Dinocop is a game that drew me in, intially, with it's charm and presentation - I thought I'd get an interesting sort of buddy-cop exploration game where you're trying to track down various criminals using your skillset, with a bit of exploration into the idea of the friction that humans/dinosaurs would have between each other. Instead, I got a... rather heavy-handed, fairly surface level sort of "we hate cops, they're all evil and corrupt" narrative with some decent bits of detective work thrown in.
The main Issue is a case of cognitive dissonance. The art style is very cutesy and cartoonish - with delightful, colourful visuals and a good looking world - but the themes, and the heavy-handed storytelling is anything but. Selling Human meat was a good intial hook and it didn't initially set off any flags (it maybe should've, but I think for me it was a case of "we eat animals, it makes sense animals would eat us and we'd not be happy about it"), but within the first few minutes we've got casual sexism, (sort of) racism, and a lot of swearing, which isn't something i take issue with for being in games - I'm fine with this sort of thing being used in storytelling - but is something that is extremelly jarring to have, especially right into this title that on the outset seems a lot more... friendly, I suppose.
The Game is sometimes described as a dark comedy, I've seen, but I find it hard to see much of either - The dinosaurs are written as characters, which is solid, but there's not much in the way of humor that I could find. Unless it was supposed to be funny that people hate cops? Or... something like that? I really, really don't get where the humour is supposed to be here. Is it dark because of the manipulation and corruption? Possibly, but since the game spends so long telling you how "all these people are evil", when they turn out to be evil, it's not exactly a twist. You can tell this game has a strong, unyielding vendetta against the police force, and I just don't get it.
Political allegories are fine, especially when handled with nuance and deliberation, but having a game constantly scream "ACAB" at you every time you try to do anything, when your character was *literally* created to do this job and it was in no way his choice feels tone-deaf. Your protagonist is actively not choosing to be a part of this system and is still being tarred by the same brush, if anything it highlights the gross incompetence and logical fallacies of the arguement by actively pointing to Dinocop and saying "hey, this guy quite literally isn't a bad cop, but everyone is still yelling at him for being something outside of his control". It's tone-deaf, misplaced tribalism, and when the story actually gets going, starts becoming somewhat dark and developed, the game just... ends. Right then and there.
I wanted to like Dinocop because I loved the concept, but I feel like this isn't a passion project so much as it is a mouthpiece for hateful rhetoric. Dinocop doesn't have anything new, nuanced, interesting or curious to say - it just parrots decade old talking points and expects you to nod along the entire time. It's... dissapointing, that the dynamic of "dinosaurs are just like us but now have to share our world" was barely explored, and instead what I got was "cops are bad and goverments are corrupt". It feels like a letdown, a failiure to deliver on the concept presented, and that's what gets me the most. Dinocop has such charm, and such potential, but the way that the meat of the game was handled left me with a bitter taste in my mouth. It's honestly a shame that I feel the need to review the game negatively, but when your entire game's premise is set up just to yell "ACAB" at people, I can't help but get jaded and dissapointed. I'd say I'd hope that the developers would adapt, and employ more nuance in future - but seeing the next game they have in development just reaffirms that they won't. The Developers clearly have a stance, and an ideaology that they are passionate about, I just wish they hadn't taken such an interesting premise to corrupt with it.
