'Allo, Saurus - ORION: Prelude

Dinosaurs, dinosaurs, dinosaurs, dinosaurs, dinosaurs, dinosaurs, dinosaurs. Oh you boys and your zombies - don't you want something a little different? Something, say, featuring bus-sized, man-eating lizards?

We've written about Orion before, back when its transition from HL2 mod to fully-fledged standalone man-shoot was originally announced. Since then, devs Spiral Games Studios have been beavering away at making their "UT plus massive great dinosaur" dream a reality, most recently including a tech demo at the EG Expo. They've done and given that demo the director's cut treatment, which you can ooh and aah at below:

Clever girl.

The game itself is a multiplayer shooter in the UT/Tribes/Halo vein: so that's men and vehicles (and jetpacks) (and dinosaurs) in a science fictional setting. Has the potential to be hilarious and exhilarating, and hopefully the whole massive T-rex thing means it's not solemnly aimed solely at the shooter hardcore.

Oh, and you're having a whiny turn because of the human animations, the devs offer this reassurance: "Luckily they are only for this technology demonstration. There will be new (and much better) animations for the in-game models of the characters as well as any future trailers we release, thanks to our new Animator."

It's been a long time coming, this - it was originally announced as a Half-Life 1 mod called Incoming, going through several prototypes and the odd beta before winding up at Full Big-Boy Game Status. The full history of the project's over yonder.