Steam Ops: Dino D-Day

Dino D-Day
800 North and Digital Ranch

Dino D-Day was released for the weekend on Steam and I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to give my 1 hour impression.  This is by no means a proper review, but I am always looking to give impressions on upcoming Steam titles.

I imagine the premise was all that made the developers fall for this game.  Some guy from 800 North studios and Digital Ranch jumping up and down excitedly and saying, "And then the dinosaurs can shoot the Nazi's, while the raptors slash away the bad guys...rawr...slash...pew!"

The game features different classes of soldiers and dinosaurs.  Some dinosaurs have melee combat, while other characters have WWII guns.  Each character has a singular perk and special ability.  The raptors can do super jumps while the diplo can headbutt its enemies.

Fighting in a deathmatch arena felt like a mix of Team Fortress mixed with old Call of Duty gameplay.  Apart from the thrill of actually manning a dinosaur, it felt very primitive and linear to play multiplayer.  If you were a melee fighter you could easily get owned by a projectile, while snipers were pretty much the king of the arena.

The game had glitches when I tried to create a room for multiplayer and it kept crashing and going back to the title screen.  I also could not get my Xbox gamepad to work with it.  It was not responding.

Graphics looked like old Counter Strike mods and clipping was a bit prevalent in the textures.  Overall, the premise of dinosaurs and machine guns was not enough to get me wanting to play. It is only $2 on the Steam catalog, but lots of mods are free if you own Half-Life multiplayer.  800 North and Digital Ranch should learn to tighten the gameplay and add some depth outside of the dinosaur selection.

Cool concept, bro.

History of Medal of Honor

One of the Most Successful FPS Games

The franchise that made it cool to shoot Nazis!

Medal of Honor (PS)

It started as one of the first FPS games that did not include the word "Wolf" or "stein".  It was produced by Stephen Spielberg who added his special cinema touch.

Medal of Honor: Underground (PS)

The sequel to the groundbreaking hit of 1999.  MOHU let you play as a female resistance fighter.  Like previous, the game had no checkpoints and the multiplayer was stunningly like Goldeneye.








Medal of Honor: Frontline (PS2, XBX, GC)

Praised for its glorious D-Day level in the beginning of the game, MoHF took a few steps back for having no multiplayer when it first came out.  It was heavily influenced by Saving Private Ryan.

It's PC counterpart, Medal of Honor Allied Assault had gotten praised over it.  You can actually save your progress in the middle of a level. 

Medal of Honor: Infiltrator (GBA)

The Gameboy Advance gets some WWII action in the form of a Zelda type explorer.  Reviewers say that it is actually quite good.  Strange.

Medal of Honor: Rising Sun (PS2, XBX, GC)

Praised for its intense opening attack on Pearl Harbor level, the rest of the game got mediocre reviews.  One of the first and last console games to have splitscreen coop.  Horrible hit detection.

One again the PC counterpart, Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault, rises above the console version on every level.

Medal of Honor: European Assault (PS2, GC, XBX)

MoH EA played with the idea that you could finish your objectives in any order.  Aiming was improved over the last game by leaps and bounds.  You could beat the game in a night because it was so short.

 Medal of Honor: Vanguard (Wii, PS2)

The last ditch effort of EA to give the game a memorable leave before hitting the next gen systems.  Vanguard did not score very well on any system.

Medal of Honor: Airborne (PC, PS3, XB360)

As Call of Duty was making the transition to Modern Warfare, MoH held onto its WWII roots.  Airborne let you fight a war in a very non-linear path.  It involved parachute mechanics and a level up system for weapons.  Game only had 6 levels.  None of them were that exciting.

 Medal of Honor Heroes 1 and 2 (PSP, Wii)

A miniature version of the console games.  The PSP tried to keep some of the magic of the MoH series for their portable.  The game was still really short, but the multiplayer was surprisingly fun.

Medal of Honor and Medal of Honor Warfighter (PC, XBX 360, PS3)

You can't win them all EA, but MoH made its eventual jump to Modern Warfare.  Removing all of its innovations and bells and whistles, MoH focused on realism and real war events.  It was one of the few games banned by the army (due to the fact that you can play as the Taliban).  14 years of shooters and the game still has no coop and can be finished in under five hours.