Primal Rage

"It's Mortal Kombat gone horribly wrong..."

Hoo boy, did this game make my day...It came out roughly at the same time as Mortal Kombat did. Of course, we all know that the public was swarming over MK at the time, giving Primal Rage the perfect oportunity to slip by unoticed. I remember being amazed by it when I was younger, but that was the arcade version. The Genesis version is a bit of a letdown.

Story: 2/10
The game really gives you no story whatsoever. But as far as I know, this is how it goes: For no apparent reason, there happened to be a cataclyism on Earth, and for some reason, Earth's continents merge into the shape of a T-rex head. Five dinosaurs and two giant apes come out of the ground, also for no apparent reason. Rather than blowing them up with missles, the people of Earth decide to worship them. So, the dinosaurs each split up their parts of Earth, and then decide to go on a rampage and kill each other. Once again, they have no apparent reason to do this. Great storyline right? No...just no...

Gameplay: 5/10
Ok, the gameplay is a little on the corny/frustrating/stupid side. Ok, make that entirely on the corny/frustrating/stupid side. You see, the game progresses like this: Starting out, you simply choose a fighter, and you go through the stages killing other dinosaurs. The game is played best with a 6 button controller, just like in most fighting games. Each dinosaur has their own unique moves, which brings me to another point. The game tries to capture a depressing sense of hopelessness in the stages. It just isn't possible. Why? Well, one ape whos name is Chaos, (original, isn't it?) has a move that I like to call ''The Power Puke''...Ya, that's what it's called. Basically, He just shoots a ball of vomit at you that hurts you. Now, maybe it's just me, but it's a little hard to be moody and depressed when a giant ape just blew chunks of acid vomit in my face. As for the moves in general, you don't need to use them. The game is a button masher. All you need to do is constantly tap a button and jump/duck/block when an attack comes your way. You will nearly never need to use special moves. In fact, they only are good when you are using the finishing moves, which are quite like the MK way of saying ''FINISH HIM!'' at the end of a battle, which brings me to another point. The winning poses. Whenever you beat your opponent, or your opponent beats you, the fighter does this FUNNY dance at the end. Another mood killer, but still awesome. A raptor with a feathered mohawk does this ''get down an' boogie'' esque dance. Another dino walks up to his opponent, begins to eat him, and howls to the moon like a werewolf with an eating disorder. There really is no gameplay in the end, except for a rather fun multiplayer mode which brings it out of the pit.

Graphics: 5/10
The graphics are not even close to top notch. The backgrounds are OK, but nothing MK couldn't do. The worshippers in the background look like little grains of sand, the dinos are incredibly grainy, but the special moves and blood look very good. There really is nothing else to say about the graphics.

Sound/Music: 3/10
The sound...makes me shudder. It rubs together as smoothly as sandpaper rubs against toilet paper, eventually resulting in ripping the game up. The sound FX make me want to take a metal wire with a hook at the end and rip out my eardrums. There are some funny things about it though. When an ape beats his chest and screams in triumph during his winning pose, I like to think he is grabbing at his heart and screaming in pain due to a heart attack. That's how bad the sound is. The music sounds like some 11 year old making a MIDI of a baby crying. The music is terrible.

Replay Value:
I'll tell you how much replay value there is in four words: Zero, none, nix, zip. When you win, they give you information straight from the game maunual about what happened. No reason to keep playing here...

Rent or Buy: Don't even rent it.
Don't even waste money or time renting the game. It just isn't worth it.

Overall: 3/10
The game has it's good points, but the bad overshadows it entirely. I don't find it worth your money. You probably are better off playing something else in your free time. That is all I have to say...

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 10/07/03