Primal Rage, 1994 Atari Games/Time Warner Int. (20 From '94 Part 13)
4VS. fighting game starring prehistoric creatures! Dinosaurs and apes fight each other to a bloody pulp while humans watch on from the sidelines-- and sometimes accidentally wander into the fray where they can get swatted in the air and/or munched! Each of 7 creatures have a variety of special moves and fatalities-- each of which.. get this.. requites button presses FIRST and joystick moves LAST! Kinda backwards, isn't it? Yep-- each move requires you to hold 2 or more of the 4 buttons (High Quick, High Fierce, Low Quick, and Low Fierce) while you then press the joystick in certain directions. There are around 7 moves for each characters, and 3 fatalities. Each character can also munch a human foolish enough to step onto the battlefield, but the opponent isn't likely to let you snack away. You'll get your opportunity to feast on the poor folks after you beat all the fighters (including your doppelganger), since you build up a life meter from scratch by snacking on them. The "boss" is just all the fighters again, one at a time, with the time meter disabled (so you can't be "saved by the bell"). Most of the fighters are at least based on real dinosaurs/creatures: Armadon is a hybrid of numerous dinosaurs and is annoyingly fast/agile and has spikes it likes to punish you with; Blizzard is an ape with icy attacks, Chaos is a disgusting ape with fart and puke attacks (lovely), Diablo is an allosaurus with flame attacks, Sauron is a T-rex with nice long biting attacks, Talon is a fast, sneaky little velociraptor, and Vertigo is a snake-like female Dromaeosaur with a razor-sharp tail. Learn all the moves for each character like the back of your hand! The quick, sneaky enemies will be almost impossible otherwise. Primal Rage is a silly, morbidly-humored fighting game with nice graphics that capture dino-movements nicely. RAGE!!!