With the home entertainment market as big as it is, it doesn't seem that the video arcade has the same significance that it used to. Just a few years ago, if you wanted to play the latest in gaming technology, you'd have to load up on quarters and head to the local mall to play games that are affectionately known as "coin-op." But with the advent of powerful PC's and home gaming systems, who needs to go to the arcade anymore? I'm not sure whether or not a hit coin-op game carries the same prestige as it did before, but the game that's all the rage this year is Primal Rage. It's a side-fighting, punch-and-kick style game which features oddly-shaped and colored dinosaurs as the combatants. I wish someone would come up with some new idea for coin-op other than these side fighting games like Mortal Kombat and Primal Rage (remember Spy Hunter and Elevator Action?), but as far as these kinds of games are concerned, Primal Rage is quite good and made the translation to PC quite easily.
For those of you who have never seen or played Primal Rage, here's a quick rundown of the game. A long time ago before humans were walking around, there were these gods which were the embodiment of things like Life and Death, Hunger and Survival, and Good and Evil. These beings were very powerful and were always fighting each other, but they pretty much kept each other in check. Then a wizard from a parallel dimension (I just knew parallel dimensions would be involved in this somewhere) thought that life on Earth would soon be threatening life elsewhere, so he took one of these powerful gods and imprisoned him in the middle of the moon. This just threw everything out of whack back on Earth since it created a huge power imbalance. This resulted in a huge explosion that destroyed most life on Earth and sent the remaining gods into a state of suspended animation.
That brings us up to now, millions of years later, when a giant meteor crashes into Earth, rearranging the continents and laying waste to cities. Humans still survive but all of the existing technology is wiped out, reducing us to living in loincloths and dragging our women by the hair. The meteor crash awakens the gods from their suspended animation - and boy, are they mad. So humans start worshiping these gods that claim specific regions of the world, and it's up to you to take control of one of these creatures, defeat all the other gods in hand-to-hand (or whatever it is they use as hands) combat and claim the entire world as your own.
Accomplishing this task isn't much different from other games we've seen before. Each character has basic moves, in this case upper and lower quick moves, and upper and lower fierce moves. More complicated "special" moves are executed through combinations of button presses and directional inputs. Both combatants have a health bar at the top of the screen that, when it runs out, means that character is dead. There is also a brain stem bar which shows how dazed your character is from getting hit. When it reaches the bottom your monster becomes confused for a time and is open for attack. Using this basic structure, you gouge and claw your way past all of the other monsters.
One of the things that made Primal Rage so popular in the arcade were the graphics. The dinosaurs, though they are bizarre looking (blue apes, striped raptors, walking armored somethings), look and move very realistically. This is due to the fact that they were first developed as plastic models then digitized into the game. It looked really nice in the arcades, but what about the PC? I'm glad to report that it made the leap quite nicely. The graphics still look superb and I doubt if you'll find that much of a difference. I played on a P60 with eight megs of RAM and the graphics were very smooth, as was the play.
One of the great things about getting a game like Primal Rage at home, besides the fact that you'll be saving all of those quarters, is the ability to get all those "extras" that weren't in the original game. The only trouble is, the designers of the home game still seemed to think that they were designing a coin-op game. You can customize the time for each round, but you can only go up to 80 seconds and no longer. And if you wanted to play without the timer, forget it. There's no way of turning the timer off. But you can adjust the difficulty level of the computer from 1 (easy) to 16 (hardest) and when you play against another person, Primal Rage lets you set handicap levels on both players, making it easier or more difficult to kill one of the opponents.
In this home version, Primal Rage has different modes of game play, the first being basic arcade mode. This mode plays just like the original, down to the "Insert Coin" message at certain points in the game. If you loved the arcade version you'll be right at home with the translation, but to some extent this arcade mode was too much like the original. The coin-op games are designed to get your quarters in the slot. This means not messing around too long with things like the character selection screens, so timers are put in. The only problem is, the arcade timers made it on to the home version. So even though you're playing in your own home, you still have to do things like select a character and input your initials before the timer runs out. When I play at home, I should be able to take my time choosing initials and deciding on a character.
All of these characters have their own distinct fighting styles, which makes learning how to fight each one difficult in an arcade mode where you're constantly fighting someone new. The home version has a training mode option which lets you fight one single character over and over again. As you defeat the character at one level and location, you fight him again at a new location, but this time he's tougher. It's a very helpful feature.
There's also the tug-of-war gaming mode, which is only for two players. This is more a style of keeping track of health than a gaming mode. In the other modes when a player takes damage, their health bar is simply reduced, and the first one out loses. In tug of war, when character A is damaged his health is still diminished. However, when character B then takes damage, Character A's health goes up. Only when Character A's health reaches the top does B's start going down. Winning means that one bar will be totally empty while the other bar is totally full. This mode provides some great brawls since it's possible for a character to get right down to the end of their health and battle back. Also, the timer is excluded in this mode.
Another mode that's available is the endurance mode, which is also for two players. Each player selects four monsters to play, then the players fight each other using one monster at a time. When one monster dies, the next monster comes into play. This is an especially fun mode to play in, involving all of the characters and taking out the advantage a player may have when using a "pet" character.
Otherwise, if you liked Primal Rage in the arcades you should be satisfied with this translation on the PC. It's very faithful to the original in graphics and play (if not too faithful in some respects) and it's just a very fun game. You can really tell that the designers wanted to capture the pure essence of the arcade with features like those annoying menu timers. If that doesn't bug you, then you'll love Primal Rage. If those things do bug you, they're minor enough to not interfere with having a good time. This is a good, solid title that really shows just how well home PC's and entertainment systems can keep up with just about anything in your local arcade these days.
