Boros here to review Carnivores, a dinosaur hunting simulator from the late 90's for PC. Honestly, I played the hell out of this when I was young. Constantly shooting all kinds of different dinosaurs (usually Stegosaurus) and having tons of fun. However, I was a very stupid kid, and only played this because it had dinosaurs in it. Now that I'm older, and MUCH more mature, I feel it time to go back to the past to see if this game that I had cherished when I was growing up was actually a slice of pickle cock or a gem rising from the infinite sea of s#!t.
Hilariously, right off the bat, some crows feet emerge on the game, like the simplicity of the control scheme. There is no simplicity or straight fowardness to it. I had to exit out of the first hunt I went on just so I could go into the options menu just so I could f@%king move. On top of that, there is no pause button. It's been quite some time since I last played a game with no pause button, and it's a convenience that I've taken for granted in the new generation of games. This is seriously f@%ked up, because several times during the hunt, I'd have to go answer the f@%king phone only to come back to my character having his guts ripped out by a Velociraptor.
Plus, the first two weapons are very inaccurate and pretty much fire where ever they want to. The shotgun makes a bunch of noise but seems to be a bit more reliable in close range. It's pretty much designed for making an aggressive meat eater charge you just to get it's face molested with bullets. The other weapon is a crossbow which is silent, fairly accurate, and has the most ammo of any gun in the game, but it's unreliable, and has a s#!tty learning curve to try to learn to use. The damned thing has two sights; one on top of the other. The top sight is the short range sight and the bottom sight is the long range sight, plus it's difficult to gauge your distance in game wise length. Other than that I can't describe it. The best weapon is the third and final gun which has to be unlocked, the Sniper Rifle. Accurate as hell! Plus, having the ability to use the scope to help your viewing. However, the drawback, even the game says, if your being charged by a meat eater with an appetite for a man salad well then good luck.
Speaking of which, I should talk about the dinosaurs, and how hunting them works. There are only 7 to hunt from and 3 have to be unlocked. Each dinosaur also has a killzone which is the only place you can shoot the dinosaur to kill it. Do you see why the sniper rifle is the best weapon yet? Hell, it's the only weapon capable of taking down the T-Rex. It's killzone is the eye, and nowhere else. If you hit the eyebrow, it just pisses the thing off, and you have about 1.1 seconds to fire again and hit it in the eye while it's charging. It really makes me which there was a two hit rule, like if you hit the killzone, it dies instantly, but two shots to the torso also kills it. No dino in the game has a kill shot in the torso which is stupid. It's usually head, neck, or spine which makes sense, but why not if I shoot the dino 5 times in the gut does it not die? It may be a giant tough lizard but it's still mortal, damn it!
While there might be some frustrations, the game is actually fun and absorbing. I could spend hours trying to exact petty revenge on the Allosaurus that just ate me when I was sneaking up on a Velociraptor, or trying to increase my trophy collection to make it the best it can be. Plus, there are a lot more of the dinosaur that you are hunting running about, not letting the action get stale like a lot of hunting sims do. Also, all of the places are pretty accurate as well as fun to explore. Some places allow you to get bored hunting, and jump into the pool of hot jam by the temple. It's also really funny when T-Rex kills you. I won't spoil, because he's basically the final boss if you could call it that, but it's hilarious.
The reason I said that about the T-Rex is that the game has no story. It's as simple as you pick a place, a dinosaur to hunt, your gun, and the perks to use, then just go hunting. I don't quite know why there's no story to this, but it might have been a detriment to the game. I think it works because of how streamlined it is, and it might not work otherwise.
To sum up, I think it still holds up as being a fun little thing to play every now and then. If you can manage to find it, which I found my copy at a Goodwill for Christ's sake, then it's worth picking up. Just be prepared for the frustrations that also await. It's simply taking the bad with the good on this one. It makes me wonder if the sequel to this has also held up? That's right! This game has a f@%king sequel, and I intend to review it. I'm off to the internet to search for the sequels.