Ben Brown, Internet Rockstar Feverish Velocity

Dino Run Released! Racing Pixel Dinosaurs = Awesome x 10

I feel very lucky that I was one of the beta testers for the just-released Dino Run videogame. I have been playing it obsessively for a few weeks (ask Katie), building up my dinosaur’s rank by racing over and over and over again. Now that the game is public, my rank has been reset, and I’ve got to spend a few more weeks building his stats back up.

Oh darn!

In the game, you are a dinosaur on the last day of the dinos. As the first stage opens, a giant comet crashes into earth. From then on, your goal is to outrun the WALL OF DOOM. There are 6 stages, each with different hidden secrets and cool landscapes. You can collect “super eggs” and bones of other dinosaurs to unlock things like different skins for your dinosaur and some cool game options (like having a constant rain of meteors that destroy everything in their path). In the later levels, things get really crazy as volcanoes start exploding and the ground rips itself apart as you are dodging meteors and leaping over dinosaurs stuck in tar.

And amazingly, there is a multiplayer mode where you can race dinosaurs against other people all over the world. The online lobby system is roughly equivalent to Halo’s lobby system, which is saying a lot. You can chat with other players while waiting for a game to start, host private and custom games, and of course compare your scores against other players.

My two favorite parts of the game, though, are the 8-bit-style pixel graphics, and the electrorocking soundtrack. I can’t wait to collect enough bones to download the MP3s. I also can’t wait for this game to be picked up by the Xbox Live or WiiWare game download systems so I can play it full screen on my giant TV. Dinosaurs. Pixels. WALL OF DOOM. Can there possibly be anything better than this?

I DOUBT IT!

Look for me in the multiplayer mode! I’m benbrown666, of course. If you get an account, post a comment here, and maybe we can wrangle up a game or two.

Play Dino Run Now!

(The video above is me running through the first level. See also this video of a crazy but awesome bug I encountered while I was testing the game. Also, definitely check out the other Pixeljam games, because they are almost as awesome as Dino Run. But not quite!)