Dino Run succeeded where other games in the genre failed
Dino run is a side scrolling game based on the last days of the prehistoric world of dinosaurs, the game begins with a small randomly colored dinosaur the player must control, the creature is basically just standing in the middle of a meadow when all of a sudden, around two seconds later, a giant meteorite hits the earth unleashing a massive wave of "doom" that engulfs everything on its path, you can feel the painfully dramatic moment as the peaceful dinosaur ecosystem is torn apart, countless dinosaurs are left with absolutely no choice but to rush away from the wave, yours is among them, you will see tons of confused dinosaurs on your way to an uncertain salvation as you try to escape some confused and disoriented, others too slow to save themselves, others are simply too small to be saved so you'll have no alternative but to eat them whereas others are too big to pass across the small walkable paths in the middle of the lava or tar ponds... the landscape is not a pretty one to look and no matter where you go things only get worse.
As you run your way through mountains, fields and even rivers you will begin to noticed how deep was the damage caused to the environment by the meteor crash, the giant cloud of smoke, dust and ashes blocks as small part of the sun rays at first and contaminates the clouds causing acid rain, which leads to the gradual death of plants and desertification, the death of the large herbivores and carnivores, the landscape gets gloomy as the giant cloud of smoke continues to block sunlight until total darkness consumes the land and firestorms caused by volcanic eruptions are the only light to be seen amidst the chaos caused by the advancing wave of doom that has yet to stop... up to this point your dinosaur still has no choice but to keep running, whatever happens next it's up to you to find out.
Level Detail.
Each level has a very basic amount of elements to be noticed, other dinosaurs, trees, rocks, volcanic rocks, mountains, ponds, rivers and a changing background that goes with the progression of environmental decay. Since you can only run to the opposite direction of the doom wave every terrain element is basically either an obstacle (such as pits) or short cuts like the underground tunnels being the most obvious ones.
Soundtrack and sound effects.
The Classic midi format music very suitable for the game and the effects can be hilariously simplistic for today's standards, make no mistake, im not addressing either as a negative on the contrary, they're perfectly fitting.
Gameplay 1.0.
Gameplay is the key part of this game, while it may sound that the fitting atmosphere is the main pro for Dino Run it is not, the simplicity of the side scrolling elements, the implementation of skills in direct accordance to the elements present in each level makes this game suitable for just about anyone looking for a quick spark of fun, and the best of it is that said simplicity does not implicate an overall cheap feeling for the game if you consider how seamlessly converge the controls with the elements you're bound to find on each level to make them perfectly responsive, you can adjust the difficulty as you like from the very beginning and the challenge will vary accordingly.
1.1
Skill system implementation is a key part that deserves an individual mention; your dinosaur has several different "skills" you can upgrade depending on your needs, speed, acceleration, strength and jump. Since you will find different obstacles as you run your way through this game it'll make your playthroughs a lot easier to upgrade each one of said skills, ¿How to upgrade them? It becomes rather evident from the first ten seconds of Dino run that this game's currency are the eggs and then the bones, technically collecting those will earn you DNA points which you can exchange for skill upgrades but you get the point, its not too hard to get eggs on dino run occasionally you'll endure a drought because the eggs are very delicate objects just about anything is enough to break them in that case you'll have to be very careful to collect the few ones you can find and not compromise yourself enough to be caught by the doom wave, if that ever happens to you the eggs will once again come into play there are certain amounts of those that will earn you an extra "life" in case you get caught by the wave, which is casually the only way you can die in this game, so that basically makes eggs much more important than bones aforementioned which only earn you DNA points. There are several large special eggs hidden across the different levels of dino run, if you collect all or most of those you should be able to upgrade your dinosaur to the maximum in no time.
Visuals.
Classic, Nostalgic, not very complex 2D visuals do not demean the overall value of this game, one can only wonder if Dino Run could have been made this well with Modern Visuals, my best guess is that probably no.
Conclusion.
Despite some very minor drawbacks from a few occasional bugs or uneven A.I reactions from other dinosaurs, dino run is an excellent game you should be able to have fun with especially if you play it with another person simultaneously, simply for the fun of it.
Dino Run might not stand on the same ground as Uncharted, MGS or Little Big planet sort of big blockbuster titles but it sets itself apart distinctively and it is a very special game in its own right.
M I love you and I dedicate this review to you.