"Dino Crisis 2" Awesome Sound Design

Dino Crisis 2 was one of the games I played as a child. My father bought it for us when I was 11 and I thought the cover looked cool. The game was one of the first horror experiences in my life.

Dino Crisis is a "Survival Panic" series. The first game is basically Resident Evil with Dinosaurs, while the second game Dino Crisis 2 is more action-based. In these games, you get stuck on a sci-fi island that went wrong and Dinosaurs are everywhere.

The story is a bit complex and hard to explain (but is good nevertheless.) The presentation of Dino Crisis 2 is where it shines. Like Resident Evil games before it, Dino Crisis is presented as 3D characters on pre-rendered backgrounds and fixed camera angles. The graphics are gorgeous and drive home the feeling of being trapped on an island where humans can die very easily.

This game's use of sound, however, is what makes it amazing. I'm not just talking about the music. The cool part of Dino Crisis 2's sound design is in the sound effects.

Since camera angles are fixed, the game tends to hide some dinosaurs from the view of the player. While that might increase the difficulty of the game, what it does is that it makes you focus on the tiny hints to know if and when a dinosaur is coming. You can't see, but you can hear the sounds the dinosaurs make.

The sound of their movements, their footsteps as they break through the bushes. The clanking sounds as they stump through a factory. The heavy weight of their jump. Their quiet hissing as they approach their prey. Their grunts of pain as your bullets penetrate their scales.

The sound effects of the Dinosaurs and their interaction with the environment added a new layer. So much so, that playing Dino Crisis 2 with sounds on, (preferably with headphones,) is essential! It's hard to play Dino Crisis 2 without hearing the hints of the dinos going through the bushes.

This sound design is also the reason this game gave me nightmares. The T-Rex encounter felt way too real to me as a child.

For a PS1 game, I was always amazed by how the sound design helps the player so much. Dino Crisis 2 is one of the games that uses sound effects right in the late 90s.

What do you think?

• This article is a rewrite of "Dino Crisis 2 Awesome Use Of Sound" which I first posted in 2019. This rewrite is also on Publish0x.

• The first image is made using Canva. The second image is taken from GameFaqs.