DINO WARS REVIEW

Review by vgc2000

"Unplayable but it'll give ya a good laugh."

Overview- Ughhh! Where do I even start with this review? The TRS-80 is definitely the dead sea of bad games and Dino Wars may just be the system's poster child for how bad its games are. Dino Wars goes from bad to hilarious and then back to bad again if you can imagine that! It's a one on one fighting game between a red and a blue T-Rex but Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter it is not to say the least.

Game Play- Dino Wars allows you to move your T-Rex on the X and Y axis meaning that the arena is viewed from an angle instead of from the side. The simple object of the game is to very slowly walk around the field and go up to your opponent and press the button and hope that the collision detection decides to work when you attack. When you attack you simply bite the opponent and that's it; your health starts off at 100 and for every hit you take you lose 20 so five hits defeats you. When you defeat your opponent he falls on the ground and lays there for a while then gets up and you get to watch him 
s-l-o-w-l-y w-a-l-k off the top of the screen. It then returns you to the title screen where it gives you one point, you can then play as many more matches as you like or just turn the game off like I did.

Graphics- There are almost no graphics to speak of, one dino is all red and one is all blue and a green ground and some sky and that's about it and almost no animation to top it off. This game looks hilariously bad and has to be seen to be understood.

Sound- There are also not much sounds to talk about either. Your second button is a taunt which will cause your T-Rex to let out an extremely high pitched whistly shrieking roar that's really grating on the ears but incredibly funny all at the same time. Aside from that there's nothing else worth mentioning.

Conclusion- Needless to say, Dino Wars is a waste of programming. A few of the third party developed games played pretty well but I can't think of one game that Tandy programmed in house by themselves that was worth any play time. I like how they design a nice computer then go and release heaps of crap games on it and expect them to give the compute a good reputation. When it comes down to it avoid this game and the TRS-80 in general unless you're a hardcore collector or a masochist.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10 | Originally Posted: 10/05/10
Game Release: Dino Wars (US, 1980)