Video Game Tribute #9: Primal Rage

What do you get when you cross "The Karate Kid" with "Jurassic Park" and throw in a hint of "Mortal Kombat"? Only the greatest fighting game since Ice Ninjas learned to rip a man's spine out by his hair! I'm talking, of course, about the only game that I truly believe was manifested from my wildest 5-year-old dreams... Primal Rage.

One part Kung Fu, one part Dinosaur. Primal Rage pitted Beast against Beast in this prehistoric, yet somehow post-apocalyptic, fighting game. While I still consider Mortal Kombat to be the greatest fighting game series of all time (yeah, that's right, Street Fighter groupies can kiss it), Primal Rage stands out to me because of how unique it is to its own genre of games. Generally, a fighting game consists of ninjas, sorcerers and Bruce Lee rip-offs (one, two, three)... but Primal Rage decided, "You know what? We should use Dinosaurs." ... and the rest was history.

In Primal Rage, you have a roster of Dinosaurs, Apes and some weird snake thing... now it's possible some of you are wondering how you make a fighting game with giant monsters that doesn't follow in the footsteps of Godzilla with fire-breath and city demolition... well it's simple, teach em' martial arts! That's right, not only are they prehistoric beasts... they know kung fu... You've got Raptors performing flying kicks, monkeys somersaulting through the air and serpents blocking, ducking and jumping like defensive masters... and in case you're not flipping through a pile of Britannicas wondering where the heck you missed all this in Science Class, get this... they have super powers. Oh, yeah, they've mastered hypnosis, spit fireballs, shoot electricity, summon arctic cold to freeze their enemies... one of them even has the ability to urinate acid... now if that isn't every boy's dream, I don't know what is... though I'm sure there's a few club-hoppers out there who think they're urinating acid... but I'd rather not get into that.

If the concept of Kung-Fu dinosaurs isn't enough to keep you coming back for more, the game pays homage to the glorious Mortal Kombat series with a variety of Fatality Finishers... Me and my good friend Edgell blew about 20 dollars worth of quarters at the arcades a day just trying to discover these bloody-delights... and they were well worth our parent's money. Did I mention one of the characters pees acid?

So yeah... Primal Rage rocks my socks back to the stone age... All I'm saying is, a Crane-Kicking T-Rex equals a solid video game experience in my book.

Not like they can do much else with those little arms,
~ Mark