theHunter: Primal (PC) Review

Dinosaurs should not be boring! It is a surprise that this needs to be said at all. They are gigantic and intimidating creatures whose mere existence has resulted in massive amounts of speculation about the past of humanity. From the vicious and small hunters to gigantic sauropods capable of functioning as their own mini biome, a dinosaur is an impressive creature on par with the dragon, a beast that they may, very well, have inspired. Somehow, though, theHunter: Primal managed to take these impressive beasts of history and transform them into dull, uninspired monsters that can be out-witted with ease.

Set in the far off future of "nobody cares" on "generically-named planet" where dinosaurs roam free, a confirmed criminal is set loose to "reduce the population" of the beasts. Upon landing, armed with only a machete (Really? Giving every escaped prisoner a PDA was in the budget, but even a bow and arrow was too costly? Never mind a pistol and a few bullets for this massive endeavour?), the player must set out to conquer not one, not two, but a whopping five species of dinosaur, of which three of them are "insultingly easy to kill raptor," "insultingly easy to kill raptor that's slightly bigger than the prior insultingly easy to kill raptor," and "really big insultingly easy to kill raptor that is essentially the final boss of the game." Combine that with "lumbering cattle that seems like it should be difficult to kill, but isn't" and "flying monstrosity with an auto-win button," and the full array of lizards-painted-like-dinosaurs is available for "hunting."

That should be "mass slaughter," actually, as not only can weapons be upgraded to the point where the poor dinosaurs basically have to rely on ambush or ammo depletion to score a kill, but when ammo does run out, their AI is so poor that they'll sometimes outright turn around and run away. Even if they stay to fight, they can be dealt with using the standard starting weapon and the amazingly advanced tactic of sidestepping, which will leave them nearly helpless, barring a pack to simply overwhelm via sheer numbers.

That is far from the only "lazy" aspect of the game. For another: five dinosaurs against which the same basic tactics can triumph is boring. There were a massive variety of dinosaurs throughout history; from near-armoured tanks, like the Ankylosaurus, to the massive Diplodocus. To have one that would be immune to bullet-fire and had to be lured into traps, or something so big it has to be actually climbed to fight properly, or scared off a nearby cliff for the kill, would have allowed for at least a variation in gameplay. Even something as simple as providing a wider variety between the "so easy to kill" raptor and "still easy to kill, but will hurt a lot" Utahraptor would have been great and helped ease users into the game.

Hunting aside, theHunter: Primal is lazy in almost every other regard, as well. For example, there is no tutorial. This means that discovering that purple bushes will deal damage, while mushrooms will (barely) heal, and learning how stealth functions is left up to a weak in-game manual to be thumbed through, instead of providing a basic training mode. Even the graphics, although they should be interesting, are half-baked, as plumes of seawater will rise up at vertical angles out of swamplands.