Primal Rage

The Good
Hmmm come to think of it, this game is a total Mortal Kombat rip-off. Still fun though regardless. Boy, I was in highschool when the Primal Rage - Rage hit the schools. Since Mortal Kombat was such a hit, this game at least where I come from was a complete success.

Thankfully it wasn't as "corny" as Mortal Kombat. It had better graphics, better moves, better "gore", better sounds, better everything. In addition that all the characters were monsters...and dinosaurs was my favorite subject, though oddly enough my favorite character was an small sized blue King Kong (see cover art).

Me and my friends spent hours trying to find new combos and finishing moves. It's amazing how much you can accomplish when it's fun.

The Bad
Not much bad about the game that I can recall. I still think some monsters stink. The gorilla is totally the coolest bloke around.

The Bottom Line
If you liked Mortal Kombat, you'll like this better.

The Good
First off, I LOVED the characters used in the game. No stinking humans to fight with, nothing but beast baby! YES!

Second, Talon and Vertigo kickass!

The graphics were outstanding considering what system they were done for, the 16 bit Sega Genesis...along with other systems. Which at the time, I believe, had the best graphics going for gameplay.

The gameplay was easy but it could also quickly turn challenging if you weren't paying attention to what you were doing. However, pulling off the moves that each individual dino could do was a little harder unless you really practiced to get it down.

For example, I myself had to really work at getting a two hit combo in with Vertigo. These two hits being first Hypnosis and then the Scorpion Sting that followed it.

Another example, performing Talon's three slash, climb up and then flip backwards move wasn't easy either. Another one of his moves that it took me a while to master was the one that he ran up to the opponent and just did a bunch of hind feet slashings to the abdomen, then flipping away.

But all in all, I have no complaints about the game itself. It came, it saw and it conquered as my favorite fighting arcade game.

10 out of 10!

The Bad
I never figured out how to make Talon do his Jugular Bite attack. That was the ONLY move I never figured out...other than the Fatalities.

I didn't know about the Fatalities that the fighters were able to do...until now. So of course, naturally, I never figured those out either. And, most likely won't have chance to since my 11 to 15 year old Sega Genesis finally quit working. I can't complain though, it survived about 10 years of my sister abusing it when I beat her at a game.

Especially this one!

The Bottom Line
There are no words to describe this game, you would have to play it yourself to understand. BUT, if this wasn't possible then I would wing it. Going from what I experienced both good and bad.

If you want something different than Mortal Kombat or any other fighting game that uses human or humanoid fighters to do battle, then this one is for you! You fight as a Draconian, or so the Dino-Gods are called, and your goal is to dominate over the new Urth. Crushing your opponents as you go along and devour the puny humans. You have your choice of seven fighters and all armed with their own techniques. Prepare to RAGE!

The Good
As the title suggest you don't play with humans this time around, but with prehistoric creatures and other monsters. Personally I consider that to be an awesome update because there are enough humans in video games, but playing as a dinosaur sounds pretty awesome (and it is). All the Jurassic Park rejects have their own abilities that fit their animal nature, such as; clawing, biting and hitting others with your tail.

Primal Rage is right next to Mortal Kombat in the relatively small collection of pretty good games for the Super Nintendo that feature a lot of gore. Every bite and every claw causes a stream of blood to emerge from the enemy and the health is indicated by a bar connected to the enemy's hearth, that once depleted causes the hearth to explode. You can also do so much damage to the enemy that they suffer from a paralyzing shock due to the brain damage.

The stages are pretty awesome and all play to the on-going theme of "conquering the new earth". You'll get to see a lot of different locations in this post-apocalyptic adventure and by defeating the enemy in each area you will slowly work towards total domination. It's very similar to how Street Fighter II had you fly all over the world to take part in a big contest, but just a little bit more sadistic.

I think it's funny that the game keeps score by indicating the amount of followers you have. To the humans you are some kind of god and by performing well you will earn yourself worshipers, but failure will cause them to turn to a different creature. They will also cheer for you during combat and sometimes they will even approach you during combat, which often causes them to be hit and launched into the air.

The Bad
i really suck at these games because the NPC's always know things I don't, I thought I was pretty good with one of the characters, but when I fought against that same character a few minutes later, I was shocked to see him pull off all kinds of different moves I didn't know about. Perhaps it gets easier when you have the manual or if you look up a moves list on the internet, but it's still annoying.

The game looks awful and that is saying a lot for Super Nintendo. All the colors are dark, so most of the time it looks like you are watching an Atari game glitch out and that can't be good.

The controls feel a little stiff when they are not just been confusing, along with that comes the problem that a lot of the attacks are very hard to use properly because you need to know how long your tail is or how far your neck can stretch. This makes the game part fighting and part mathematics and it doesn't really work.

The Bottom Line
Like I have said before, I am not very good at these games, so I am not very good at reviewing them either. I personally prefer this game over Street Fighter II just because it has dinosaurs in it, but both games are pretty decent.