This game offers some of the most beautiful and heart-pounding dinosaur experiences I have ever played, by far. Its map is vast and varied in different places, there are a fair selection of dinosaurs to choose from, and the animations and models are spectacular. It's not a game for the impatient, and although boring at times, it makes up for it with the 'fight for survival' nature of the game. Constantly needing to find food and water to sustain yourself. For carnivores, it's all about finding where your prey might be, while avoiding bigger things that might eat you. For the herbivores, you have to sniff out a certain type of bush you can eat, but the resource is finite. Although a single herbivore could live in an area until becoming a full adult and then some, a herd will find themselves running out of food and migrating. Both need water, and its there that most of the action happens.

Yet for all this, I cannot recommend the game, unfortunately. The game is plagued with lack of development, poor game optimization, rather buggy moments, server connection issues, and extreme rubber banding even when both ping and frames are perfect. The current sniff mechanic in the vanilla version of the game (Legacy as its known in the community) is rather half patched together.

In order to find food and water, like an actual dinosaur, you have to sniff and catch scents. Only you're not really catching scents, and more just highlighting the nearest point of food and/or water. For herbivores, food is a glowing green bush. For carnivores, they can only see the gore left behind after a corpse has been eaten, and it glows red. Dead carcasses, however, are left without notification and thus the biggest sources of food for carnivores are hard to find unless you are the one that hunted and killed said dinosaur. This is really unfortunate when you're something like a lone Raptor, and trying to scavenge to survive. As for water, its just a giant, flat plane of glowing blue. It clips underneath where the ground is located, so bodies of water seem larger than they actually are, and rivers/running water isn't modelled to be highlighted.

They have addressed this issue in the newer Evirma version of the game, which the developers are much more actively working on, but it is still not very good. The concept they have in place works a lot better than the one currently in Legacy. By catching small orb-like particles in the air, you can trace it to its origin. Green for plants for herbivores, red for carcasses and blue for water for both. Though this concept works well and does simulate how they actually scent things out, it doesn't work very well in practice. To give you an example, I played a lone raptor in Evirma. I got relatively large and was running in essentially a zig-zag pattern to cover the most ground. The only problem was, despite being in the middle of the map, there was no AI, players, or carcasses to speak of. I figured maybe it was my positioning, right? I must be in the corner of the map. Nope, I was pretty much in the middle, near the biggest body of water that is the most active.

While this will eventually get fixed, the experience of Evirma is still nowhere near the experience of Legacy. For one, you can only play 2 carnivores rather than the 8 or so you can in Legacy survival (that's not including the ones aren't perfected for survival, like the Spino and Alberto for just an example). The herbivores options isn't great either, with only 3 compared to the 7-9 of the ones in survival Legacy. And, again, that's not including those not perfected for survival but still very playable.

The game, though it offers moments of unparalleled beauty, is often marked with glitchiness in both the graphical compartment and the gameplay compartment. For one, the shadows will often flicker, making shots that should be absolutely stunning look really glitchy and unnatural. However, that's not my main issue with its apparent glitches and bugs. I run the game at a solid 60 frames a second, and though the game has unnaturally good ping levels when inside a server, it really suffers from rubberbanding. Let me give you an example:

Playing a fully grown Tyrannosaurus Rex, I am attacked by a Ceratosaurus while I am lying down. For those who are unaware, a Ceratosaurus is like a bigger raptor that kinda looks like a T-Rex and a Gigantosaurus had a child. Now that we have that half-arsed description out of the way, you understand the difference in size and power between either dinosaur. Naturally, I stand up and begin to attack too, but he says underneath me at my tail. Smart move, real smart. Using his agility and height to his advantage. Yet I can get around that by running forward, as my top speed is higher than his, and turning into him as he tries to catch up. He's really good, and knows what I'm doing, so he doesn't let me do it. I have to resort to running into the trees and getting him caught on one. THAT works, and I'm able to get a bite on him. And then another. And another. By the fourth bite, I'm wondering why he isn't a bloody pulp before me, and he's still biting and killing me. I get frantic, and annoyed (obviously), and begin to do the same tactic again. It works, and I get him underneath my head and I chomp. On my screen, I see my mouth clearly hit him. Clean hit. But he doesn't die, and he keeps biting. As I continue to do this, I begin to rubber band, but I'm at 50 ping and 60 FPS. After the fight is over and he's killed me, people who witnessed the fight (as it was at a large lake) tell me he was actually behind me the whole time, and that I never once actually bit him.

So, if my point isn't made already, the game is a big buggy and needs a lot of work. Which, unfortunately, is all being spent completely reworking the game into 'Evirma'. No updates will come to the current vanilla, or 'legacy' version of the game, and it is plagued with bugs and glitches that both ruin immersion AND fun. As much as I love this game and its beauty, I cannot recommend it in its current state.


P.S. It takes about 6-7 hours IRL time to grow a Tyrannosaurus Rex from a juvenile to a full grown adult. I hate this game as much as I used to love it.

This game offers some of the most beautiful and heart-pounding dinosaur experiences I have ever played, by far. Its map is vast and varied in different places, there are a fair selection of dinosaurs to choose from, and the animations and models are spectacular. It's not a game for the impatient, and although boring at times, it makes up for it with the 'fight for survival' nature of the game. Constantly needing to find food and water to sustain yourself. For carnivores, it's all about finding where your prey might be, while avoiding bigger things that might eat you. For the herbivores, you have to sniff out a certain type of bush you can eat, but the resource is finite. Although a single herbivore could live in an area until becoming a full adult and then some, a herd will find themselves running out of food and migrating. Both need water, and its there that most of the action happens. Yet for all this, I cannot recommend the game, unfortunately. The game is plagued with lack of development, poor game optimization, rather buggy moments, server connection issues, and extreme rubber banding even when both ping and frames are perfect. The current sniff mechanic in the vanilla version of the game (Legacy as its known in the community) is rather half patched together. In order to find food and water, like an actual dinosaur, you have to sniff and catch scents. Only you're not really catching scents, and more just highlighting the nearest point of food and/or water. For herbivores, food is a glowing green bush. For carnivores, they can only see the gore left behind after a corpse has been eaten, and it glows red. Dead carcasses, however, are left without notification and thus the biggest sources of food for carnivores are hard to find unless you are the one that hunted and killed said dinosaur. This is really unfortunate when you're something like a lone Raptor, and trying to scavenge to survive. As for water, its just a giant, flat plane of glowing blue. It clips underneath where the ground is located, so bodies of water seem larger than they actually are, and rivers/running water isn't modelled to be highlighted. They have addressed this issue in the newer Evirma version of the game, which the developers are much more actively working on, but it is still not very good. The concept they have in place works a lot better than the one currently in Legacy. By catching small orb-like particles in the air, you can trace it to its origin. Green for plants for herbivores, red for carcasses and blue for water for both. Though this concept works well and does simulate how they actually scent things out, it doesn't work very well in practice. To give you an example, I played a lone raptor in Evirma. I got relatively large and was running in essentially a zig-zag pattern to cover the most ground. The only problem was, despite being in the middle of the map, there was no AI, players, or carcasses to speak of. I figured maybe it was my positioning, right? I must be in the corner of the map. Nope, I was pretty much in the middle, near the biggest body of water that is the most active. While this will eventually get fixed, the experience of Evirma is still nowhere near the experience of Legacy. For one, you can only play 2 carnivores rather than the 8 or so you can in Legacy survival (that's not including the ones aren't perfected for survival, like the Spino and Alberto for just an example). The herbivores options isn't great either, with only 3 compared to the 7-9 of the ones in survival Legacy. And, again, that's not including those not perfected for survival but still very playable. The game, though it offers moments of unparalleled beauty, is often marked with glitchiness in both the graphical compartment and the gameplay compartment. For one, the shadows will often flicker, making shots that should be absolutely stunning look really glitchy and unnatural. However, that's not my main issue with its apparent glitches and bugs. I run the game at a solid 60 frames a second, and though the game has unnaturally good ping levels when inside a server, it really suffers from rubberbanding. Let me give you an example: Playing a fully grown Tyrannosaurus Rex, I am attacked by a Ceratosaurus while I am lying down. For those who are unaware, a Ceratosaurus is like a bigger raptor that kinda looks like a T-Rex and a Gigantosaurus had a child. Now that we have that half-arsed description out of the way, you understand the difference in size and power between either dinosaur. Naturally, I stand up and begin to attack too, but he says underneath me at my tail. Smart move, real smart. Using his agility and height to his advantage. Yet I can get around that by running forward, as my top speed is higher than his, and turning into him as he tries to catch up. He's really good, and knows what I'm doing, so he doesn't let me do it. I have to resort to running into the trees and getting him caught on one. THAT works, and I'm able to get a bite on him. And then another. And another. By the fourth bite, I'm wondering why he isn't a bloody pulp before me, and he's still biting and killing me. I get frantic, and annoyed (obviously), and begin to do the same tactic again. It works, and I get him underneath my head and I chomp. On my screen, I see my mouth clearly hit him. Clean hit. But he doesn't die, and he keeps biting. As I continue to do this, I begin to rubber band, but I'm at 50 ping and 60 FPS. After the fight is over and he's killed me, people who witnessed the fight (as it was at a large lake) tell me he was actually behind me the whole time, and that I never once actually bit him. So, if my point isn't made already, the game is a big buggy and needs a lot of work. Which, unfortunately, is all being spent completely reworking the game into 'Evirma'. No updates will come to the current vanilla, or 'legacy' version of the game, and it is plagued with bugs and glitches that both ruin immersion AND fun. As much as I love this game and its beauty, I cannot recommend it in its current state. P.S. It takes about 6-7 hours IRL time to grow a Tyrannosaurus Rex from a juvenile to a full grown adult. I hate this game as much as I used to love it.