If it sounds like dinosaurs are a nasty bunch, they are. Their size and speed lets them prowl about with greater freedom, and their respective roars grant health boosts and highlight the locations of their mammalian adversaries. Their combat abilities seldom fail to impress. A dilophosaurus can blind humans with oily spit, pteranodons can pick up unsuspecting humans and drop them to their deaths, and--provided you have enough people to unlock him--the tyrannosaurus rex can gobble down humans in one bite. They may be fearsome, yes, but they're not unbeatable. The massive size of the t-rex, for instance, makes him a near-unmissable target, allowing smartly positioned clusters of humans to take him down with minimal losses. The trapper can make quick work of raptors by netting them and finishing them off with a single melee swipe, and most weapons can down the flimsy pteranodons in a couple of hits.
It's a shame, though, that the dino gameplay abandons the first-person perspective enjoyed by the humans. While it's true that the shift to third-person perspective allows for some gruesomely satisfying kills, it sometimes interferes with their execution. Novaraptors, for instance, achieve most of their kills by pouncing on their victims with a click of the right mouse button and pinning them down, but the imprecision of the third-person perspective means you'll sometimes play hopscotch around your opponent until you either get shot or score a successful maul. The same goes for the dilophosaurus' spit attack, which sometimes leaves the deadly goo bunched in a puddle next to its intended target. It’s a mild annoyance (and it probably serves to balance the human and dino playstyles), and one that could be fixed with a simple lock-on feature.If only the basic design didn’t feel as though it were lifted untouched from the fossil records of gaming past. Primal Carnage is so old school that its gameplay hearkens back to the Unreal Tournament that spawned the family of graphics engines it runs on, complete with the absence of unlockable items or upgrades--even cosmetic--or any sense of progression from one match to the next. You get points during each round based on your kills or assists, but their significance vanishes as cleanly as triceratops bones after the late Cretaceous once the scoreboard pops up after one side reaches 45 kills. At the time of writing, deathmatch is the only gameplay option (although the developers litter their forums with nebulous hints of upcoming objective-based modes and associated DLC), and even the Steam achievements remain inaccessible.
Primal Carnage thus feels primitive when paired with the legion of other multiplayer shooters available, but the strengths of its concepts and balanced gameplay may justify its $14.99 pricetag for players searching for a uniquely rewarding experience. It may not be the most visually stunning game around, but it works well with what it has, delivering satisfying dinosaur animations and textures amid a small but diverse selection of five maps ranging from loading docks and ruined aviaries to lush rainforests that mask deadly drops down to raging rivers. Indeed, the ruined laboratories and tropical settings evoke so many memories of the "Jurassic Park" films that it's hard to shake the impression that Primal Carnage would only need to change the title screen if they secured a license from Universal Pictures.
