curiousities - the Jurassic Park 3 Dino Dex

okay, so there was a tiny little bit of a delay as far as updates go on here, but that's what happens when you got a old virtual machine set up and you goof around with it for a while. for now, have something a bit different.

one of the things i've been taught as a kid is what decisions to make, and sometimes those decisions are really hard. as we grow in age, we also begin to outgrow the toys we liked in our younger years, which leads to one of the hardest choices we have to make. do we give our old playthings to a new generation of kids for them to enjoy? or do we keep them as mementos of a time long gone?

for me, i went the middle road of "keep and actually still use to a degree since i've resigned to the idea that i'm still a kid at heart and enjoy kid things despite being in my twenties".

long name for that road, but hey. first time reviewing a toy on here. and for that first time, i'll be reviewing a Jurassic Park toy. :"D

i'll be honest, i never watched Jurassic Park as a kid, let alone the third film. then again i've heard less than favorable things about the third film so it's probably for the best. despite that, i was familiar with the Jurassic Park brand, half because it was one of those series of the 90s that most kids were familiar with due to being plastered everywhere, and half because i really liked dinosaurs.

never did own much of the toys or anything that came out of it, but i did own a few demo CDs from cereal boxes, and the Jurassic Park 3 Dino Dex.

the bare dex itself (img courtesy of the Museum of Play), my sticker-covered dex, and the open dex

manufactured in 2001 by Tiger Electronics and Hasbro, the Dino Dex was pretty much John Hammond's response to the Pokedex. this five-inch-tall handheld not only served as a comprehensive (if outdated) database on over 50 dinosaurs, but also a planner, notepad, and calculator. it also had two games that were enough to keep kids occupied for a while.

while nowadays pretty much all of those functions can be covered by stuff like Androids and iPhones, for the early 00s, this was a pretty nifty device for kids. it was a PDA built for kids and younger dino fans, and was a cheap alternative to more expensive PDA devices at the time, and pretty sturdy for what it's worth. kinda surprised mine still works after 15 years, even if i had to get my dad to replace a rusted battery coil in it recently. and the fact that mine's covered in dino stickers that are well over several years old.

anyhow, let's give this thing a more indepth look, shall we?


when you open the cover to the dex, you'll be greeted to a LED screen and a keypad that looks like a bizzare mix of a Game Boy, a calculator, and those old PDA-style toys that had letter keypads. you probably know the kinds. to turn it on, you press an ON button. to turn it off, press the off button next to it. pretty simple stuff.

upon starting up the Dino Dex for the first time (or turning it on after resetting), you'll need to set it up. it's pretty easy: enter in your name, the current date, the current time, and what time you want the dex's alarm to go off. after initial setup, you can toggle the alarm off if you wish, or turn off general sound effects.

there's not really a whole lot to mention on this particular bit, but one thing i noticed is that the year for the date can't be edited part 2009. i guess Tiger didn't think the dex would last too long, yet look at me, i took these photos recently and it still works fine, even if the buttons are slightly worn. but yeah, don't expect to use this to keep dates on events and such. especially in 2016, which still seems to be the era where pretty much half the world's population owns iPhones.

ahem.

so now that we've got this little gadget set up, let's look at all the features this thing has. there are ten "apps" in total, each with their own functions.

first up is the Archive Files, which i believe is the main feature of the Dino Dex. the Archive has a alphabetically-sorted gallery of 72 dinosaurs to look at, with animations, length and height, period they lived in, and other (probably outdated) information. it's no replacement for wikipedia or other net sources, especially with the small list and limited profile space, but it's convenient as a quick on-hand reference. unless if you have an iphone in which you can get on the internet rendering this pretty much pointless.

eh. the animations are still neat to look at, even for Tiger dotmatrix work. plus, as a reference for kids, it's not too shabby in giving them info on particular dinos.

next up is the Personal Log. basically it's a sort of notepad you can use to digitally jot down notes. unfortunately there is a character limit; if you go over the character limit, you'll get a message telling you to delete some text before you can save your message. while it's a bit flimsy if you plan on using it as a diary, you might get some use of it for small notes and such.

as for text input, while it might seem easy with the keypad, deleting letters is a bit tricky. the d-pad is used to move the text cursor, and the DELETE button will delete a highlighted letter. while it might just be the age of my dex, the dpad gets a bit unresponsive unless you press a direction hard enough. not too terrible, but a bit weird to get used to, if mostly since i'm too used to simply typing on a QWERTY keyboard.

next is the Data Bank. you can use this to store names and phone numbers, email addresses, and web addresses. pretty self-explanatory, so there's not much to say on this. the keypad does give you "@" and "/" buttons (A and B buttons, respectively), but there doesn't seem to be a way to add dashes in URLs or phone numbers. for the former it can be hard to find a substitute, but for the latter i just use periods/decimals in place of dashes.

and now for the Schedule list. you can enter in short reminders to yourself, and set an alarm to go off on a specific date and time. the text input is the same as the Personal Log, so there's not much else to say about this feature.

what's a good PDA without a password protection feature? well, i'd make a smartphone joke if i knew any smartphones with crap security. Security System allows you to make a password with a 8-character limit, and lock out specific dex "apps". you can even lock out the Security System itself. to change your password, you can go to the Security System again, so you might want to consider locking it so nobody changes your password. well, nobody who would bother with a decade-old toy PDA in the first place, of course.

the System Core shows all the basic information you entered when you first booted up the dex: name, date, time, and what time your alarm goes off. you can edit this information if you want. you can also toggle the alarm and sound effects here.

of course, it's not a kid's minicomputer without a built-in calculator. the Dino Dex calculator can be used for simple equation stuff. the dpad has symbols for multiplication, addition, subtraction, and division. not a whole lot i can say here since i assume most of you know how to use a calculator.

the Sorter is essentially the same as the Archive, but you can view dinosaurs by height, length, and weight instead of alphabetical order. you can also view lists of all carnivorous or all herbivorous dinos. it's pretty useful if you're looking for info on what the longest dinosaur was, or what the smallest dino was.

System Bio's allows you to list five of your favorite dinosaurs from the Archive. you can use this if you want to make a quick reference of what dinos you like, or want to remember what the biggest meat-eating dinosaur was or the like.

while i'm not sure much kids would've gotten too much use out of a digital address book or schedule list (though i'm probably biased because i never used those features), there is one thing that can draw them to PDAs like this, and that is built-in games. luckily, the Dino Dex comes with two of them. do they hold up?

ehhhhh, even for a tie-in toy, they're a bit below-average, even by Tiger Electronics standards. considering how average a lot of Tiger games can be, that's probably saying a lot. but i don't think we can really call this article complete without a look-see at these games, can we?

accessible through the Game Simulator are two games: the DNA Lab and the Battle Dome. let's look at the Lab first.

with the DNA Lab, you can create your own hybrid dinosaur from other dinosaur DNA. you'll start with a list of four dinosaurs to pick parts from, but each day, you'll get another dinosaur added to the list. all the dinosaurs from the Archive can be used, so with enough patience, you'll eventually get all dinosaurs to play god with. while you probably can't perfectly replicate an indominus rex here, you might come pretty close with the right combination.

there are five segments that make up a dino here: head, arms, torso, legs, and tail. you can mix and match dino parts however you wish. the only problem is that dinosaurs are not sorted at all, so you'll have to scroll down the list to get to a specific dinosaur you want a part from. with a list of 50+ dinosaurs, it can get pretty tedious scrolling down the entire thing, especially if you want to make a specific dinosaur.

after your dinosaur is created, you can save it if you're happy with the results, and even name it if you want. you can then watch it roam around a small field. unfortunately, that's as much interaction as you're able to do; your dinosaur will feed itself, grow, sleep, and (usually) escape hungry predators. it'll grow to adult size in a week, give or take a few days. if it gets killed, you'll have to create another dino.

while it might just be my bad luck, i've had more dinos killed than i've had grown to adulthood. i think it might have something to do with what legs you choose for them (compsognathus legs seem to be the "fastest"), but this game's mostly just risk and reward since you can't control your dinosaur outside of what parts you give them.

the second of the two games is the Battle Dome. as the name implies, you can watch dinos fight, or pick a dinosaur to play as and fight other dinos. sound fun, right?

well, not entirely. the controls are really iffy, and i'm not sure if it's because of the dex's old age or just the controls themselves. left and right move your dino, the A and B buttons do different attacks, and pressing up on the dpad does a jumping attack. there's no health bar, either; whichever dino lands the first hit wins the round. if a dino wins three rounds, they win the match.

my strategy is usually just stay back while the enemy dino makes attacks, then press right and just try attacking the enemy and hoping for a hit. so yeah, it's not very exciting, but what can you expect out of a Tiger handheld game?

the Dino Dex is an interesting piece of Jurassic Park's merchandise history, but there's very little reason to go out seeking one of these outside of curio appeal. even disregarding the 2009 date limit, pretty much all the functions this thing provides are covered by modern phones and devices. you can look up dinosaurs on the web, keep notes and schedules on your computer, and play far better games on your iPhone (okay, that last one might be a bit of a stretch there).

however, with old toys like this, you need to look at this from a different perspective. as far as licensed toys in the early 00s go, the Dino Dex wasn't too shabby, and it was arguably one of the better Tiger toys out there for that time. while JP3 was pretty sub-par compared to the first Jurassic Park, the toys and games that came out of it certainly weren't terrible. maybe someday i'll give the JP3 games on Gameboy Advance a look, but that's for another day.

if you're interested in getting a Dino Dex of your own as a collector's item or for your kids, you can search on Amazon or Ebay for them. out of the box, they'll usually go for around 10-30 dollars, but if you want it brand new in the packaging, be prepared to pay upwards of at least 50-90 dollars. of course, you can also try your luck at any stores or thrift shops that sell old toys.

on my end, i'll still stick with the sticker-covered little dex i've called my own for over 15 years. hopefully it lasts another 15 with enough care, though i think this article's going to last a bit longer than that.

anyhow, hope you guys enjoyed this little peer into the past, and apologies for the delay on an update on here.

until next time, love and luck to you. i'll be here hyping for Disgaea PC's release in two days. and hopefully getting some more stuff up on here. but mostly Disgaea PC hype.