It can't be said that Primal Rage, the arcade brawler with mischievous dinosaurs, was the ideal fighting game. It was quite boring, the combos weren't very intuitive, and it had a big imbalance between its fighter characters (and very cryptic fatalities!). But it did have dinosaurs animated in stop-motion farting on screen! Impossible not to remember it with some affection!
It's true: Primal Rage was not a good game. Comparing it to the gems it competed against in 1994, it left much to be desired. Anyway, those of us old enough remember it with some affection, because... who could resist the charm of controlling stop-motion animated dinosaurs, in the style of Ray Harryhausen?
I don't think that affection would have extended to its sequel, which was about to be released in 1996 but never saw the light of day in the arcade halls of the time. The reason for its cancellation? The same as in many other opportunities: the vile metal. Atari, the company that owned the license, and with the product almost complete, decided that the meager success of the previous game didn't justify mass-producing cabinets (because each one costs a lot of money).
Today, only two original Primal Rage 2 boards are known in the world. But the retro gaming community is supportive and collaborates so these gems reach everyone's hands. That's why, in recent years, the game's ROM has been circulating around the web, especially on related forums. However, nobody could get it to run on current versions of MAME.
That was, of course, until a brave hobbyist took version 0.168 of the emulator and adapted it to run the game. Under the name MAME4RAGE2, this modified version of the classic MAME is capable of running Primal Rage 2, though still with certain issues (which they are trying to solve).
About the game itself, and as you've already seen in the video, several things can be said. What stands out first, however, is that the fighters, instead of dinosaurs, this time are people. Well... not people per se, but avatars of gods that, with the precise button combination, can transform into dinosaurs. Very 90s indeed.
Interested in playing Primal Rage 2?
- Download MAME4RAGE2 from the official site
- Download the CHD of Primal Rage 2
- Download the ROM of Primal Rage 2
- Download the Atari BIOS (needed for it to work)
- In the ROMS folder, create the subfolder "primrag2" and put the file "primrag2.chd" inside.
- In the root of the ROMS folder, place the Atari BIOS (atpsx.zip) and the game ROM (primrag2.zip).
Now start the emulator, pick the game, and BAM. It works wonderfully!
Enjoy!
