Good Old Games, the storefront owned by CD Projekt known for releasing DRM-free versions of games and preserving them, recently released both Dino Crisis and Dino Crisis 2. Dino Crisis, originally released in 1999 for the Sony PlayStation, is a horror game in the vein of Resident Evil, directed by one of the grandfathers of survivor horror, Shinji Mikami. It would eventually see a PC release and a Sega Dreamcast release (Dreamcast mentioned,) but has been a long dormant Capcom series otherwise. Dino Crisis 3 released on the Xbox but the reception, especially compared to the first two games, was rather lackluster. GOG however has been steadily releasing more and more Japanese games lately and it’s important to note the excellent updates to these games.
Why GOG’s Preservation Program Matters for Classic Games
Notably, the Good Old Games Preservation Program is helping preserve games and is probably the only legitimate way to purchase games and contribute to preservation. I’m of the mind that the only true way to preserve media is through piracy. Rights issues, streaming, physical copies, all that nonsense means absolutely nothing in the preservation world because it can all go away. Digital, DRM FREE copies of media being easily shared is the only way to truly preserve these games. GOG is the next closest thing. When you purchase a game on GOG, it comes DRM FREE requiring no activation or online connection to play the game. That alone should make it worthwhile enough to purchase through GOG, but they went the extra mile with changes to Dino Crisis and Dino Crisis 2.
On the store page for Dino Crisis and Dino Crisis 2, the preservation program outlines the changes and updates made to make the game more palatable in 2025.
Dino Crisis 1:
- Full compatibility with Windows 10 and Windows 11
- All 6 localizations of the game included (English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Japanese)
- Original, Arrange, and Operation Wipe Out modes included
- Improved DirectX game renderer
- New rendering options (Windowed Mode, Vertical Synchronization Control, Gamma Correction, Integer Scaling, Anti-Aliasing, and more)
- Increased rendering resolution to ~4K (1920p) and color depth to 32-bit.
- Improved geometry calculation, more stable transformation and texturing.
- Improved alpha transparency
- Improved game registry settings
- Issue-free animation, video, and music playback
- Issue-free saving (the game no longer corrupts save files after leaving dropped weapons)
- Full support for modern controllers (Sony DualSense, Sony DualShock4, Microsoft Xbox Series, Microsoft Xbox One, Microsoft Xbox 360, Nintendo Switch, Logitech F series and many more) with optimal button binding regardless of the hardware, hotplugging and wireless mode
Dino Crisis 2:
- Full compatibility with Windows 10 and Windows 11
- All 2 localizations of the game included (English, Japanese)
- Easy difficulty, Dino Colosseum and Dino Duel included
- Improved DirectX game renderer
- New rendering options (Windowed Mode, Vertical Synchronization Control, Gamma Correction, Integer Scaling, Anti-Aliasing and more)
- Improved music playback and volume scaling
- Improved item rendering and fogging
- Improved cartridge boxes alignment
- Issue-free video playback, task switching and game exit
- Full support for modern controllers (Sony DualSense, Sony DualShock4, Microsoft Xbox Series, Microsoft Xbox One, Microsoft Xbox 360, Nintendo Switch, Logitech F series and many more) with optimal button binding regardless of the hardware and wireless mode
A Win for Game Preservation and Horror Fans
Truthfully, I have no idea what more stable transformation and texturing means but the fact that this amount of effort was put into these releases is impressive. Not to mention, the price is right. $10 for older games seems right to me, no matter how many times some developer will stick “Remastered” at the end of the game title and only upscale the resolution for $30 – $40. If you’re concerned about game preservation and want to stay legit, this is the way to go.
Dino Crisis 1 and Dino Crisis 2 are available now on GOG.com for $10 each. You can also pick up both in a bundle for $17, which is a steal. Grab them and remember when shooting dinosaurs was fun before Capcom made it boring with Exoprimal.
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