©1996, ProMotion, inc.
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The luxury model of Microsoft Dinosaur hits the shelf with DK's newest virtual reality dino-rama, Dinosaur Hunter. The highly successful Microsoft Dinosaur owes many of its accolades to the photographic expertise of DK Publishing. Crisp, clean, detailed photographs, placed on snow-white backgrounds have become their unmistakable trademark.
The multimedia industry has seen significant technological advances since this 1993 endeavor. Not willing to rest on their laurels and continue to directly translate print material to CD-ROM, DK has attacked multimedia with a vengeance.
Conceptualizing books as freeform museums, they have created their Eyewitness Virtual Reality series to fully explore the potential of multimedia. Constantly improving, DK now shows with their third title, Dinosaur Hunter, that the idea is a good one.
The virtual dinosaur museum contains three main "chapter" rooms: The World of Dinosaurs, The Arena, and The Dinosaur Excavation Site. As you walk about each room you see an assortment of exhibits on walls and as freestanding interactive displays. If something piques your interest, simply click on it to expand and learn more. (Set your video cards to "thousands of colors" to get the best offering of rendered 3-D graphics.) Each interactive display has a "how-to-use" button available making a user manual redundant.
The World of Dinosaurs presents information on continental drift during the main periods of the Mesozoic (dinosaur) age, dinosaur dig sites around the world, and the how-to's of excavating dinosaur remains.
The Arena contains extensive information on anatomy, behavior and senses, attack, defense, and feeding. It also contains comprehensive interactive displays. There are no "Do Not Touch" signs in this museum. You might set up a foot race between two dinosaurs, track dinosaurs in the sand, or group dinosaurs by common features.
The Dinosaur Excavation Site challenges you to find the missing bones from six different dinosaurs. Once found, the bones come to life through Jurassic Park-style animation, escaping to the museum rooms. The computer artwork is outstanding. Remember to watch your step as you round those blind corners during your museum travels. You could have an interesting face-to-face confrontation with a Tyrannosaurus.
Connecting the rooms is an all-star lineup of 50 of the world's best-known dinosaurs. This outer corridor symbolizes the evolutionary path from Triassic to Jurassic to Cretaceous.
In a program covering so much territory, losing your bearings is a very real possibility. To compensate, Dinosaur Hunter employs a "You Are Here" mapping system with hyperlinked jump points to any position within the museum. An introductory multimedia tour is also available and is highly recommended for first-time visitors.
DK Multimedia wants their CD-ROM to be used as a reference tool in the educational system. Most graphics and text are available for easy copying or printing. An easy-to-use search engine allows quick location of points of interest.
No visit would be complete without the purchase of take-home memories from a museum store. This dinosaur museum is no exception with something for everyone. The ideas are fresh, imaginative and free of charge. The most notable crafts are: the dinosaur masks, remarkable doorknob hangers (appropriately labeled "Danger Keep Out") and dinosaur party invitations with customized hand-made envelopes.
So pack your pick and shovel, and take a walk on the wild side. It's terrific!
Dave's company, The Edutainer, provides insightful opinion on today's crop of multimedia titles that readers and developers can depend on.
©1996, ProMotion, inc.