The Dino Crisis series started out with a roar when it debuted on PSone in 1999. The tough female operative Regina headed a new franchise that mixed clever AI with survival horror. Even its sequel managed to up the dino action at a quick pace. But Dino Crisis 3 is unnecessarily difficult and unintuitive to play. The third in the series has its moments, but the poor camera angles and combat system don't live up to the franchise name.

DC3 leaves the story of Regina and crew behind. Instead it leapfrogs into the year 2548 where a special ops crew discover the Osymandius, a space cruiser that has suddenly reappeared after a 300-year disappearance. Crew members Patrick, Sonya, and Jacob board the ship to discover that the ship's crew has vanished, and the only beings aboard are mutated dinosaurs.

Players take the role of Patrick. The foremost addition to the series is the use of a jetpack. Jetting is required to navigate though the ship's giant, multi-tiered areas, and to escape the stronger, faster dinos. Jetpack movement is fluid and easy to get used to. Certain areas contain zero-g atmosphere where players get to hover up and down through space.

Players can save, download new data files, or purchase upgrades and med packs at terminals located around the ship. Each enemy killed racks up points that can be used to purchase longer life bars, jet pack energy bars, or WASP weapons. The save stations are far and few on the Ozymandius and sometimes require hefty backtracking if you must save.

Combat is based on an auto-aim system. The lead character's gun has infinite rounds and spurts machine gun shells. The auto-aim works well and quickly points to the nearest target for disposal. Players also have access to WASPs, tiny remote weapons that sport additional firepower and hover right over enemies.

In order to make things more difficult and spontaneous, dinosaurs now appear out of thin air. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, if you could SEE the dinosaur. The camera angles in DC3 are unusually poor and 60% of the time the camera will be focused on the front of the character, making it impossible to see what's in front of you. Combat is typically achieved in this manner, with complete lack of sight, leaving the weapon system auto aim to do the trick. The only way to successfully dodge a dino attack using limited sight is simply to jump haphazardly and hope that the dino misses its attack. To confront the issue, a first-person view is available but is mostly rendered useless in the heat of combat. Thought it makes a perfect way to aim when in a safe area. The dinos are fast but aren't too bright this time around. They wander aimlessly, get stuck, and jump to the same areas repeatedly.

The camera angles not only make combat a chore, but ship navigation as well. When certain platforms jumps or other navigation is required the camera again faces the front of your character, sometimes making it a complete guess as to whether you'll reach the next platform. Or when in the middle of heading towards a platform, the angle will suddenly switch. Both combat and navigation are a pain because of the moving camera and poor angles. It can be done, but a lot of guess work is involved.

DC3 does have some good points. The Ozymandius is a huge space cruiser that's represented in true form. The game's sense of scale is impressive and it's fun to jet around and explore. Certain points of the game will require Patrick and Sonya to move the ships' configuration to reach new areas. The puzzles mostly consist of item fetching and learning to reach other areas of the ship. The visuals are decent with a good amount of detail on character models and the ship itself. The ships' locations wind up looking very much the same, making it hard to distinguish where you were last. But the game engine never stutters and sticks at 30 fps. However it's DC3's cinemas that are top notch. The CG movies are excellent and are accompanied by a terrific and haunting score.

It's difficult to recommend Dino Crisis 3 unless you're a hardcore fan. The fights won't be fair, the camera angles will make you throw a fit, but the sci-fi setting and mysterious storyline will satisfy those who are willing to brave dinos and poor cameras in space.