A study in panic.
Dino Crisis follows all the standards of the top games of that era and in some areas it went even beyond. The game plays and feels very much like a classic Resident Evil survival horror game. The character moves with the same control scheme as in all first three RE games, there is a limited inventory capacity, you have a lot of exploration to do, unlock doors, backtrack, solve puzzles, and of course shoot at the occasional threats. Also the game has quality graphics and plausible animations, and yes..all the horror cliches and the B-movie voice overs that we all loved!
But there are some differences that make DC a rather unique game in the survival horror family of games. I would say that unlike RE it doesn't invest so much on horror, for example it doesn't throw you suddenly in your face a big mutated tarantula, or any other hideous creature, but instead it emphasizes in the high suspense factor. The slow moving zombies are now replaced by the super agile and deadly dinosaurs of all sizes, which will hunt you down fiercely from the moment that they will sense your presence, and they follow you into the new rooms too! A couple of bites from them are enough to make you start bleeding and bring you very close to your death. Each encounter especially at the beginning of the game feels like a boss battle, since these hungry lizards are pretty tough and you have limited ammo. To put it simply in this game you are always in danger to end up dinosaur chow. I can never forget the animations of the dinosaurs at the moment that they grabbed you and were trying to rip off your limbs with their huge jaws. Pure terror!
Also there are no pre-rendered backgrounds any more, and instead the game uses its graphics engine, giving to the game a more unified feel, though it loses in the quality of the overall image. In DC there was also introduced for the first time in any Capcom game the "decision feature", where in some cases you were prompted by the game to make decisions over the action, or the strategy that you would follow to reach your goal. As a result the game has three different endings.
Another element that made Dino Crisis an unforgettable experience is Regina (the Latin word for "queen"), the special agent that was sent to this prehistoric island, and the central protagonist of the game. A really unique character: tall and slim, athletic, combat ready, determined, confident from the way that she speaks, or moves, and at the same time feminine, with those cat's eyes, and the characteristic short pointed red hair. Frankly I can't think of any other video game character that captured so well, and with such a style, the spirit of combat, combined with the female attraction element. Unfortunately the rest of the cast is below average in this game, laughable I would say the least, especially Rick (the hacker with "eccentric" hair cut), and this one of the reasons why Dino Crisis falls short in comparison to other classic games. Also the lack of variety in the enemies, the lack of variety in weapons, you have only three main types of guns, and the fact that the game takes place for the whole time inside a military facility makes it less impressive than the RE games, which were famous for their rich and atmospheric settings.
As a conclusion I would say that Dino Crisis was a very satisfying survival horror game, with an almost flawless game play function, and a stylish heroine, that succeeded to deliver a genuine feeling of danger to the player. As a matter of fact, Dino Crisis introduced the sub-genre of the "panic horror", as labeled by Capcom people themselves. However, the truth to be told, Dino Crisis has always been seen by gamers and critics, as the "alternative with dinosaurs" for Resident Evil, and its developers probably didn't put the same amount of effort in the making of DC, as they did in their other ambitious project, and for this reason it remains in its shadow, still very close to it.