When I was a kid I loved dinosaurs. That’s typically something that is true for all young boys, but I absolutely loved them. My sketchpad was full of Raptors tearing the overly detailed innards from a Triceratops or a group of Pachysephelosaurs. I even learned a ton of difficult to pronounce names, most of which I’ve forgotten today. If I had an N64, Turok: The Dinosaur Hunter would likely have been high on my list of games I wanted.

The older I grew the less fascinated I became with the extinct creatures, but there is still a love buried deep inside. So I had given Dino Crisis a try while in high school, pondered its third iteration on Xbox (it was dinosaurs IN SPACE!!!) and gave Turok‘s latest variation a try on Xbox 360. While there were plenty of design elements I loved in Turok, the game on the whole was pretty lame. I had recently received a review copy for Jurassic: The Hunted, a budget title released early November of this year, and gave it a spin.

The game itself wasn’t great, but it was still capable of firing up some pleasure nodes in the brain. However, it didn’t hit that deep spot of satisfaction that I want in a video game. For the love of God, people, these are dinosaurs we’re talking about. How can they NOT be a good idea?

Jurassic almost becomes a budget title worth buying for ten or twenty bucks. Only the severe lack of co-op for its survival mode hinders it. Trying to defend a fortification while Deinonychus and Utah Raptors leap through windows actually makes for a sweet game mode, but considering you can do similar fights with friends in Halo ODST‘s Firefight or Gears of War 2‘s Horde, there’s no real point. You could convince three other people to buy a budget game of Jurassic if they could all drop into Survival and fight against dinosaurs. In fact, the game doesn’t even have local multiplayer. It’s a greatly missed opportunity.

Then again, the games industry seems to miss the potential of dinosaurs to begin with. Maybe they simply think too hard about it. Jurassic had the right idea by merely throwing a trash story together about the Bermuda triangle. Players won’t care why they are fighting dinosaurs, just that they are shooting thunder lizards to death.

I propose two styles of dinosaur based games to any developers out there that are listening. The first is a revival of Dino Crisis by Capcom. It’s never been a hugely successful franchise compared to Resident Evil, but that doesn’t matter if you build it on the Wii. Take the engine and design for Resident Evil 4, amping up the reptilian foes so the Wiimote’s precision is required to survive. You’ll have intense gameplay without having to pay for the graphics of next generation consoles. Any other developer could either mimic the Resident Evil design or copy Dead Space, which actually allows you to move while shooting.

The second proposal, however, is pure genius. In fact, I wish I had the capability to pitch and begin development on such a game. Take Left 4 Dead and replace the zombies with dinosaurs. No one cares what causes a zombie outbreak, just that there are zombies to shoot. Same goes for dinosaurs, only no one seems to have realized it yet.

All you need is four survivors and a variety of environments. The jungle is an obvious location, but why not do a science facility as well? Go all Jurassic Park in the game. A city setting would also be quite enjoyable and varied. I’m sure people could think of more settings that would be awesome in a full on dinosaur take over.

A lot of the base design work is also done for you. To create Left 4 Dead, the developers had to make up different kinds of zombies in order to make the game more interesting. Yet with dinosaurs all you need to do is take a trip to the museum and you’ll have plenty of great ideas. Have three-foot Velociraptors and Procompsognathus as fodder with packs of Deinonychus to be a greater threat. Avoid herds of head-butting Pachysephelosaurs like you’d avoid the Witch. Instead of a tank imagine everyone having to find cover to fend off an irate Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Whatever studio were to consider such a project and develop it with a real budget would find themselves with a sure fire hit. It would be a variant of the successful Left 4 Dead while providing a drastically different foe. Take a hint from the fortification sections of Jurassic: The Hunted and make the defense of a base a key element of gameplay beyond the role it held in Left 4 Dead. Not only will you have to worry about hordes knocking down doors, but a sudden Raptor leaping through a window is bound to make anyone jump and panic.

In fact, I’m kind of depressed because the game only exists within my mind. I want my Left 4 Extinction, dammit! Someone had better get on it.

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