Carnivores Collection

The Carnivores Collection

Four dinosaur/prehistoric hunting games. These are NOT FPS "run & gun" games. These are games which require thoughtful strategy and stealthy stalking, or sometimes careful positioning and patient waiting. The first three, 1, 2, and Ice Age, were designed by Action Forms and published by WizardWorks in the US.

The original Carnivores was sold very inexpensively, was an instant hit, and critically praised. Carnivores 2 expanded on the first, offering new dinosaurs to hunt, new hunting grounds, new weapons, and a slightly different menu. Carnivores Ice Age brought the same C2 engine into slightly more recent times, offering wooly rhinos, sabertooth cats, dire wolves, and other deadly creatures. Reviews for Ice Age were ironically lukewarm, noting that it offered little new except the animals themselves and snow.

Carnivores Triassic is an amateur mod also based on the C2 engine, and offers new dinosaurs and weapons. THIS IS A BETA RELEASE. Please visit ModDB here:

http://www.moddb.com/mods/carnivores-triassic/downloads/carnivores-triassic-beta-7

to follow latest releases and discussion.

The developer, P.Rex, also maintains an excellent fan site, The Carnivores Saga, which may be found here:

http://www.thecarnivoressaga.com/forum/index.php

This collection does NOT include Carnivores Cityscape, which departed so radically from the original concept as to be an entirely different game.

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TECH NOTES

Included in this package are two different emulators for the old 3DFX video standard, openGlide and nGlide. These games were built with 3DFX in mind, and I think they still look best with it (although all have an option for Direct 3D and software as well.)

nGlide is a complete system installation -- double click and it sets it up for your whole computer.

openGlide is provided in each folder, in its own subfolder. Copy the files up into your final installation folders with the game executable (see its own readme.) It does not otherwise "install."

I find that nGlide works best. I would suggest trying the openGlide first, though, and seeing if that suits you. Trying to run the openGlide with the nGlide also installed can do bad things to the graphics.

The original Carnivores has 3 different executables, depending on what graphics you want, that is, you must choose HUNT3DFX for 3DFX graphics, HUNTD3D for Direct X/Direct 3D, or HUNTSOFT for the plain software version. All the others, you can make this choice in-game at the Options menu.

Carnivores 2 and Ice Age also have Patch folders. These patches are already applied, though, and the files are provided for backup and emergency. The Carnivores Saga website noted above recommends setting W98 compatability mode with these patches applied.

A word of caution about Triassic. As noted, it IS an amateur fan-made mod. It is quite good, but the ground under your feet sort of warps under you rather than simply passing beneath you. I found it rather distracting and needed to focus up into the distance. Dramamine might help, too.

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I am running all 4 games under Windows 7/64, a 3.6G AMD quad-core, 8G memory, and an AMD Radeon HD 7700 video card (update: an NVIDIA GForce GTX 770), and off an external hard drive.


Personal comments:

I LOVED these games when they came out and still do. They are very atmospheric and immersive. Place your speakers for good stereo, or headphones, and turn down the lights! A couple times my wife snuck up behind, grabbed my shoulder with a "Rawr!", and nearly give me a stroke! Hope you enjoy them