Power Rangers Dino Thunder for GameCube Reviews by Gamers

Regardless of how astonishingly corny the television show may be, Power Rangers: Dino Thunder still held potential. Let's face it; anything with mechanized dinosaurs with the power to decimate entire cities will always hold some potential. Every male on the face of the Earth has at one point or another dreamed of climbing aboard a robotic monstrosity brimming with unholy weaponry.

Why is it then, that Dino Thunder ignores every single element of importance in the Huge Walking Robot genre? Yes, Dino Thunder is a budget title. And yes, expectations for this title were so low as to be subterranean, but that doesn't mean developers couldn't find a way to conjure even slight level of fun. Sadly, Dino Thunder fails on all levels.

Let's first examine the requirements of a Huge Walking Robot game. First, you need to feel like you're piloting 20 tons of metal. Second, your 20 tons of metal should come equipped with weapons capable of firing missiles, lasers and bullets. All three. Not just bullets and not just missiles. Third, whatever city, park or town you're in needs to be destructible. Every building, car and park bench needs to erupt in a shower of molten particles when fired upon. And yes, this includes hapless pedestrians.

Dino Thunder fails on all accounts. For starters, the engineers who built the buildings in the game must have used Adamantium and later blessed them with holy water because none are destructible. They won't crack or chip. Hell, they won't even get dirty. The mechs in the game, called DinoZords, feel more like dino-shaped Halloween costumes. They lack a sense of genuine weight. And yes, they even lack plasma cannons, nuclear rockets and other required party favors.

But whatever. A game featuring emasculate robot dinosaurs can still succeed provided the rest of the game shines. Well, it doesn't. Playing Dino Thunders for 20 minutes should put the average gamer in the middle of mission 15. The back of the game box states Dino Thunder boasts 50 missions. That may sound impressive, but once you realize each mission takes around three minutes to beat, you'll soon think otherwise.

Of course, the average gamer will drop the controller long before the 50th mission. Then again, Dino Thunder is chasing an entirely different breed of gamer. To be fair, Dino Thunder's lack of difficulty will inspire young (very young) fans of the show to plow their way through the entire game. As will the game's use of all the characters and Dinozords from the television program.

Gamers will assume command of the Blue Ranger, Red Ranger, Yellow Ranger and Black Ranger. Each Ranger boasts his own unique DinoZord, and each DinoZord features its own special attack and attributes. For example, the Ptera Zord comes equipped with lighter armor than the other Zords, making it more agile. It's also the only Zord capable of launching airborne attacks. With lighter armor, however, the Ptera Zord will go down in flames after three hits from an enemy.

The Tyranno Zord, on the other hand, uses heavier armor but sacrifices overall speed. Its attacks deal more damage than lighter Zoids but there's a greater chance the Tyranno Zord will sustain damage due to its lower speed. While these differences in each Zoid may sound cool, the game hardly makes any good use of them. For starters, enemy projectiles travel so slow it really doesn't matter whether you pilot a nimble Zoid because you can always dodge incoming fire regardless.

DinoThunder lets you swap Zoids on the fly, but the game hardly ever exploits this ability. The only time you really need to switch Zoids is when, for example, piloting a ground-based Zoid and you need to reach a mission objective on a cliff. Sometimes, a certain obstruction can only cleared using a specific Zoid's special attack, forcing you to calling that Zoid into battle. While the game tries to shake things up in later levels, each puzzle is basically a variation of the "clear obstruction" or "reach the cliff" type challenge.

You can also grab power-ups throughout each mission, none of which feels particularly powerful. You can collect 100 Dino Bolts to restore a Zoid's health or one Power Cell for the same effect. Interestingly enough, it's far easier collecting Power Cells since every enemy in the game drops upon its destruction. The Dino Dart provides a temporary burst of speed you never really need. The only power-up of any importance comes by way of the Dino Claw, which allows each Zoid to perform its special attack. Since each mission calls for the use of at least one special attack, it's really the only power-up in need of real collecting.

The environments in the game suffer from serious issues, the worst of which is size. The first group of missions takes place in the "Tar Pits," the first of nine supposed "worlds" in the game. You can literally run from one corner of the Tar Pits to the other in less than a minute. While some of the worlds do open up in later stages, such as Reefside City, none offers the scope you would expect. Each is small, sparse and graphically flat.

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