Wow, this game. This game is great.
You may have heard about it. It's an indie game developed using the Unreal 3 engine. Bascially there are two teams, dinosaurs and humans, and you switch sides every match. Each side has 5 player classes.
The maps are really well themed as well, and look like the dinosaurs really ran amok and destroyed stuff. The airbase has broken planes, overturned trucks and dinosaur containers scattered everywhere. On another map there is a jeep parked in the bush with timber and tools and just a patch of blood where the worker obviously met one of the locals. It really adds to the atmosphere.
The dinosaurs are really fun to play as you pretty much just get to run amok and don't have to worry about team play as much. Each class has different abilities, strengths and weaknesses, and a roar that gives a special ability.
- Novaraptor: fast, agile, primary claw/bite attack and secondary pounce attack. Roaring will allow you to bite/claw faster
- Pteranodon: it can fly, it can peck, it can carry you off and kill you by dropping you from a height, roaring will allow other dinos to see any humans you can see
- Dilophosaurus: it can bite, and spit venom blinding humans and causing toxicity damage. roaring makes you spit further
- Carnotaurus: the "meat-eating bull" can charge and swing its head to make humans go flying as well as chomping faces, while roaring allow it to regen health
- Trex: the primary attack is to just eat humans whole in one go. If you miss them you can still trample them if they are foolish enough to stick around. Roaring gives nearby dinosaurs their roaring abilities
The raptor is my favourite class. Incredible agility. I usally get to the top of buildings, by jumping up objects and sprinting along pipes and to get a good view over the map. Then I look for lonely humans who make for easy pickings. Other times I will hide in the bushes and wait for someone to walk past (you're pretty camo) before pouncing on them, or even more fun is when a group runs past and you take out the guy out the back. Hopefully his mates don't notice or they'll shoot you and cut your dinner short.
The humans rely a lot more on team skills. A lonely human is a dead human. As soon as you spawn you're going want to find a buddy ASAP. Like the dinos, each human class has it's own abilities, strengths and weaknesses.
- Trapper: double pistols as primary, netgun as secondary, instakill netted dinos with a knife
- Scientist: tranq dart pistol/sniper rifle drugs dinos (read: drunkcam) but can also overdose them
- Merc: grenade launcher, machine gun and an attitude. Nuff said.
- Pathfinder: shotgun stops nearby dinos in their tracks, flares blind dinos, knife for melee
- Pyro: flamethrower sets dinos on fire for lasting burn damage, and grenades for secondary
Game Modes
Currently the only game mode supported is death match, however I believe there is a free DLC coming that contains a survivor mode. In this mode you have to get from one side of the map, to an extraction chopper on the other side of the map, with the dinos trying to eat you before you get there.
Regeneration
The only regeneration with dinos is for health. You can regen your health by eating various dinosaur corpses strewn across the map.
With humans you can regen your health from medpacks, or get ammo from supply boxes.
Making it fair
The dinosaurs can be seen as overpowered and don't require playing as a team so much - but a group of raptors working together can pretty much obliterate the competition. It can still be pretty hard to beat a team of humans that works well together. The Trex is quite powerful but can only be spawned every 8 players. So on a map with 16 players you can have 2 Trexes.
The dinosaur abilities are effectively controlled by an andrenaline meter that you will have to keep an eye on or you will become cannon fodder. For instance you get about three pounces with the Raptor and then you can't sprint or jump until your andrenaline regenerates. This balances the game more and prevents abuse of the dinosaurs abilities.
With humans, the greatest advantage you get is working as a team, and the developers have done a really great job at this. If you get pounced by a raptor or carried off by a pteranodon you better hope your team mates shoot that bitch in the face or you will be dinner. Likewise it's quite hard to take down a TRex all by yourself. Humans also have adrenaline but it's really only used (up) for sprinting.
One downside of the game is that there are some douchebags who wimp out when it comes their turn to play as the humans. Clearly their testicles are so small they can't handle the fear of being chased down by a TRex in a video game (it is quite freaky but it's so funny watching your player get eaten). This means that the teams are autobalanced to make it fair, meaning some players will find themselves back on the same team they just played as in the last match. So if you play, be a GGG and don't quit when it's your turn to play as humans, otherwise you will always suck as a human.
Occasionally you will jump into a server and there will be some funny stuff happening. Like friendly dinosaurs and free pteranodon rides to places otherwise inaccesible to humans - just for fun... and free drugs from the scientist. I even jumped in one server to find a guy playing hide and seek with a Trex.
If you are a fan of Jurassic Park, or even the tiniest bit of a dinosaur geek I really recommend buying this game. It's only $15 on steam. DO IT!