As a member of Anime Talk, I find myself reviewing and watching all sorts of shows and animations. This cool thing to do comes at a price though, and for me that cost was sitting through six volumes of DICE. Produced in America, this marketing tool from Bandai leaves a lot to be desired thanks to some poor storytelling, animation, and an overall generic concept. On each of the six volumes there was a preview trailer for the game as the only extra feature on the DVD, so when I saw that it became available I figured I’d take a stab at it.

The team of teenage space warriors is back in action with a plot that has just about next to nothing to do with the show. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the show, these kids may not appear to be much, but they have the ability to don cybernetic suits and ride vehicles that transform into dinosaurs (known as Dinobreakers). It’s essentially a dull mix of Power Rangers and Transformers all wrapped up in one relatively unentertaining package. Unless you are seven years old and a diehard fan of the show, chances are you won’t know what’s going on and will care even less.

Gameplay:

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If you enjoy button mashing, then you’ll be in heaven when you start playing DICE. I practically wore out my square button from pulling of one similar combo after another, over and over again. DICE can get to be repetitive beyond belief, but to be fair, so does the actual series itself.

The actual flow of the game is broken down into sixteen missions with a few areas, a lot of enemies, and a boss at the end. The enemy variety is filled with robots, Vikings, and even more robots, so there’s not a lot of excitement to speak of. It’s almost comical to see a cyborg riding around on a mechanical dinosaur and kicking a Viking on a hovercraft. DICE the show (and now game) is such a train wreck of concepts mashed together with no thought of the outcome, that’s it becomes a parody of itself most of the time, and something that only younglings will be able to fully appreciate.

Throughout these redundant missions, you’ll be able to select a different DICE member to play as, though they all essentially control the same. In between clawing and shooting lasers at robots and frogs you’ll also be collecting coins (yay!) that appear as you defeat enemies, which can be used to upgrade your Dino. If reading this review reminds you of a PS1 generation action game based on an anime, then welcome back to the late 90s because there isn’t a lot of innovation here.

To make matters worse, the controls are clumsy beyond belief. Dinobreakers move around ploddingly and are very unresponsive when you issue attack commands. Once they take too much damage they “overheat” causing the pilot to leap off for some reason. Even though you are in a cybernetic suit you’ll still take a lot of damage if you happen to get hit, so unfortunately you are left running around the screen until your Dinobreaker recovers. Fortunately you do however, have a Satellite Bot that stays by your side at all times and it comes in quite handy. There are a variety of Bots to select, but they tend to do most of the work that the clumsy controls won’t let you do. The funny part is that I don’t recall these things from the show, so they are basically toss ins for the sake of gameplay.

Of course, there is the whole angle that your Dinobreaker can turn into a vehicle. Sometimes the missions are broken up to incorporate this little tidbit into the gameplay, though I have to admit it feels very out of place. To make matters worse the control here isn’t any better either. Your ride takes corners like an old lady with cataracts, but the worst part is that most of the times there isn’t an edge to prevent you from flying off of the track. To make matters worse there is absolutely no sense of speed, so these little diversions are more like exercises in frustration and tedium than a welcome change of pace.

Even more frustrating than the racing aspects of the game is a clunky and unresponsive camera system. I had to constantly adjust the camera just to see where I was, who I was attacking, and what was going on behind me. I’d say that I spent about as much time working on the camera angle as I did attacking enemies

Graphics:

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A generic source material begets a generic looking final product. The DICE show proved to be just about as bland and unimaginative as anime can get, and the game isn’t all that different. There is an inherent lack of detail in textures and design that definitely doesn’t to the visual aspect of the game justice. Edges are rough, models are repetitive, the framerate gets sluggish at times, and there is quite a bit of clipping. While there are certainly a decent amount of flaws with the presentation, the game’s look works well with the concept.

Audio:

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I had a difficult time discerning whether or not the voice cast in the game matched the voice cast of the TV show. Some of the sound clips were obviously ripped straight from the show’s audio vault, though some of the cut scenes featured exclusive tracks that were terribly acted. At least the game keeps up with the TV show in that regard! The game also features the same style of music and even some of the sound effects from the show. Overall the quality is decent enough, but unless you’re a fan of the show (and why wouldn’t you be?) you’ll probably find it all very annoying.

Conclusion:

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In the end redundant and clumsy gameplay, dull graphics, and irritating sound did little to please this gamer. Just like the show that creates its own words, I found myself crafting a few swear words of my own as my Dinobreaker overheated or ran off of the track. Unless you are a fan of all things anime inspired, there is basically nothing for you to appreciate here. It’s a shame too, because if DICE were going to have any success in any medium, it would be the gaming industry. Skip It