Tuesday 11 September 2007

Primal Rage




What do you get when a giant meteor hits the earth in the present? Whopping great bloody dinosaurs returning from the past of course! Yes I know it makes no bloody sense whatsoever, but then Primal Rage it really doesn't have to.

Originally a hugely popular arcade franchise developed by (then) corporate giants Atari (oh how the mighty have fallen...) Primal Rage was ported out to just about every gaming system available at the time, including the Atari Jaguar, SNES, Master System, Megadrive, Playstation and of course our beloved Saturn. Exclusive it most certainly aint...



Wikipedia describes it's convoluted storyline thus...
" In Primal Rage, a meteor strike has devastated the earth; civilization has been utterly reduced to rubble and mankind has regressed into tribes of Stone Age dwellers. Into this new radiation-scarred world, primitively referred to as "Urth", primordial rainforest has covered the land and numerous new species have evolved. Among these are giant mutated apes, and reptiles that have regressed on the evolutionary scale back into dinosaur-like beasts.
Other ancient dinosaurs, having been in
suspended animation for 65 million years (due to one of their number, Vertigo, being held in magical imprisonment on the moon) have finally awoken from their eons-long slumber after the last extinction level event which originally killed off most of the dinosaurs.
Out of their ranks emerge seven creatures who wage war for control over the new world; they are torn between those who wish to keep peace on Urth, and those who attempt to plunge the world into further
chaos for personal gain. These creatures have otherworldly or supernatural abilities and each is said to represent a different aspect of nature i.e. life and death, fire and ice; and they are considered to be a "god" of their respective sphere. There are four "Virtuous Gods" and three "Evil Gods".


Roughly translated, all that guff simply means we've got a bunch of dinosaurs plus a couple of giant Ape Men who want to kick each others ass, in return for conquering the newly divided planet. Each beats is worshipped by the newly savaged humans, who dance around their reptilian gods in a slightly gay way... These little people are rendered video, which mean that at some point some sad wannabe actors dressed up in faux fursand pranced camply, in front of a camera for a pittance!

So what does Promal Rage offer us today? Well the easiest comparison would have to be Mortal Kombat... If you wanted to visualise this games gameplay then that would be it's nearest neighbour. Playing against the AI isn't much fun, but against friends, its a blast! The graphics are fabulous for the time, and the colours are so vivid and intense, that for the first five minutes , I thought I was having a mushroom flashback!



There's some great cutscenes, and very hammy voice acting, and I swear the opening sequence is better than the Metroid Prime 2 Echoes opening sequence I experienced the other day... This is the first game of my most recent Saturn haul that I have played for any time, and I like it! I can only see it having any lasting appeal as a versus game for drunken nights with friends, but it's visual appeal deserves showcasing here...

I mentioned before that Atari seem to have been kicked into minor league players in the videogame industry lately... Maybe the upcoming, nostalgia fuelled movie-crossover will boost the company's bank balance a bit!


For an impartial and slightly more detailed overview look here...
For the very informative full Wikipedia entry look here...
For some lovely Primal Rage inspired art look here...



13 comments:

gnome said...

Ah, yes, I remember this one at the arcades. Always loved it really.

Quite a blogging come-back there Father. Impressive.

Caleb said...

This is favorite of many hardcore fighter fans.

As you can tell from the gameplay video you have to measure out your opponent pretty well before you can unleash an attack.

Unknown said...

never played it.. (ducks to avoid shower of blows...)

but damn it looks impressive..

fatherkrishna said...

Why thank you Gnome, even despite the multiple typos and spelling mistakes?

I think it'll become one of my favourites Caleb, it even has my two youngest sons sucked in... Not bad for a lat, last gen console...

Why Elderly, I'm the same as you... Never even heard of it till I found it in the Gamestation retro clearout basket for £1.99!

Random J said...

This game is some bullshit. I remember the first time I played it. I actually spent money renting the piece of crap. I felt like crying.

fatherkrishna said...

Oh stop it J! You LOVED this game and you still play it (at Primal Rage summer camps for the 'special' children with 'needs')

Stop pretending and feel the Primal Rage love...

You can be any dinosaur you like...
:)

Anonymous said...

The REAL Atari died in 2003, when the Milpitas facility closed down forever. Back in '83, when Atari split into "Atari Corporation" and "Atari Games", the real Atari (Atari Games) continued to make arcade games while Sam and Jack Tramiel took their bastardized version of the company and ran it directly into the ground.

Atari exists in name only these days, and it's NOWHERE near the innovative company that Atari Games was. As far as I'm concerned, it was dead and buried in '03.

fatherkrishna said...

Wow Brian that's deep!
An excellent synopsis of the corporate side of gaming, much appreciated. the link is still on the side bar... What's happening with you yhese days?

NebachadnezzaR said...

Never played this game, although I've heard of it before. Looks good, although not as good as Jurassic Park: Warpath for the PSX (there's no giant ape men in that game, though...).

Anyway, looks like another game to search for in the future!

Caleb said...

It's games like this that remind me of my younger days of gaming.

I.E. going over to a friends house to play a rented copy of the game and trying to figure out all the special moves.

...It's hard to believe I have fond memories of sitting around a Genesis trying to make a pixelated ape projectile vomit on his enemies...

fatherkrishna said...

If you can get it at a good price Nebacha, I'd thoroughly reccomned it...

Not hard to believe at all Caleb! :)

Anonymous said...

Father: hey! Just busy running a restaurant these days, although I do still find time to hack on my Dreamcast game a bit now that we've settled into a groove. A final release of the game is imminent, once I insert some new art and write the "attract mode" :)

As for my synopsis, I cringed a bit once I hit the publish button; thinking that maybe I was a bit over- opinionated and harsh. Reading it again, it wasn't really that bad. I'm very passionate about Atari (Games), to the point that when bloggers and others over- emphasize the console side of Atari over their true roots (coin-op), I just want to strangle them.

Appreciate the link! Once I get a grip on iWeb on my Mac (I only know plain old html, with no time to learn css or anything else), I'll be redesigning Owen's page completely.

fatherkrishna said...

Wow! Running a restaurant! Believe it or not that's something I aspire to ( a vegetarian one no less) but I'm sure my fantasy is a lot different to the hard work of the reality!!!

Glad to hear the game is progressing well, and don't forget that I'll be happy to flag it up as much as possible to the limited readership here and the much wider readership over at the Dreamcast Junkyard whenever you're ready! You just email me whatever info you have an it'll be my pleasure to publish!

As for being passionate about gaming, well that's a quality to be admired and the comment was by no means cringeworthy! Your experience and input is always valued here at the 'Yard!

Look forward to the redesigned page, keep us posted on that too!

Take care my friend! FK :)