Primal Carnage Review

Game: Primal Carnage

Developer: Lukewarm Media

Publisher: Reverb Publishing

Available on: Windows PC only

If you’re anything like me, then every time you watch Jurassic Park you think to yourself that it would be cool if someone designed a multiplayer game around a group of survivors attempting to turn the tables on the vicious reptiles, taking up arms and taking the battle to them instead of running away all the time. Perhaps you’ve always fantasised about being one of those dinosaurs, chasing down the humans for coming into your territory and making out as if you’re the bad guys all of a sudden. Whichever way you see the narrative, your fantasies can finally become somewhat of a reality thanks to Lukewarm Media and their multiplayer First Person Shooter, Primal Carnage. A game which asks you to choose a side from either humans or dinosaurs and take down the opposition in any way you can. Have at it then!

GRAPHICS: Primal Carnage isn’t the best looking multiplayer FPS in the world, but neither does it need to be. The entire game feels like it’s built from the ground up to serve a single purpose, to let humans shoot and kill dinosaurs or vice-versa, and in that sense, the game is an accomplishment. The visuals, or lack of anything decent to look at, doesn’t take away from this in the slightest. Despite the environments and the humans looking not particularly inspired, the dinosaurs that you’ll be playing as and against are all modelled to a high level of detail. You’ll learn to be scared when you see the silhouette of a massive Tyrannosaurus Rex off in the distance, being lit from the back through some of the densest fog you’ve ever seen. So, while the visuals aren’t particularly special, they do their job in the sense that they make you tense while you’re playing the game as a human, not taking away from the player’s enjoyment and ability to play the game for however long they decide to do so. Primal Carnage is an indie game at heart though, so hopefully you’re not expecting too much from the visual department anyway.

SOUND: The sound is one of the most important aspects of Primal Carnage, just like that scene in Jurassic Park where the water starts moving with the vibrations of the oncoming T-Rex, the sound in the game will tell you just how far away those pesky dinosaurs are away from you when you’re playing as the vulnerable humans. The weapons that you’ll be using will also sound particularly nice, whether you’re firing away with a shotgun or trying to capture those swooping flying dinosaurs with the net gun. If you’re playing as a dinosaur then the sound is even more important as using the roar function as some of the dinosaurs will have adverse effects on the humans that you’re attempting to take down, it’ll either disorientate them, blinding them, or have a multitude of other effects. There’s no doubting that hearing an oncoming dinosaur while you’re playing as another of the prehistoric lizards is a little bit less terrifying, while you’re playing as the humans you’ll soon train yourself to turn your audio up to full so that you can hear for the faintest sound of oncoming enemies.

GAMEPLAY: Primal Carnage is a multiplayer FPS, as I’m sure you already know, so the gameplay revolves entirely around shooting your opponents in their face, if you happen to be playing as the humans, or just taking down your enemy in any way you see fit if you’re playing as a dinosaur. As a human the game plays pretty much exactly how you’d expect, you’re given a couple of weapons based on your class, and you’re let loose into the dimly lit environments to kill as many of the dinosaurs as you possibly can. Things aren’t going to be easy though, those pesky reptiles aren’t easy to take down, for a number of different reasons. The massive T-Rex is essentially a bullet sponge and it will take a number of humans working together, just to make a dent in his health. The small, more agile dinosaurs will literally run rings around most human players too, so you better make sure you’re bringing your best twitchy mouse movements to this gunfest, or else you’ll quickly find yourself as the main course.

There’s only really one game mode available, the standard deathmatch mode that almost everyone who’s played a multiplayer game at one time or another will have played. This mode pits a team of dinosaurs against a team of humans and tasks you with killing as many of your opponents as possible until the time limit is up, or the required number of kills has been reached. As the start of each match (and every time you die) you’ll be able to choose which side of the evolutionary chain you want to be on, but at the time of writing this review, it was extremely difficult to get onto a team of dinosaurs as there’s a limited number of spaces on each team and, rather understandably, everyone wants to be a dinosaur.

If you choose to play the game as a dinosaur (and who wouldn’t want to do such a thing?) then you’re going to have a hard time getting to grips with things to begin with. While movement is easy enough to do, using the simple W, A, S, D keys, and using the mouse to move around the dinosaur’s head, attacking varies from dinosaur to dinosaur and there’s no tutorial to show you how to use each of the “classes”. It is very much is a matter of trial and error, which is fine if you enjoy learning to play your games in that way, but if you happen to find that infuriating, dying as you look like you’re playing the game blindfolded while you learn the ropes, then you’re not going to enjoy playing as the dinosaurs to begin with.

LONGEVITY: With no other way to play the game apart from the standard deathmatch multiplayer mode, how long you’re going to want to play the game is precisely tied to how fun you find the gameplay on the whole. If you don’t like shooting dinosaurs in the face and watching them slide across the floor as they come to a satisfying halt, then you’re not going to be playing the game for very long. Conversely, if you do enjoy the sound of the gameplay, and you find yourself enjoying the game itself, then there’s a good chance that you’re not going to stop playing the game any time soon. It’s the type of game that you could easily see yourself jumping into a game to pass some time, and before you know it darkness has fallen and you’ve lost a couple of hours of your life.

VERDICT: If you’re a fan of the genre, but you’ve always wished that you could take down (or play as) dinosaurs, then Primal Carnage is the game that you’ve been waiting for. It doesn’t really do anything special with the genre apart from adding dinosaurs to it, but it’s a solid shooter that’s actually quite a lot of fun to play. Playing as dinosaurs is a nice change too, but it’s difficult to get used to playing as them as with most of the classes you don’t get your standard FPS-style reticule. Once you do get to grips with how they’re supposed to be played, however, you’ll find yourself having a good deal of fun; it certainly has that “just one more match” mentality about it.

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