Bloody Dinosaurs

In 1993 Jurassic Park (the film) captured the imaginations and blah blah blah people got really into dinosaurs blah blah animatronics blah blah blah dna splicing and cgi, it was a great fucking movie. A year later a fighting game in which dinosaurs were protagonists came out, in 2009 I drive down to the swap meet and buy said game, Primal Rage, for seven dollars. I instantly feel like I overpaid.

First some background, when this came out I was in the fourth grade right in the middle of my love affair with my Super Nintendo. In retrospect I probably shoulda been outside playing sports, instead I was at home playing my games and wishing I had enough money to buy more. Primal Rage was one of the games I really wanted and never got so when I saw it for sale last week I knew I might be disappointed but I wanted it regardless.

I wasnt exactly disappointed; if there is one thing I've learned its that fighting games do not hold up as well as platformers so the fact that this game felt choppy and slow was not because the game is bad but rather because that is as good as it could get in 1994.

The game is one big bloody, testosterone riddled MMA dinosaur gang fight. First you select from a motley crew of horrible looking dinosaurs. Horrible as in you dont want to meet them in a dark alley, design wise they're actually kinda cool, even though some are blatant copies of each other (two T-Rex, two monkeys) in a manner reminiscent of Mortal Kombats many ninjas. The characters themselves appear to be models taken out of a Jason and the Argonauts movie, motion captured to give them a 3-D feel which, again, is strangely like Mortal Kombat. So similar is this to Mortal Kombat that one cant help but feel its intentional, even wikipedia seems to think so.

Story mode is actually kinda difficult to beat, ultimately without prior experience and without a game manual one is reduced to button mashing, its effective but by the second fight the opponent is not letting anything past its guard. The character I've been using is a nightmarish snake with legs named Vertigo, the only female character, she also has the longest reach and can teleport. Of course most fights devolve into two dinosaurs (or dinosaur sized apes) throwing bites at each others necks, trying to finish off the stylized health bars all while a disembodied voice urges you to RAGE! and tiny humans run around the background.

I do remember that the game was heavily advertised and there was a line of action figures (which I never had) and are still, I assume, easily available on eBay. They might be a bit too 90's for me to really want to buy now but I did want them as a kid.

Final verdict? its a keeper, especially now that I'm getting sort of good at it. I really hope that there is some sort of closure for the dinosaurs in the end but I wont know until I get past the third battle.

Bonus!
24 more songs were revealed for Guitar Hero 5. Some highlights? Hungry like the wolf, Feel Good Inc and fuckin BULLET WITH BUTTERFLY WINGS!!! full list at Kotaku.

Update!
I received my replacement RF Switch from eBay today, it took significantly less time than I expected and it works even better than I thought it would. Who knew the SNES, N64 and Gamecube could use the same switch? its like I'm playing the SNES in HD now, amazing.