Game Details

ESRB Rating: 

E (Everyone)

Number of Players: 

1-2

Boys and dinosaurs go together, plain and simple.  Kids and portable gaming also go together very well.  Mix it all together and you get a hit with Sega's Dinosaur King for the DS.

Since we are still relatively new to the DS games lineup (the main focus for getting one was the Pokeman games and the fact that the Gameboy Advanced games worked in it too) we found Dinosaur King a bit difficult to learn at first.  Mainly due to the fact that my 6 yr old didn't want to stop to read what the characters in the first level, the lab, were saying and wanted to get playing.  Well, what they were trying to convey was the methods and actions to play the game.  So, as you can imagine, frustration as he tried to get through the next stage led to him not wanting to continue with the game, claiming it was too hard.  But, luckily, after I spent some time learning what the basics were and some time with him to show him how to get started, his interest returned and he started picking up on it.

In this game you are one of the two main characters, Max and Rex, and you job it to find fossils and battle other dinosaurs (as well as rescue people and save the world, but isn't that always the case?).  Armed with a dinosaur and some guidance, you venture out and take on the Alpha Gang as the try to use their DinoRover to cause mischief.  Along the way you try to find fossils and special objects by digging or capturing them from the enemy.  Once found, you can take the fossils to the cleaning center where you clean and store them.  Fossils bring energy or new dinosaurs to you inventory of tools to use for battles.

Battles are basic enough for most any kid to follow.  I found it funny that they are in essence the classic Paper-Rock-Scissors game and passed that on to my 6 yr old- he got it.  As you win battles you capture items from the defeated foe and add to your own power.  The game keeps this pretty simple and does a decent job with graphics of dinosaurs in battle, at least enough to impress this DS novice.

Fossil cleaning is done by using the DS stylus as a pick.  You get a certain number of picks to clean with and based on my experience, it does not pay to try to use the pick in a sweeping motion.  Again, at the cleanig center the is a curator there to help provide instructions and they even offer to finish the cleaning for you should you fail to complete it on your own.

Overall the game is fun and once we got over the initial learning curve, the boys seemed to really take to it.  The battles are kind of Pokemon-esque so that carries some street cred with the kids.  The fossil cleaning is fun and different- we haven't used the stylus for much up to this point in our 2 months of DS gaming.  I have seen other reviews that call this game basic and geared toward kids but for us, that works out perfectly.