Dino Crisis 3 for Xbox. Anyone play it yet?

Is it worth picking up? The reviews I've seen weren't that good, but I really liked the first two Dino Crisis games and at least want to give it a chance.

Get the latest issue of the Official XBOX Magazine. There's a demo of it on the disc.

I played through the demo and in all honesty, it's nothing special. Particularly infuritating are the camera angles--I don't think I've ever played a game where the camera is such a hindrance...they remain fixed (they do scroll a little) for the most part and they seem to change at the worst possible time, like when you're navigating some platforms, etc. When fighting enemies, watch out, because again, the camera is just as much an enemy as the dinos that you're supposed to fight. Most of the time the camera remains locked on you, while enemies attack you from offscreen. Yes, your weapon will auto-track, but what good is this if you can't even see your attacker?

In order to get a better look at your surroundings, Capcom makes you switch to a first person mode where you can survey the area and still shoot, but your character is unable to move.
A shame as the game actually had some potential. As it is now, I won't buy it as the camera system just plain sucks.

i played the demo on the xbox mag.
i think its trash.
it would be 75% better if it was third person instead of a fixed camera.
the game suffers alot i think from that.
but hey.
it has nice cg movies.
...

Well the nips liked it.

Guess that doesnt count for much

I played a demo, and the same rule i feel applies.......if i game hits the no.1 salkes spot, doesnt mean its good.

Pretty dire i thought.

Based on the demo, I think this game sucks. Possible THE worst camera system I've ever seen in a game. What the hell was Capcom thinking?

Someone needs to teach Japanese developers how to make 3D games.

Mario 64 is the exception.

That sucks. Sounds like Dino Crisis 3 will be hitting the bargain bins fairly quickly.

I talked to 5 people that gave the game back to the store cause they hated it so much. By what the told me, it play's like shit and the camera angles are shitty.

It's not that bad, actually. The full game is a lot better than the demo and the story is interesting enough to follow through to the end. I beat the game once already and they do give you an extra mode to play once you beat the game, where you get this real nice high speed boost pack. In a way, it's no worse than any Resident Evil game, and actually has a couple of gimmicks that make it less tired than Resident Evil. I've played the RE and DC games till the cows come home, so I picked this one up more so to add to that collection.

Actually, the best part of the game is the control. It's very tight and travelling around with the boost pack is very nice and comfortable. In a way, it's part of what keeps the game from slowing down on you. The combos are sort of taken from the Dino Crisis 2 side of things, and is your main way of getting money to buy stuff. Thus it is more profitable to find rooms with many creatures than the few if you want to build money fast. You'll need it too, as you want to be nearly maxed out by the time you get to the end of the game. The way points exponentially increase with each new monster you add to the combo (up to 8) and then keep up that high scoring points for each afterwards, gives you a lot of incentive to rush down those easier beasts. Good that you have a jet pack to help reach them before the counter dissappears (ending the combo), you'll need it sometimes. My highest combo is 25, which I've accomplished multiple times.

Length is more or less typical of the longer playing survival horrors (the first time through). It should take you around 10-12 playing hours if you are typically good or well practiced at these games. The RPG-like building up parts are part of what gives the game its length. There are a few issues with the camera and such, but if there is something one shouldn't complain about is control. The control is better than any Capcom survival horror that came before it. Actually, the demo had the most glaring parts of the camera. However, you never need to precisely aim your shots or anything as it has an auto aim function and the surround sound solves a lot of issues with camera switching. But the game flows smoothly and keeps things continuous (motion and position-wise), and once you get that into your head, you'll be sweeping along and strafing down beasts, jumping and dodging, in no time.

Another major aspect of the game, that isn't in the demo, is the transforming ship idea. A nice gimmick that is put to good use. Every major section of the ship is a transformer(TM). There are kiosks for each part of the ship (not all immediately working the first time you see them) that shape shift the section to a different configuration and positions, all of them affecting gameplay and altering your environment. Rooms will get shifted sideways, other rooms will get smashed together with other rooms, and perhaps some hidden locations will get revealed. Certain doors open as they work only in certain configurations, etc.

Even with all of this added (certainly giving the player a bit more than the past games in either Res evil or Dino Crisis lore), the game loses a bit of wow factor to those who played those games to death. Partially because you start to get that (just another survival horror) perspective after a while. And you become a bit jaded against any of them unless they take on a very different view. This is about as much as Capcom has strayed from the original formula, but take in consideration that they only stray but so far from the original formula for all their games. I'd say this one was pretty good as it takes a lot to keep me interested in a survival horror action game, of this manner, these days. If you liked the earlier DC games, you'll probably get a kick out of this one. It's Burning Rangers meets Dino Crisis, in a few ways (a little closer to DC2, as it is more challenging high action than "jump at you" scares. Though it does seem a bit more up in story presentation than 2.). The no-grav locales also mix things up a bit, as well. However, like pretty much any Capcom survival horror game, I'd would say rent it first, and you'll probably get more of your moneys worth if you get it cheaper than the initial asking price. It's still not something as wickedly different as Fatal Frame.

P.S. - Another aspect of the game that the demo doesn't show is the support bots(Wasps). The best way to compare them would be to compare them to the legions of Chaos Legion. They are attack bots you can call out to aid in attacking your foes. There are multiple kinds, each of them a different color. They serve two main purposes. They are used obviously as attack options (ala. R-type) and then they are also used to unlock certain doors that need you to insert those droids to unlock (they do that when you fire them off, near the lock, with no monsters around). Like Chaos Legion, each type of Wasp has a different style of attack and thus discretion should be used to best utilize each type for different situations.