With such a name, you'd be forgiven for thinking Dinox wanted to recapture the magic of past dinosaur shooters such as Turok: Dinosaur Hunter. Sadly, this is not the case. Developed by Codix Games and published by Engine Software, Dinox is actually an educational quiz title for the Wii U eShop including clips from the most expensive animated BBC series ever, “Walking with Dinosaurs".
In Dinox, one to four players compete against each other to earn the best high score by answering a series of multiple choice questions about dinosaurs. There are more than 900 audio recorded questions in the game, divided between sight and sound categories and supported by footage directly from the 1999 television miniseries, Walking with Dinosaurs. The overall goal of Dinox is to collect four different 3D dinosaur skeletons (each skeleton consists of ten parts) so you can display and view them in the museum section of the game. From here, you can admire these skeletons and discover more information about each dinosaur's history including its height, weight and the period it lived in.
Disappointingly, this is the full extent of the game's offerings. You either play the game alone and compete against preset high scores, or test yourself against three people with the choice of up to three control options including the GamePad, Pro Controller and Wii Remote. With or without company on the couch, Dinox is an extremely underwhelming experience. There is a severe lack of effort in terms of overall production values, and although the title was made with the help of real palaeontologists, it is just not fun like a traditional quiz game. This has nothing to do with the subject itself, but rather the content it is supported by – there really is no sense of reward. In saying that, one mildly impressive feature of this educational quiz game is the fact more bonus points are awarded depending on a player's response time to a question – provided it is correctly answered.
The gameplay featured in Dinox is very much a reflection of the low quality graphics, with bland menu design and a museum section that is far from inspiring. This is topped off with the now dated animations courtesy of Walking with Dinosaurs, a BBC series. On the upside, this footage is compacted into one downloadable Wii U eShop game which could be considered as one enticing feature of the title. The audio isn't much better, in the scheme of things; although the quiz master voiceover is crisp and clear, it does little to enhance the dull package it is working with. Much like the game's visuals, the dinosaur sounds are all dependant on the aged Walking with Dinosaurs animations – which aren't exactly easy listening compared to modern standards.
Conclusion
With poor production values reliant on a dated 3D animated series, combined with what is ultimately a bland and uninspired dinosaur quiz game, unless you're a huge fan of dinosaurs or the original BBC television miniseries released in 1999, Dinox is hard to recommend. Even as an educational title the overall quality is seemingly likely to deter players from learning about the subject rather than making them eager to discover more about what is still considered a fascinating period.
Comments 15
Looks terrible but Walking With Dinosaurs is bringing back memories. Jesus Christ, I'm nostalgic about a documentary from 1999. I've hit rock bottom.
truok it is then.
There is no C in BBC anymore. It stood for British Broadcasting Clarkson after all, amiright, guise?
Looks like you're better off with other quiz/trivia games and have more topics than dinoz.
I'm more curious about those audio clips, actually. Or rather if the guy reading them is bored out of his skull or some random programer from the studio reading it, because he sounded like the smartest goy on the block voicewise.
It must be really sad experience to play it alone.
It's scientifically out of date anyways.
Why did they even bother? No one cared about your dumb project game that is based on a 16 year old TV show everyone has moved on from. Then they added trivia. Not one single human ever has ever wanted anything like this. Again. Congratulations on wasting your time and thanks Nintendo for letting crap fly through the filter screen still. This deserves 3/10.
I don't understand. Where's Baby Sinclair and Earl?
Dinox terrorize!
My favorite beast wars villian.
@jpfan1989 I am a Jurassic Park fan too. I loved the books and the films, specially the first one. I didn't like the cast of the second film that much, nor all the story about that Malcom's child, and I didn't like that much the third film weak script, but I still like them somehow, although the books and the first film are the best.
I loved BBC's documentary back in the day. Amazingly, after millions of years, what we know about dinosaurs change every year.
I dream of a new, compelling dinosaur-themed video game that doesn't involve Yoshi.
Will I never be satisfied?
@the101 Ark Survival Evolved?
@the101 Saurian maybe?
worth it 3/10 horrible game
Ahhh... Too bad, I loved that serie back then. I thought I could have been pleasantly surprised with a game full of details of dinosaurs. Some kind of dino simulator haha..
@KTT This game... where has it been all my life?
I was a huge fan of Walking With Dinosaurs... I can't believe it came out 16 years ago. That was the most shocking part of this review. Damn, I'm old.
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