Primal Instinct

Remember when fighting games were the biggest quarter munchers in the arcade? Some of my most fond memories were when Brian and I would run into our local arcade with a stack of dot-matrix printed move lists on every new fighting game. I got my ass paddled a few times for running the printer ribbon dry.

For me Primal Rage was the end of my craze for fighting games. Jurassic Park meets Mortal Kombat! How the fuck is that not the best game ever made?

For shame Atari, for shame...

Another Post

“Out of This World,” also known as “Another World” in Europe and “Outer World” in Japan, was little known when it was first released, but was very innovative for its time. It is a cinematic platformer originally released in 1991 for the Amiga, Atari ST, and for MS-DOS, and was ported to various other consoles later.

I played the game on my SNES as a kid. Or rather, I tried to play the game on my SNES for about an hour and gave up when I didn’t understand what to do. There is no text in the game, other than the title. There is no speaking in the game, either; characters interact mostly with hand gestures and facial expressions. The environment itself is a puzzle that you must interact with to solve other puzzles in order to progress through the game. I had little patience for it, and besides, I had a princess in Hyrule to save. I spent very little time on this game. I sort of regret that now. It really is a great game.

You play a young red-headed physicist named Lester who is teleported to an alien world when lightening hits his laboratory during an experiment. He must escape many dangerous creatures, including fanged worms, a lion-ape thing, and man-eating seaweed. Once making it through all of that in one piece, he is captured and enslaved by the resident alien humanoid race. Lester must try to escape from the prison with the help of another imprisoned alien, and continue to evade guards and battle monsters as he and his friend adventure through many different environments solving numerous puzzles.

While the game was frustrating as a kid, as an adult I have more appreciation for the visual style and gameplay. It features colorful vector graphics and animated cut scenes that possess a sense of humor. You can walk, run, and jump, and kick and, later, use a blaster gun to attack enemies. There are multiple checkpoints in each level and unlimited lives, and after completing levels you receive a code to use the next time you play, so you don’t have to start over from the beginning.

Though it requires a little patience, “Out of This World” is a challenging adventure game that is definitely worth a play. A high-resolution download for the original game can be found at: http://www.anotherworld.fr/anotherworld_uk/

I’ve even heard rumors that it will be coming out for Xbox Live Arcade soon…