Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Primal Carnage: T-Rex Combat Is Wow

By John Walker on February 4th, 2011 at 5:49 pm.

ROAR! RELEASE MORE SCREENSHOTS!

We’ve been keeping an eye on Primal Carnage for a good long while, as it’s transformed from a simple fan project into something that’s looking quite extraordinary. And why did it first get our attention almost exactly a year ago? Simple: DINOSAURS VS. HUMANS. We’ve seen tech videos, and then been blown away after the switch to the Unreal Development Kit. The latest video knocks all that into a cocked hat. It’s proper in-game footage of a fight between humans and a T-rex, all controlled by human players.

I’m not sure who would ever willingly choose to play on the human side. I WANT TO BE A T-REX!

Let’s just stress again that this isn’t being made by a AAA studio with publisher money. This is a bunch of friends from around the world working their arses off.

You can find out lots more at the official site.

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101 Comments »

  1. 04/02/2011 at 17:55 Duffin says:

    Since L4D came out I’ve been desperate for a version with dinosaurs and one with 40k Tyranids. One out of two aint bad.

  2. 04/02/2011 at 17:57 MrWolf says:

    I’m thrilled –THRILLED — to see that all of the men are wearing (very sensible) cargo pants, while all of the women are wearing (far less sensible) short shorts.

    • 04/02/2011 at 18:00 The Tupper says:

      I’m thrilled as well. Minus 1 for the small bristols though.

    • 04/02/2011 at 18:01 Dominic White says:

      A lot of the guys have no shirts on, though, wheras the women are well clothed in that department.

    • 04/02/2011 at 19:03 Rhin says:

      This actually pretty much mirrors the attire at my rock climbing gym. It’s pretty functional attire. The guys wear shorts or cargos (rolled up to Capri length) and sometimes a shirt, the girls wear sport bras or t-shirts and shorts (naturally, at a length a guy wouldn’t be able to wear it at)

    • 05/02/2011 at 07:32 Bungle says:

      Women understand that they’re far less useful than men, and dress accordingly. Look around next time you step outside.

    • 05/02/2011 at 08:49 Aankhen says:

      That’s functional attire? Tromping around a jungle with your arms and legs exposed to all manner of nastiness?

  3. 04/02/2011 at 18:00 The Tupper says:

    Oops. That looked so awesome that I just pushed out a wee bit of poo.

  4. 04/02/2011 at 18:00 slM_agnvox says:

    T-Rex didn’t eat any mans.

    • 04/02/2011 at 18:39 JKjoker says:

      that T-Rex looks way too incompetent and clumsy to munch on anyone

    • 04/02/2011 at 18:50 dysphemism says:

      That was the same, sad thought that passed through my mind in the closing moments of the video. “No torso snappings?”
      Even if it’s not properly implemented, they know it’s that money shot we’re waiting for. Just make like (insert AAA studio here) and doctor some footage, that’s all it takes to make me happy.

    • 04/02/2011 at 18:51 bob_d says:

      I was disappointed by that as well. Next trailer, I expect to see a nice chomp.

    • 04/02/2011 at 18:52 D says:

      Oh sure, why don’t you make fun of its tiny arms while you’re at it..

    • 04/02/2011 at 20:56 subedii says:

      I suspect the reason it wasn’t shown was likely because they haven’t finished that animation / implementation just yet.

      The raptor attack looked pretty cool

  5. 04/02/2011 at 18:06 Soon says:

    Too many games have a distinct lack of dinosaurs.

  6. 04/02/2011 at 18:06 sbs says:

    Delicious!

  7. 04/02/2011 at 18:12 faelnor says:

    Looks like something which could come from a small, unknown eastern european studio.
    Guys, let’s be honest for a minute here. Besides the concept of SHOOTING AT FUCKING DINOSAURS, does this look fun more than two minutes? Does this even look good? Did you watch the 720p footage?

    I know it’s a mod, made on spare time, so what. Black Mesa, The Dark Mod or Dear Esther’s remake are, too.

    • 04/02/2011 at 18:42 Tetragrammaton says:

      Boo hiss etc.

    • 04/02/2011 at 19:06 DrGonzo says:

      Did we just watch the same video as each other? The one I watched looked gorgeous, and quite a refreshing change from the genericness of modern multiplayer shooters.

    • 04/02/2011 at 19:12 7rigger says:

      “Besides the concept of SHOOTING AT FUCKING DINOSAURS”

      You mean there’s more to games?

    • 04/02/2011 at 19:18 bob_d says:

      But it’s SHOOTING AT FUCKING DINOSAURS! You want they should be wearing party hats, too? ’cause that’s all I can think of that would make it any better.

      Seriously though, we could boil Left4Dead down to “shooting at zombies,” Crysis as “shooting at whatever was in that game that I didn’t play,” etc.

    • 04/02/2011 at 19:52 Shatners Bassoon says:

      Alpha! Alpha! Alpha! Not that bloody annoying robot from the Power Rangers but that part of a games life cycle where testing is more important than graphical features. They probably felt pressure to release gameplay footage to build up a bit of word of mouth which most of these small time chaps need like hell.

      I always go nuts at stuff like this sorry but having a prior existence as a games tester I get quite angry at all these people complaining about many of these “betas” if you can call them that, being broken thus missing the point of the beta test and it’s quite clearly driven me to madness. Madness I tells ya!

    • 04/02/2011 at 22:17 aerozol says:

      Same here, didn’t look like the gameplay is going anywhere particularly interesting.
      Putting ‘Alpha’ on your releases, doesn’t stop people from being able to give negative opinions, which is sadly what this video gave me. Apart from the models, which are pretty shit hot.

    • 04/02/2011 at 23:53 Danarchist says:

      Flame baited and hooked

    • 05/02/2011 at 00:13 Urael says:

      I have to agree with Faelnor.

      This looked BORING. More pointless shooting at things. Yaaaaaayzzzzzz. And the dinosaurs looked woefully clumsy, under-powered and defenceless against the human weaponry. With all the multiplayer shoot-at-things experiences out there I don’t think this has enough going for it to justify more than a brief hour or two’s amusement.

      Drop me defenceless into a world of living, breathing prehistoric animals, THEN you’ll get my attention. This is just Unreal Tournament with nifty modelling.

    • 05/02/2011 at 00:26 dethgar says:

      You realize that the Dinosaur is also playable, correct? I.E., YOU CAN EAT PEOPLE TOO!

      This was more of a graphical showcase, they were obviously doing a lot of the stuff for good eye candy. Sort of why the sniper just skirted the Rex and never shot at it.

    • 05/02/2011 at 03:18 Ryn Taylor says:

      Yes, while the dinosaurs impressed me a first, without interesting gameplay, it will never hold my attention for long. I do hope that’s something they’re working on because I would love to play a T-rex.

    • 05/02/2011 at 09:04 Urael says:

      @dethgar

      Of course I realise you can be the dinosaurs and eat people (although the extent of that eating hasn’t been clearly outlined yet). :)

      And I’m not picking on the video as it stands – I’m concerned about the overall concept being developed here; Humans vs Dinosaurs. It seems so incredibly shallow, a concept that has been done a thousand times over in every genre you can think of, just with dinosaurs this time. There’s so much potential in the world that dinosaurs inhabit but all they’re doing is making a generic multiplayer shoot-your-friends-fest. I can’t help but feel it’s a vast waste of both the potential of the setting and the dev team’s clear talent for realising the beasts.

      Ach, perhaps I’m being too harsh. I’m clearly looking for a ‘Lost World’ type adventure and it’s unfair to penalise this for not being it.

    • 05/02/2011 at 10:55 skurmedel says:

      Black Mesa has been in development for ages, and not a whole lot of gameplay has been shown. It’s a bit unfair comparing the two.

    • 06/02/2011 at 14:48 Droopy The Dog says:

      Just because it uses things you’re familiar with (which actually isn’t a bad thing at all for making gameplay more intuitive right off the bat “people shoot things, dinos bite things, gotcha’!”) it’s hardly doomed to be shallow gameplay wise.

      Boiled down to it it’s team based, asymetrical, multiplayer combat. Right away that’s better than the much more simplistic “red vs blue but exactly the same” model. Beyond that we don’t know squat about the gameplay, and frankly you’re just jumping to the conclusion you want to about the gameplay because you feel humans vs dinosaurs is an overdone theme*.

      *(Which also it really isn’t in my opinion, I can’t really think of any good dinosaur games in the past decade)

    • 06/02/2011 at 17:36 Cunzy1 1 says:

      In the full version pressing the “r” key makes you say “Shoot her! Shooooooooot her!”.

      So it’ll be fine. 9/10. Done.

  9. 04/02/2011 at 18:22 Bfox says:

    Dinosaurs, that’ll be this years zombie replacement, and I wont be complaining.

  10. 04/02/2011 at 18:26 Chizu says:

    Looks really good, but I notice the T-Rex failed to actually kill anything.
    I hope its not a case of too big a target and too slow to actually ever really do anything.
    Velociraptors on the other hand, look great.

    Still, can’t wait to actually get to play this.

    • 04/02/2011 at 19:07 DrGonzo says:

      There is a moment where he is about to munch a woman in half then the camera cuts away. Which makes me think they don’t have any animations for T-Rex nom nom yet.

    • 04/02/2011 at 19:22 bob_d says:

      Also presumably the T-rex chomp is a “one shot kill” so would be a bit more difficult to land.

    • 06/02/2011 at 10:54 Sleepymatt says:

      Yes a one-hit kill shot should be hard to land… but what about any non-one-hit-kill attacks? Surely they could have nose-swipe (which I believe you can see early after the Rex appears) and tail swipe and foot stomp attacks, which aren’t fatal, but are fairly easy to hit with? This version of T Rex just looked to be basically an ultro-turtle, rather than any form of successful damage dealer. *sadface*
      Hopefully this somewhat fatal (aha!) flaw will be addressed while the game is still in alpha…

  11. 04/02/2011 at 18:26 AshtonAndersen says:

    Yeah, keep in mind.. This is pre-alpha. We have been focusing strictly on control systems, animation systems, functionality. You will see a major boost in visuals in the next few weeks. I mean major boost! you can also check out our youtube channel( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PjYn-Cvkwo ) for additional videos and tech demos as we progress. The actual game is not just a “death match” we’re working on specific fun game modes and improved jungles, additional characters, etc. http://www.primalcarnage.com

    • 04/02/2011 at 19:17 DiamondDog says:

      I think your top priority should be a Jeff Goldblum character model.

    • 04/02/2011 at 19:33 ezekiel2517 says:

      I hope it will be possible to play 1 on 1, T-rex on human. I have just the friend in mind to play the meat sack *evil laughter*

    • 05/02/2011 at 01:36 Mistabashi says:

      I think that the visual style so far looks pretty promising. For a start, it has a colour palette! It’s not just green leafey bits and blue sky / water, there was some good use of other colours in there too, so props to you guys for that. In terms of visuals, the only thing that really stuck out was the lack of ground-cover, it needs a lot of vegetation & rocks etc to cover-up the flat terrain. But presumably you’re working on that, and I must say the trees and shrubs in the video looked excellent, I’m glad you managed to steer clear of the now somewhat tired Crysis style and made them quite colourful & distinctive in design.

      This, Depth & Natural Selection have me quite excited about the prospect of asymmetrical creature-based muli-player FPS’ in the near future, hopefully they’ll all turn out good. In fact, it would be awesome if Primal Carnage did some sort of co-promotion with Depth, I think the two games would compliment each other nicely.

  12. 04/02/2011 at 18:31 Mr_Hands says:

    This looks like it will be a blast.

  13. 04/02/2011 at 18:36 mlaskus says:

    The T-Rex looks silly biting the air all the time! I really like the animations though, they look quite natural.

  14. 04/02/2011 at 18:37 AndrewC says:

    Really nice! I really like the idea of proper asymetric fighting, but making one side dinosaurs takes it out of the realm of ‘interesting mechanics’ to ‘OH SHIT DINOSAUR!’. Good thing!

    I’m sure there will be a lot of bitching that mistakes ‘learning curve’ for ‘broken controls’ regarding whatever limitations the devs have to put into the obviously lethal T-Rex attack to stop it just whipping its head round and nom noming everything in two seconds flat.

  15. 04/02/2011 at 18:39 Paravel says:

    Looks so damn fun. Although… bolt action sniper rifle vs T-Rex? I imagine you’d get one shot off before he takes three t-rex sized steps in your direction and bites your face off.

  16. 04/02/2011 at 18:41 Tetragrammaton says:

    Between this and Depth, I have my long term animal genocide impulse sorted. Huzzah!

  17. 04/02/2011 at 18:45 fuggles says:

    Looks great, but I worry that it will be like playing as the tank in L4D with everyone faster and shootier than you.

  18. 04/02/2011 at 18:45 Vitruality says:

    This looks like it might be quite good, provided the T-Rex is actually capable of eating people and doesn’t just run around chomping on thin air like a big dino Pac-Man.

  19. 04/02/2011 at 18:46 Gabbo says:

    It’s good to see the T-Rex being so careful as not to disturb the stream too much when he walked through it. Still, interested.

  20. 04/02/2011 at 18:50 Skusey says:

    I hope this game has some form of melee combat as I’ve always waited to punch a T-Rex in the balls.

  21. 04/02/2011 at 18:55 pupsikaso says:

    Am I the only one that always thought that this and that Orion Prelude game were one and the same?

  22. 04/02/2011 at 19:00 Oozo says:

    Well, that’s scientifically not even accurate! Where are the feathers?!
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Young_Tyrannosaurus_rex_02.JPG

    • 04/02/2011 at 19:01 Navagon says:

      Oh noes! Game about man vs dinosaur lacks teh science!

    • 04/02/2011 at 19:09 Bret says:

      More importantly, most scientists think T-Rex didn’t have feathers. Skin samples don’t show any signs of them.

      Which is good, because most feathered dinosaurs look like tools.

      If I get this, I will play as a T-rex. I will also hold down the allchat button and talk about Batman a lot.

      It’d be Dinosaur Comics, THE GAME!

    • 04/02/2011 at 19:13 Xocrates says:

      Obviously the lack of feathers is either because a) inability from the scientists to fully clone/recreate the original material or, in case those are natural dinosaurs, b) they evolved them out.

      See, no dubious science here ;)

    • 04/02/2011 at 19:24 bob_d says:

      Young T-rexs had feathers, as the T-rex evolved from a feathered ancestor (ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny and all that rot, don’tcha know), but the adults were unfeathered.

    • 04/02/2011 at 22:12 MarloBrandon says:

      Oozo uses that picture out of context and in a misleading way. The Wikipedia article the picture is attached to ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrannosaurus#Skin_and_feathers ) clearly states that “skin impressions from large tyrannosaurid specimens show mosaic scales”.

    • 05/02/2011 at 10:27 Oozo says:

      I thought the fact that I was asking for scientific accuracy in the context of a game that is about men shooting dinosaurs would communicate a certain, well, humorous intention in the statement. But yes, scientifically speaking, it was used out of context. Sorry for that.

      …even though I won’t step back from the idea that it could be rad to have a smart-bomb consisting of flying T-Rex babies while playing as the dinosaur.

  23. 04/02/2011 at 19:00 Navagon says:

    The game looks like awesome fun. When you come away from a crappy trailer with such a positive impression of the game it speaks volumes.

  24. 04/02/2011 at 19:11 Emperor_Jimmu says:

    Hold onto your butts!

  25. 04/02/2011 at 19:11 Chaz says:

    Sod the T-Rex, those Raptors looked way cooler.

    • 04/02/2011 at 19:36 Tetragrammaton says:

      Too be honest, I would be excited even if the game only had Raptors and Sam Neill lookalikes.
      This looks insanely fun: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PjYn-Cvkwo

    • 05/02/2011 at 01:36 Navagon says:

      Nice! Two things though: Even in that video the humans seemed to have a clear advantage. Also I don’t think that the name tags thing works at all in this game. You especially don’t need them colour coded; I mean come on!

    • 05/02/2011 at 18:57 GameOverMan says:

      This! You don’t need any of that when enemies are so different. They should dump most of the HUD elements to provide a more immersive experience, it’s not like you have to kill generic men wearing military uniforms so similar to the ones in your team that in order to make them distinguishable the screen is full of little icons. I sometimes miss the old red versus blue.

  26. 04/02/2011 at 19:38 Juiceman says:

    Looks very promising. I would have loved to see that T-Rex take a bite out of someone, however.

  27. 04/02/2011 at 19:38 Jimbo says:

    Clever girl. (cg)

    I hope the Raptors can hitch a ride on the back of T-Rex and then ninja down on to people.

  28. 04/02/2011 at 19:55 harrumph says:

    Gorgeous animation on that T-Rex.

  29. 04/02/2011 at 20:57 noobnob says:

    I will wait for the coop mode where the dinosaurs and the humans have to cooperate to fend off the zombie alien invasion.

  30. 04/02/2011 at 21:07 BathroomCitizen says:

    Now i just need a Cadillac.

  31. 04/02/2011 at 22:00 Basilicus says:

    OH GOD I WANT!

    I expect the classes to be:
    1. Sam Neill
    2. Hot Lady Dino Hunter
    3. Raptor
    4. Zombie Raptor
    5. T-Rex
    6. Hot Lady T-Rex
    7. Hot Lady Zombie T-Rex Sniper

  32. 04/02/2011 at 22:18 Mr Wonderstuff says:

    Trespasser 2 please.

  33. 04/02/2011 at 22:23 terry says:

    That’s the prettiest forest I’ve seen since The Hunter.

  34. 04/02/2011 at 22:42 tikey says:

    Would the T-Rex ignore me if I stay still?

    • 04/02/2011 at 23:31 Soon says:

      OH! That would have been something. Flushing out the humans with raptors so the T-Rex knows where to stomp and bite.

    • 05/02/2011 at 04:12 bill says:

      now that’s a good idea.

      but it looks like t-rex is 3rd person – but if you had weird vision modes then you couldn’t see the beauty of your beast. torn.

  35. 04/02/2011 at 23:47 Hmm-Hmm. says:

    This looks really impressive. And moreso, fun.

  36. 04/02/2011 at 23:52 John P says:

    I trust you can eat a man off a toilet in this game.

  37. 05/02/2011 at 01:23 lokhor says:

    I would love to be a raptor and hunt down humans! can’t wait for this if that’s one of the gameplay modes

  38. 05/02/2011 at 01:44 DOLBYdigital says:

    I haven’t been following this game for awhile but if I recall they aren’t just a ‘bunch of friends’. They do have some development experience if I recall and actually started working on a absolutely stunning looking game that is slipping my mind right now. I have some saved screenshots and they are simply astounding…. Then they stopped working on that to work on this game… I’ll post again if I can remember the name but it had dragons and mages shooting sick looking fireballs…. grrr it will bother me until I remember

  39. 05/02/2011 at 04:09 bill says:

    It’s going to be really hard to balance playing the t-rex so that it’s fun. Rather than just frustratingly moving slowly while soaking up damage. (see Kabuto and any other game with a boring big creature).

    Playing Raptors, on the other hand, looks as awesome as playing Aliens.

  40. 05/02/2011 at 12:17 somnolentsurfer says:

    Will there be a mode where you have to take them alive?

    From all the excitement I’d imagined something a bit more strategic, with nets, and traps and things; where the team would have to work together a bit more than just shooting at the same spot.

    • 05/02/2011 at 12:41 Nomaki says:

      Probably will be in the end, the phrase “still pre-alpha” needs to be circulated a lot.
      As he said before, they’ve been focusing on everything other than actual game-play mechanics (Graphics, controls, etc), the rest will come!

  41. 06/02/2011 at 17:32 Gildon says:

    From the looks of it, it’s pretty hard controlling the T-Rex. Needs to be faster or something.

  42. 07/02/2011 at 09:53 DestructibleEnvironments says:

    Woah, great stuff. How many games lets you control a dinosaur in third person? I need to know!

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