A reconstruction of Tyrannosaurus rex on display at the National Museum of Natural History. Photo by the author.

I can’t help feel bad for Tyrannosaurus. The dinosaur’s relatively minuscule arms are a near-constant source of ridicule. It doesn’t matter that there were other fearsome predatory dinosaurs with even smaller and apparently useless arms—the short arms of the “tyrant king” are a cruel evolutionary joke.

All the same, the tumblr blog T-Rex Trying… is a whimsical line-drawing catalog of all the things Tyrannosaurus couldn’t do with those small arms. Everything from cross-country skiing to simply counting to five would have posed a challenge, although I think my personal favorite is Tyrannosaurus trying to navigate the sneeze-guard at a buffet. Although such a scenario assumes that Tyrannosaurus would have had the manners to stand in line for the steam-tray fare and would not have gobbled up the bacon- and potato-stuffed clientele….

There’s no shortage of dinosaur encyclopedias. From technical volumes to children’s picture books, dinosaur catalogs have proliferated in both dead-tree and e-book formats. Among the slew of titles, though, the newly-released Inside the World of Dinosaurs for the iPad looks to be one of the prettiest offerings.

The major hook for the new app is a wealth of computer-animated dinosaurs. A total of 60 prehistoric creatures—mostly dinosaurs with a few non-dinosaurian Mesozoic favorites among the lot—are put through their paces in animated walk cycles and re-enacted battles. Aside from common paleo quibbles—the Deinonychus have “bunny hands” and their feathers are not well realized—the artwork seems to be on par with any dinosaur documentary you’re likely to see on television today. And you can browse through this prehistoric menagerie in different ways, including a timeline which places dinosaurs in their chronological order (a nice feature since the “Age of Dinosaurs” is too often viewed as block of time where Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods are smashed together.) A bonus is narration by Stephen Fry, the British actor who recently narrated March of the Dinosaurs.

Sadly, though, the app is only available to those with an iPad. I don’t think I could justify the purchase another piece of expensive hardware just to play with dinosaurs. If you have tried out this app, though, let us know what you think in the comments.

Get this kid a museum job. Stella, a four-year-old dinosaur expert, correctly points out that a so-called Triceratops toy is, in fact, a Styracosaurus. She even hits three of the major differences in skull anatomy—Triceratops had a shorter nasal horn, longer brow horns and smaller, triangular bones around the border of the frill. This has to be the most adorable dinosaur correction I have ever seen. I would love to see Stella give a talk at next year’s Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting.

We just can’t get away from Jurassic Park. Though the original film adaptation of Michael Crichton’s novel debuted 18 years ago and the last sequel is now a decade old, a slew of toys, comics, games, fan tributes and rumors of a fourth movie have kept the franchise alive. Now Telltale Games has issued its own entry to the list of Jurassic Park spinoffs: an adventure that goes back to the scene of the crime that set the catastrophic events of the first film in motion.

Remember that can of Barbasol from the first Jurassic Park film? The one containing all those very, very expensive dinosaur embryos? Well, that’s the MacGuffin at the heart of Jurassic Park: The Game. Within the context of the new game, the corporate spies who commissioned the nefarious Dennis Nedry to steal the precious little dinosaurs didn’t entirely trust his ability to complete the task. They sent in a back-up: a professional smuggler named Nima.

As with anything in Jurassic Park, though, the best laid plans of Microraptor and men go awry. Nima quickly gets tangled up in a race to escape the island alive. Other characters are park veterinarian Gerry Harding, Harding’s daughter Jess, a couple of mercenaries sent to evacuate the park and a park scientist who is more concerned about the dinosaurs than the safety of her companions. This all takes place in the hours during and directly following the first film, making the game a parallel storyline that fits snugly within the cinematic Jurassic Park canon.

The new game isn’t another run-and-gun dinosaur shooter. There are more than enough of those out there already—using a rocket launcher against hordes of Velociraptor isn’t a rare gaming experience anymore. Nor does the game primarily feature major characters from the films or let you play as dinosaurs, as past Jurassic Park games have done. Instead, Jurassic Park: The Game is akin to a movie that the player directs through puzzles and action sequences requiring specific actions to solve. One moment you’ll be frantically trying to hit the proper combination of keys to prevent yourself from tripping while running away from Tyrannosaurus, and the next you will have to figure out the proper door code to enter a locked area. And the story unfolds not through just a single character’s perspective—the game requires players to jump between characters to accomplish certain tasks. The storyline propels the player, but only as fast as you can successfully navigate through the puzzles.

This type of game setup is both refreshing and extremely frustrating. During many parts of the story, players must observe their surroundings and use what’s at hand to solve puzzles to keep from being chomped by various theropods, and a dialog option allows players to take certain parts of the game at their own pace. During lulls in the action, players can dig into the backstory of various characters through conversation prompts. At one points, for example, you can stop to chat with Nima about why the island means so much to her, or you can decide to just move on to the next puzzle. The action sequences are a different story. Players are required to hit certain combinations of keys in rapid succession in order to escape packs of Troodon, avoid charging Triceratops and stab attacking Velociraptor, but these events require such speed and deftness at the keyboard or gamepad that a player is almost guaranteed to fail the first few tries. An adventure game should be challenging, of course, but many of the action prompts require such a high level of responsiveness or even anticipation that sequences meant to be fun and exciting quickly became annoying.

As for the look of the game, the designers kept appearances consistent with the original film. The park buildings, fences and vehicles match those from the movie, and the dinosaurs match their big-screen counterparts. As much as I would have loved to have seen feather-covered Velociraptor, the only reasonable choice was to keep the designs consistent. Some of the prehistoric beasts new to the game could have used a little more work, though. The Herrerasaurus are a bit too tubby and have skulls that more closely approximate the look of true Velociraptor than the genetically engineered monsters given that name in the game, and the mosasaur in the final chapter was given a number of flourishes which made the marine reptile look more like a sea monster than a real animal. The game designers appear to at least minimally respect hard-core dinosaur nerds, though: Snippets of dialog and journal entries in the game retcon a few of the scientific issues with the fictional story and even include some up-to-date science.

Despite my quibbles about the new prehistoric threats and some elements of the gameplay, though, Jurassic Park: The Game is an enjoyable and well-executed spinoff that lets players venture deeper into the dinosaur-infested park. The game reminded me of the “choose your own adventure” books I read as a kid—the choices you make as the story unfolds will either open up the next scene or send you spiraling into certain doom. That approach, I think, captured the spirit of the Jurassic Park films. A return to the island may not be safe, but it is fun.

A reconstruction of Utahraptor at the Museum of Ancient Life. The Utahraptor #GRAWR joke has been the most popular of the lot so far. Photo by the author.

Ed Yong has had enough. Although he and I have been blogger buddies for years, Ed can no longer stand by and let me ruin cherished images of prehistoric life with what he calls “tawdry ‘facts.’” Yesterday’s post about how the giant bird Gastornis wasn’t as fierce as previously believed was the last straw.

In retaliation Ed created a Twitter list of facts about dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals as they should have been, no facts required. Ed’s first suggestion? “Dimetrodon sails absorbed energy that could be redirected into its laser-eyes.”

Others quickly jumped in with their own preferred visions of prehistoric life. The list is the silliest, most sensational, and fun list of details about fossil creatures I have ever seen. Even the bottom-of-the-barrel rubbish that shows up on the History Channel would have to try hard to reach this level of wild speculation. And even I couldn’t resist throwing a few ideas into the mix.

Of course, I still believe that dinosaurs as they actually were—without laser eyes, superpowers and the like—were still absolutely spectacular. Had we not known of their existence, I don’t think we could have imagined them. Who would have guessed that creatures like Kosmoceratops, Balaur, Concavenator, Nigersaurus, Parasaurolophus, Gastonia and even Tyrannosaurus ever existed without the efforts of paleontologists to discover and understand the world before our own time? The #GRAWR list shows that we’re great at augmenting dinosaurs that we already know about, but I think the quirks and contingencies of evolution are going to beat us every time when it comes to originality. And to think that most of the dinosaur species that ever lived have not yet been discovered….

I’ve listed out some of my favorite bits of fun dinosaurian speculation from the #GRAWR meme on Chirpstory. Feel free to join in if you’re on Twitter (use the #GRAWR hashtag at the end of your tweet), and if there are paleo-artists out there who want to bring these ideas to life please send your art to dinosaursightings@gmail.com.

Soldiers and dinosaurs are an excellent match. Any kid with a bucket of plastic army figures, a horde of dinosaur toys and a sandbox knows this well, as do many grown-up dinosaur fans. In addition to the many, many comics that have pitted packs of dinosaurs against platoons of soldiers, a strange Virginia theme park features Civil War-era theropods and this summer saw the release of the online, multi-player WWII shooter Dino D-Day. It’s only a matter of time before someone creates an alternate history in which George Washington rode a Torosaurus into battle. And the latest addition to the growing list of historical dinosaur fiction? A new survival horror game called “1916: Der Unbekannte Krieg (The War You Never Knew).”

Set behind German lines during WWI, the new dinosaur-haunted game is a claustrophobic experience. The player must navigate through the dark, damp trenches in search of a way out, because it is better to face the horrors of the battlefield than be torn apart by the sickle-clawed dinosaurs that might be hiding right around the next corner. There are no machine guns, rocket launchers, or other heavy firepower here. Your only chance is to distract the dinosaurs with flares and, in a macabre game element, the body parts of your fallen companions long enough to escape. If you would rather gun down scores of raptors and have a shot at blowing up a Tyrannosaurus, you’ll just have to wait for Primal Carnage to come out.

“The War You Never Knew” is a tough game. I quickly got lost in the trenches and more than once found myself hopelessly stuck in a narrow corridor between two approaching dromaeosaurids. I managed to get a little further with each run-through, but the game is one of strategy and memory. You don’t want to try to escape a dinosaur by running down a pathway that leads directly into that pocket of mustard gas you passed by. Which brings up one of my complaints about the game—the predatory dinosaurs seem to be exceptionally resistant to the poison gas in the air. I understand that the point of the game is to avoid the dinosaurs rather than gun them down, but I don’t think the raptors should be nearly invincible, either!

Another small problem for English-speaking users: As you sneak through the trenches, you will stumble across letters which contain background information and clues. These letters are in German. You can still play the game without the information, and the first letter has a handy illustration of a solider distracting a raptor with another man’s hand tossed into the air (a clue as to what you will soon have to do yourself), but I imagine that the other letters probably contain some useful information.

Nevertheless, I quite like the idea of a second, unknown conflict taking place during the chaos of WWI, and the dark, shadowy design of the game sets the perfect mood. I have yet to find the ladder and climb out of the dinosaur-infested trenches, but with some more practice, I just might make it.

When I was a young dinosaur fan, Spinosaurus was one of my most favorite dinosaurs. What could be more fantastic than a giant predatory dinosaur equipped with a bizarre sail? But Spinosaurus as I knew it during the 1980s—imagine a fin-backed Allosaurus—looked significantly different from the dinosaur as we know it today. The reason for the big change is largely attributable to the discovery of a different, related dinosaur in England.

In 1986, Alan Charig and Angela Milner described a very strange, crocodile-snouted dinosaur they called Baryonyx. The Cretaceous creature turned out to be the key to identifying what is now one of the most famous dinosaur groups, the spinosaurs. Paleontologists had been finding pieces of spinosaurs for over a century, but often the teeth of these dinosaurs were confused for those of crocodiles, and the original Spinosaurus fossils were destroyed during Allied bombing of Germany in WWII. When Baryonyx was discovered, however, paleontologists began to recognize the similarities between it, older discoveries and similar dinosaurs that were soon found in South America, Africa, Asia and Australia. Some, such as Suchomimus and Spinosaurus from Africa, had sails, while others—including Baryonyx—did not, but the initial discovery formed the basis for the great spinosaur makeover. (Even before new Spinosaurus material was found, the relationship between it and other spinosaurs like Baryonyx was used to restore the predator with heavy-clawed hands and an elongated snout.) In the above video, created by London’s Natural History Museum, paleontologist Angela Milner explains how the dinosaur was discovered and why Baryonyx is so peculiar compared to other predatory dinosaurs.

I’m always a bit amused by dinosaur shooters. For the first time in 65 million years or more, non-avian dinosaur species again roam the planet and the best thing we can think of is to turn ‘em into chunky cat food. And, given the quality of many run-and-gun dinosaur adventures, do we really need any more games that pit machine-gun-toting players against hordes of Velociraptor and Tyrannosaurus? Isn’t it about time for something different?

Whether you’re as tired of dinosaur shooters as I am, though, there’s no doubt they’ll keep coming. The chance to virtually shoot a bazooka at a raptor seems too good to resist, and the next game due to pop up in this genre is Primal Carnage. The game has been in development for a while, but earlier this month the shooter’s creators released a short video that shows what the actual gameplay is going to be like for a few of the human and dinosaurian characters. You can either try to pick off your dinosaur enemies at a distance as one of the humans, or get up close and personal with teeth and claws as one of the several theropod classes. I have to admit, stomping around as a Tyrannosaurus is pretty tempting, but we’ll have to see whether Primal Carnage can really deliver what it promises.

One of the dueling Tyrannosaurus at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Photo by author.

As paleontologist Christopher Brochu once wrote, Tyrannosaurus rex is a mighty ambassador for paleontology. Citing the massive and nearly complete skeleton of “Sue” in particular, Brochu explained, “a wonderfully complete crocodile, bony fish, trilobite, or bivalve will simply not attract the same public interest as a tyrannosaurid, and any science we do with it can thus be done in the public eye.” Indeed, nothing capture’s the public’s attention quite like a Tyrannosaurus, so it’s no surprise that NPR has put together a new media package celebrating the legacy of the world’s most popular dinosaur.

NPR’s Tyrannosaurus tribute comes in three parts: a slideshow of notes and photographs from fossil hunter Barnum Brown (who found the first recognized Tyrannosaurus skeletons), a series of video reconstructions showing how the dinosaur might have moved, and a news item about how a missing part of Brown’s 1902 Tyrannosaurus skeleton was rediscovered in a museum collection and brought “home” to its parent skeleton at last year’s Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting in Pittsburgh. I was especially interested to learn that a small part of Brown’s famous find was present at the SVP auction—I saw plenty of well-known and influential paleontologists at the meeting, but I had no idea that the biggest celebrity in the room was being carried around in a styrofoam box!

Clearly, NPR had the most fun putting together the short videos about Tyrannosaurus movement. The skeleton is a little too smoothed out in places; some parts of the skeleton stay stiff while others are a bit jangly, and poor Tyrannosaurus can’t bring its toes together while walking, but there is a delicious irony in seeing a reconstructed dinosaur skeleton strutting to “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees. Actually, that may be what the dinosaur is best at. Extinct for more than 65 million years, the prehistoric carnivore is the most prominent representative of both its dinosaurian kin and paleontology. Bigger and stranger theropod dinosaurs have been found, but I think the New York Times got it right when they called Tyrannosaurus the “Prize Fighter of Antiquity.” You just can’t keep this dinosaur down.

A dinosaur you can pet. Image courtesy of Flickr user Merrigong

Three Words You Never Expected to See Together: “Dinosaur petting zoo.” Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs has the details.

Staged Fight: At Archosaur Musings, David Hone casts doubt on the likelihood of a Tyrannosaurs vs. Triceratops smackdown.

Thou Shalt Honor Anatomy: ArtEvolved delivers unto us the “Ten Commandments of Paleoart.”

The Paleo-States of America: Bob’s Dinosaur Blog provides a clickable map of the most notable dinosaurs and prehistoric animals that have been discovered in each of the fifty U.S. states.

Caveat Excavator: At Chinleana, Bill Parker learns that what happens at a field study doesn’t always stay at a field study.

Lack of Space: Paleoartist Glendon Mellow, who is now also blogging at Symbiartic, poses an intriguing question: Where are all the space-art bloggers?

Further Proof That You Can Find ANYTHING On Craigslist: You know economic times are tough when someone offers his services as a costumed dinosaur housekeeper. (Duties include scaring the mailman and washing dishes).

Raptor from Tal Moskovich on Vimeo.

Remember Alan Grant’s soliloquy at the beginning of Jurassic Park about the feeding habits of Velociraptor? The one in which he terrifies the child who dared to call the Cretaceous carnivore a “six foot turkey”? Well, Tal Moskovich has created a short, alternate version of the scene using plastic dinosaurs, which, I have to admit, I also did shortly after seeing the movie. I won’t bother complaining about the lack of feathers or other inaccuracies this time, promise.

If you want to see the original, however, you might get the chance to see it in theaters. MusicRooms (among other sites) reports that Jurassic Park will be re-released for a limited theatrical run on September 23 in advance of the Blu-Ray release of the full trilogy on October 24.

The background for Dino D-Day is pretty simple: Adolf Hitler has somehow resurrected dinosaurs and is using them in his plans for world domination. It’s up to the Allies to stop him, and players spend the entire gaming experience bouncing between the Axis and Allies sides in this first-person shooter. It’s run-and-gun action all the way. If you have played any first-person shooter since DOOM the feel of the game will be familiar to you.

While I wouldn’t say that the two factions are unevenly matched, it is disappointing that most of the dinosaurs are only playable on the Axis side. The Allies only have a single dinosaur—a Protoceratops equipped with machine gun—to fight against the Velociraptor, Dilophosaurus, Stygimoloch and Tyrannosaurus of the Axis side. (The Nazis also have a Desmatosuchus with a back-mounted tank turret, but this animal is actually an aetosaur and not a dinosaur at all.) The dinosaurs are more fun to play than their human counterparts. There are already plenty of WWII games that offer players the ability to step into the boots of a mid-20th century infantryman, but how many games offer you the ability to gallop around the battlefield as a Protoceratops mounted with a .30 caliber machine gun?

The dinosaurs themselves don’t look too bad. The graphics are relatively simple, but they’re not awful, either. At least the Velociraptor has feathers—a feature other game developers have seemed reluctant to adopt. Hard-core dinosaur fans will notice some things that are wrong about each of the models—like the size of the horns on Stygimoloch—but at least each dinosaur generally looks like the creature it is meant to represent! (Though it says something about the state of dinosaurs in video games that I’ve become content with near-accuracy.)

Frustratingly, only the multi-player version of the game is available at the moment. There is no single-player campaign for new players to gain experience or otherwise avoid being constantly blown up by more experienced players who simply sit in one comfy spot and snipe at everyone else. (I hate to be a poor sport, but anyone who spends all their time picking off other players from a safe spot for the whole game should be devoured by a pack of ravenous Dilophosaurus.) As with Project Blackout’s dinosaur stages, this means that Dino D-Day gets repetitive pretty quickly. A variety of maps helps keep the novelty for a while, as do the stages where Tyrannosaurus becomes a playable character, but at present, there’s nothing more to the game than the ability to run around shooting at soldiers and dinosaurs. Likewise, the fact that the characters often go down after just a shot or two can be frustrating for new players—it’s no fun constantly being gunned down and waiting 10 seconds or so for your character to reappear on the map.

A single player campaign would go a long way toward making Dino D-Day a better game. There’s a lot of potential there—Return to Castle Wolfenstein showed how unusual elements could be brought into a WWII shooter to make an engrossing player experience. Just replace the supernatural and archaeological elements of that game with dinosaurs. As it stands now, though, Dino D-Day is a fun way to kill an hour or two on a lazy afternoon.

The age of cubicle humor may have peaked some time ago—how many years ago did Office Space come out?—but I still got a kick out of “Dinosaur Office.” As bad as your workplace is, at least you don’t have to worry about your tyrannosaur boss eating you for lunch (at least I hope not!).

Dinosaurs are handy video game monsters. They’re famous, they’re fearsome, and—especially in the case of Tyrannosaurus—nearly unstoppable. That’s why it’s not altogether surprising that the free online shooter Project Blackout has just added a “dinosaur mode” to the game.

I’ll say right off the bat that I’m not a huge fan of online-only, multiplayer shooters. I have better ways to waste my time than being blown up by virtual strangers who are far more skilled than I am. Still, I figured I would give Project Blackout a shot. After all, it has dinosaurs in it!

The gameplay is pretty simple. After you select which room you’re going to battle in, you start off on the side of either the dinosaurs or the humans. The humans, obviously, come armed with all sorts of hi-tech weaponry, and the dinosaurs are left to bite and slash at the fleeing humans. The ensuing free-for-all lasts for a few minutes, and then the sides switch so every player gets to try out the soldier and dinosaur modes in each round.

Playing involved running and shooting or running and slashing, depending on which side you wind up on. The game uses the classic first-person shooter controls that have been in place since the days of the classic, blood-spattered game DOOM. Unfortunately, though, the game starts to feel stale very quickly. Sure, you can upgrade your character with new weapons and other kit, but you’re still wildly attacking other players in a small arena over and over again. After a few rounds, I had pretty much had enough. Even dinosaurs can’t help you if your game is hopelessly repetitive.

I’m a little too far away from L.A. to just bop over there and check out the new exhibits, but fortunately, other paleo bloggers have got you covered there. A Central Coast Paleontologist has a hyperbolic review, replete with videos from the museum, and David Orr at Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs has collected a number of Flickr snapshots taken by others at the opening event. The exhibit certainly looks wonderful, and I will certainly share my thoughts on it when I eventually make my way out to the west coast.

Have you seen the new NHM dinosaur exhibit? Share your reactions in the comments.