Perhaps the easiest arcade genre to translate to the Wii home console is the point and shoot type hunting game. Dino Strike, by Zoo Publishing, is one that mixes hunting with that perennial favorite, dinosaurs. Dino Strike is a simple hunting game on rails, where the players shoot nearly everything on screen while the game controls the screen movement. While its story mode is somewhat short, it makes a pretty good game for the younger gaming set. It isn’t perfect, but would make a good budget title selection for younger gamers who would enjoy the mix of simple gameplay and dinosaur theme.

The game primarily consists of a story mode where you are shipwrecked on an island full of dinosaurs, scavenging ammo and health from a previous failed expedition while you are led to meet up with another survivor communicating by radio. There are only six stages, but the environment and fauna have enough differences to give each stage its own feel. As a multiplayer game, Dino Stike excels as it allows up to four players to play simultaneously for a whole swarm of serious shooting. For those with fewer friends or a need for more raw firepower, the game can also be played with one or two players, each dual wielding two weapons at the same time!

The controls are the standard point and shoot, pull the “B” button as your gun trigger. Choose between four gun types using the arrow keys, and reload by pressing the “A” button. Unfortunately, unloading by shooting “off’ the screen (a very typical procedure in many games of this type) is not available. This isn’t a big deal unless one is playing with on of the gun peripherals for the Wiimote. The “A” button is often far less accessible in one of these gun cases and I would expect the game to be nearly unplayable in dual wield mode (with gun peripherals) for this reason.

Finally, while the game matches up nicely with a very young audience, the designers made a few poor choices with respect to background and other options. I would have loved a way to switch off the spurts of blood when dinos are shot (it isn’t bad, but it would have still been a nice, simple thing to include) and I found it unfortunate that medical packs heal players to 100% while morphine packs only heal players up a fraction of their health. Was there a reason morphine needed to be included? Why not just large and small medical packs or some sort?

All in all, I could recommend the game as a decent budget title, with the strong caveats that the controls with Wii Zappers and the like are sub-optimal, and the story (mostly just the blood and morphine) is less kid-friendly than I would prefer. Older players will quickly play through the story mode but may find additional gameplay by working on various achievements for accuracy and high scores.

Kid Factor: The story is fairly bland, and provides both voice and subtitles but most players will simply skip over all the voiceover scenes between stages. The game does contain references to morphine and a fair bit of dino blood. This, along with the (at times) sub-optimal controls make me recommend the title for slightly older kids, but most older elementary or pre-teens should have no issues.

Tags: Game Reviews