Dino Stalker

Dino Stalker received "mixed" reviews, according to video game review aggregator website Metacritic. On release, Famitsu gave the game a score of 30 out of 40 in Japan. Douglass C. Perry of IGN criticized the game's controls: "After the first mission, your hand is in pain. The Carpel Tunnel syndrome you didn't have before throbs in fiery extended agony as if to say hello, and you have just started. [...] In the dozen-plus levels you play through, the slow-paced, awkward control is not only annoying but it hurts you. [...] But at least there is some comic relief, and for the pure sake of flat-out lunacy, this game may be worth your while." Perry also criticized the game's poor graphics, writing that it "looks like it was designed as a PlayStation game and that it only recently made the transition to PlayStation 2. [...] It's an average looking game at best, and that's putting it nicely." Ryan Davis of GameSpot called the game's premise "bizarre and convoluted" with "not a lot of coherence." Davis criticized the game's selectable control schemes. Playing exclusively with the GunCon 2, Davis wrote that "using a single hand to move and shoot is difficult and will wear out your arm more quickly than your average light-gun game." Davis also criticized the alternative method of using a standard DualShock controller: "The targeting reticle is far too sensitive, and you'll often find yourself dealing with bouts of overcorrection while trying to draw a bead on a dino." Davis noted that the best option was to utilize both the DualShock and the GunCon 2 simultaneously, "But even this configuration does not compensate completely for the game's inherently slow movement or the inability to look up or down, and you'll spend an equal amount of time-fighting the controls as you will fighting dinosaurs." Davis also criticized the game's poor graphics, and wrote that the only notable sound effect throughout the game "is the 'reload' command you'll hear whenever you're out of bullets, and this is only because the computer voice noticeably mispronounces it." Davis concluded that the game would have been "infinitely more playable had Capcom discarded the Gun Survivor control scheme and just left the movement control on rails, like all other light-gun games. But with its needlessly frustrating control scheme intact, Dino Stalker's appeal is incredibly limited. Though the game is loosely affiliated with the Dino Crisis games, there's not a lot here to draw fans of that series, and with several superior light-gun games available on the PlayStation 2, there's little reason for anyone without a masochistic streak to play this game." Louis Bedigian of GameZone praised the music and graphics and wrote that the control scheme "isn't bad, but it does take some getting used to. It's worth getting used to though, because this is the best dino-hunting game I've played since Dino Crisis 2." Tom Bramwell of Eurogamer called it "easily the best yet" in the Gun Survivor series, and praised the game for "some stunning environments," but criticized its short length and some of the "rather bland" dinosaur designs.