited from army special forces. They focus on subversive activities, e.g. jailbreaks and insurgency.
- Regina (Stephanie Morgenstern) - A member of Secret Operations Raid Team (SORT), Regina is the only returning cast member from Dino Crisis that features in the main story. She is skeptical of Dylan's abilities at the outset, calling him "Mr. Barbarian," before going it alone.
Secondary Characters
- David Fork (Eric Hempsall) - Another prominent TRAT member, David is a heavy weapons specialist and Dylan's friend. He is separated from the others during the opening cinematic. David is boastful, loyal, and can fly a helicopter. Towards the end, he is slain and eaten by an Allosaurus.
- Paula Morton (Lisa Yamanaka) - A recurring character. This teenage girl is part of a helmeted syndicate that is hostile towards Regina and Dylan. She appears childlike and is unable to form complete sentences. Paula shares a special connection with Dylan.
- Colonel Dylan Morton - Appearing as a hologram at the end of the game, Colonel Morton plays an important role in the story. He reveals the truth about the helmeted attackers and what went wrong with the experiment.
Plot
Regina receives Dylan's distress call and sets out on a rescue. She takes an alternate route to the facility through a poison gas zone, using a flamethrower to kill the plants producing the poisonous spores. Along the way, after a fight with an angry Allosaurus, Regina catches one of the mysterious attackers. She removes the helmet, revealing a blonde teenage girl who is unable to speak. Regina leaves her handcuffed and goes to save Dylan. When they return to the patrol ship, they find the engine room ransacked - apparently by the helmeted attackers. They are now stranded in the past. Dylan resolves to find parts to get the ship moving so they can search for information on how to reactivate the Time Gate. Before leaving, he tends to the unknown girl, who halts her struggles upon seeing his face, acting as if she recognizes Dylan.
After traveling to a new part of the Research Facility, Dylan finds a nest of Oviraptors, fast little dinosaurs that spit acid. After fighting his way out of the building lobby, he is about to open a locked door when a Compsognathus snatches his card key away. Dylan eventually manages to outfox the "Compy", locking it in a cage and winning the card back. Inside the locked room, he discovers human containment chambers and a starter battery for the ship. Dylan returns to find the girl has escaped, and discusses the possiblity that the helmeted attackers could be from a totally different time period. Regina dismisses this, saying they should get back to finding the Third Energy data and looking for survivors. They use the repaired patrol ship to reach the offshore Third Energy facility, repelling an assault from numerous flying Pterosaurs and water dwelling Plesiosaurus.
Regina finds a diving suit at the facility and decides to investigate the underwater reactor, evading attacks from Mosasaurus along the way. Once in the reactor core, she is suddenly attacked by a huge Plesiosaurus. The water currents from the giant creature disturb the reactor, causing it to go into lockdown mode. Regina uses her aquagrenade weapon to dispatch the Plesiosaurus, restoring the water current back to normal and opening the reactor shields. Once topside, she and Dylan receive a distress call from David who has found survivors at Edward City. Following signs left by their team mate, they traverse caves filled with Inostrancevia and stumble into the Allosaurus nesting grounds. Dylan and Regina make it through by taking turns covering each other with mounted cannons. They emerge next to a dying Triceratops fawn. It cries out, alerting adult Triceratops who charge Dylan and Regina. The two escape in a nearby jeep, fending off the Triceratops with a mounted heavy machinegun, before crashing into a field infested with Velociraptors. David heroically rescues them with a helicopter, yet when they fly over Edward City, it is under siege by the raptors. Arriving too late to save anyone, the team splits up to find the Third Energy data. Dylan engages the T-Rex with a tank before being jumped by another helmeted figure. The blonde girl appears to save him. She runs away, but Dylan recovers something she dropped in the struggle: a necklace worn by his dead sister. Regina asks about it, and Dylan relates his dark past, explaining that he used to be in a street gang, but joined the military after a rival gang killed his mother and sister. Deciding they have no business at Edward City anymore, Regina heads to a Missile Silo in the jungle, using a newly acquired gas mask to get past more poison plants.
Regina discovers the Third Energy data at the Missile Silo, but is once again confronted by the persistent Tyrannosaurus Rex. Her savior is a massive Giganotosaurus that defeats the T.Rex in a brief one-sided fight. It follows Regina inside the Missile Silo, causing damage that triggers a countdown to launch. While dodging the giant dinosaur's mouth, Regina ignites gas vents to incinerate the Giganotosaur's head, rendering it comatose. Although she manages to stop the countdown, the beast awakens from its slumber, smashing the missile to the ground. Regina barely escapes the resulting explosion, fighting her way through the burning facility and more Inostrancevia to reach the patrol ship outside. She meets back up with Dylan and David, and they take the ship down river, hoping to escape further detonations from the Missile Silo. Their escape is halted by a water gate. After helping open the way through, Dylan is attacked by an Allosaurus. He is saved by David, who pushes him into the river. Dylan is swept away by the current, watching as David is eaten by the Allosaurus.
Some time later, Dylan awakes in an unknown area. The blonde girl returns, leading him into a large base complex deep in the jungle. Once inside, she plays a hologram of an army colonel who explains the truth of the disaster. Widespread time skewing was carried out in the future to study dinosaurs, with disastrous results. When it became clear dinosaurs and humans could not coexist, the military enacted the Noah's Ark Plan: they would transport the dinosaurs far into the future, before sending them back to the Cretaceous once the technology was perfected. However, there was an accident when the Noah's Ark team tried to return. The gate overloaded and was destroyed, stranding both the dinosaurs and humans far in the future. The helmeted attackers are revealed to be the only remaining children of the survivors, who were were brought to the safety of the Habitat Support Facility and placed in special life support chambers. These allowed for growth and learning, but were intended for use by the dinosaurs. The holographic colonel explains that because of this, the children lost the ability to speak and were taught to co-exist with the dinosaurs, attacking anyone who threatened the animals. Finally, the hologram reveals himself to be Colonel Dylan Morton, speaking in 2055. Dylan realizes that he has been talking to a future version of himself, and that the blonde girl before him is his daughter, Paula. The hologram instructs Dylan there is a basic gate they can use to go home, but it will work only once. He pleads for Dylan to take Paula through the gate as well.
Suddenly, the facility announces that its self-destruct sequence has been activated. Dylan is attacked by the helmeted figure that triggered the self-destruct. Their fight is interrupted as theGiganotosaurus stomps inside, destroying the platform they were brawling on. The helmeted figure is killed while Dylan barely makes it to the facility controls. After re-linking a series of satellites, he triggers an orbiting laser cannon that blasts the giant dinosaur out of existence. Regina returns and they activate the gate, but a sudden earth tremor leaves Paula trapped by falling equipment. Unable to free her and with the building ready to explode, Dylan decides to stay with his daughter. He begs Regina to go back alone and find a way to save them with the Third Energy data. Regina promises to return and dashes through the gate moments before the facility explodes.
The game features three post-rating epilogue scenes showing the main characters in happier settings. One features Dylan driving a sports car through the city, another has Regina standing in front of a window in her bedroom, and a third shows Paula lying in a grassy field, wearing her necklace and smiling as bubbles float by. Which image is shown changes depending on how many times you have beaten the game.
