''Disney's Dinosaur'' is a 2000 video game published by

Ubi Soft Ubisoft Entertainment SA (; ; formerly Ubi Soft Entertainment SA) is a French video game publisher headquartered in Saint-Mandé with development studios across the world. Its video game franchises include ''Assassin's Creed'', ''Far Cry (serie ...

, and functions as a

tie-in A tie-in work is a work of fiction or other product based on a media property such as a film, video game, television series, board game, web site, role-playing game or literary property. Tie-ins are authorized by the owners of the original pr ...

to the Disney film of the same name.

Story

The game loosely follows the story of the film, starting with Aladar, Zini, Suri, and Plio on the Lemur Island. The island is destroyed in a

meteor A meteoroid () is a small rocky or metallic body in outer space. Meteoroids are defined as objects significantly smaller than asteroids, ranging in size from grains to objects up to a meter wide. Objects smaller than this are classified as mic ...

shower, forcing Aladar and his friends to flee to the mainland, where they encounter a herd of

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

s led by the ruthless Kron.

Gameplay

All versions of the game are played from a third-person top-down perspective. The game is played in a platforming-esque fashion, while most of the game consists of

puzzles A puzzle is a game, problem, or toy that tests a person's ingenuity or knowledge. In a puzzle, the solver is expected to put pieces together ( or take them apart) in a logical way, in order to arrive at the correct or fun solution of the puzzle ...

. The player's goal on each level is to complete tasks, such as defeating all enemy dinosaurs in an area, or locating and leading lost dinosaurs back to a herd. Enemies include ''

Velociraptor ''Velociraptor'' (; ) is a genus of small dromaeosaurid dinosaur that lived in Asia during the Late Cretaceous epoch, about 75 million to 71 million years ago. Two species are currently recognized, although others have been assigned in the p ...

'', ''

Oviraptor ''Oviraptor'' (; ) is a genus of oviraptorid dinosaur that lived in Asia during the Late Cretaceous period. The first remains were collected from the Djadokhta Formation of Mongolia in 1923 during a paleontological expedition led by Roy Chapma ...

'', ''

Albertosaurus ''Albertosaurus'' (; meaning "Alberta lizard") is a genus of tyrannosaurid theropod dinosaurs that lived in western North America during the Late Cretaceous Period (geology), Period, about 71 million years ago. The type species, ''A. sarc ...

'', ''

Dryptosaurus ''Dryptosaurus'' ( ) is a genus of tyrannosauroid that lived approximately 67 million years ago (mya) during the latter part of the Cretaceous period, New Jersey. ''Dryptosaurus'' was a large, bipedal, ground-dwelling carnivore, that grow up to ...

'', ''

Spinosaurus ''Spinosaurus'' (; ) is a genus of spinosaurid dinosaur that lived in what now is North Africa during the Cenomanian to upper Turonian stages of the Late Cretaceous period, about 99 to 93.5 million years ago. The genus was known first ...

'' and ''

Carnotaurus ''Carnotaurus'' (; ) is a genus of theropod dinosaur that lived in South America during the Late Cretaceous period, probably sometime between 71 and 69 million years ago. The only species is ''Carnotaurus sastrei''. Known from a single well-p ...

''. The PlayStation and Dreamcast versions of the game both feature 12 levels. Checkpoints are featured in most levels. The PC and console versions allow the player to separately or simultaneously control three characters: Aladar, Zini, and the

Pteranodon ''Pteranodon'' (); from Ancient Greek (''pteron'', "wing") and (''anodon'', "toothless") is a genus of pterosaur that included some of the largest known flying reptiles, with ''P. longiceps'' having a wingspan of . They lived during the late C ...

that took Aladar's egg to the lemur island in the film, here dubbed Flia. The PC and console versions feature clips from the film, which play before and after each level. The Game Boy Color version supports use of the

Game Boy Printer The Game Boy Printer, known as the in Japan, is a thermal printer accessory released by Nintendo in 1998 which ceased production in early 2003. The Game Boy Printer is compatible with all the Game Boy systems except the Game Boy Micro and is des ...

and features 27 levels, as well as six playable characters from the film: Aladar, Eema, Url, Zini, Plio and Suri.

Reception

The game was met with very mixed to negative reviews upon release.

GameRankings GameRankings was a video gaming review aggregator that was founded in 1999 and owned by CBS Interactive. It indexed over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 video games. GameRankings was discontinued in December 2019, with its staff bei ...

and

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

gave it a score of 51.62% for the Game Boy Color version; 51.89% and 44 out of 100 for the PlayStation version; 49.20% and 53 out of 100 for the Dreamcast version; and 45.75% for the PlayStation 2 version. Blake Fischer reviewed the Dreamcast version of the game for ''

Next Generation Next Generation or Next-Generation may refer to: Publications and literature * ''Next Generation'' (magazine), video game magazine that was made by the now defunct Imagine Media publishing company * Next Generation poets (2004), list of young ...

'', considering it adequate, but not as compelling. Adam Cleveland of

IGN ''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa dist ...

reviewed the PlayStation version and said: "The game isn't exciting, the levels are drab, and the graphics are outdated. Dinosaur's objectives can be accomplished quickly, and the levels speed by. Before you know it, it's all over". Anthony Chau of IGN criticized the Dreamcast version for "horrible collision detection, tedious fighting sequences, and an overall gameplay experience that just isn't fun". Marc Nix of IGN criticized the Game Boy Color version for lack of good puzzles and gameplay as droned and boring. Nix also criticized the game for bad collision detection and controls, as well as three of its playable lemur characters: "You end up playing most of the game with a leaping monkey. That may be fun elsewhere, but I want to stomp, to swim, to fight. ..If the game box says 'Dinosaur', I want Dinosaurs. ..Even Aladar, the film's star, sees little screen time in this game".

Gamecenter ''CNET'' (short for "Computer Network") is an American media website that publishes reviews, news, articles, blogs, podcasts, and videos on technology and consumer electronics globally. ''CNET'' originally produced content for radio and televi ...

's Colin Williamson considered it a "tired action/puzzler" game, although he praised the graphics.

References

External links

* * * {{Authority control 2000 video games Ubisoft games Adventure games Dreamcast games Game Boy Color games PlayStation (console) games PlayStation 2 games Windows games Video games about dinosaurs Video games developed in Canada Video games developed in France Video games developed in the United States Single-player video games Video games set in the Mesozoic Disney video games 3D platform games Digital Eclipse games Video games based on animated films