primal-rage
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Mythical Primal Rage 2 cabinet appears, playable to all
Remember that footage of Primal Rage 2 that showed up on YouTube about a year and a half ago? You know, the one that broke our inner 12-year-old heart because we knew we'd never get to play it? Well, if you can make it to the Galloping Ghost Arcade in Brookfield, Illinois, a functional arcade cabinet containing the game is waiting just for you. Not sure what all the fuss is about? Here's the skinny: released in 1994 by Atari, Primal Rage was a fighting game where players controlled gods who took on the form of giant prehistoric creatures. Besides being ported from arcade to several home consoles, it was also adapted into a toy line and comic series, and was basically just one of the most '90s things ever. Development began on a sequel that replaced the monstrous fighters with human avatars, but only a handful of prototypes were reportedly ever made. Those that were produced have only been spotted a handful of times more often than Bigfoot. Seriously, there's not a lot of information out there about Primal Rage 2, and most of it is unverifiable. Hence, the addition of the game to an arcade where any visitor can play it without having to pass a velvet rope is pretty surprising. So, who wants to take a road trip to Illinois? [Thanks, Aaron!] [Image: Galloping Ghost Arcade]
Primal Rage 2 footage surfaces, breaks our heart
Primal Rage 2 is one of the more mythical cancelled games of yore. Plenty of rumors and legends surround its life and death, but there's very little in the way of concrete, verifiable information when it comes to what the game was actually like. Now though, thanks to some new off-screen footage captured from a working prototype version, we have a slightly better idea of what could have been.As shown in the video above, Primal Rage 2 maintained the claymation aesthetic found in the original game, though the character models and their various animations look much more fluid than Primal Rage's Harryhausen-esque staccato jitters. Furthermore, the combo system appears to have been improved and expanded, though to what extent is difficult to ascertain.Essentially, it looks like everything we ever could have wanted. Finding absolute proof that we're not living in the best of all possible universes wasn't really on our "To Do:" list today, but here we are. Someday we'll open a worm hole to the bubble universe where Primal Rage 2 was released, and it'll be so great. Provided everyone in that universe breathes oxygen, of course; alternate universes can get complicated.
Behind the Mask: Primal Rage
Before we get started, let me note that I'm pretty aware of the current progress on the new Devastator Archetype and the Heavy Weapons set. Things seem to be going well for both, so when we finally see them (soon!) I'll be giving some in-depth coverage. Normally I give a preview prior to the content's going live, but in this case I wanted to talk about something else first. That something else is Aura of Primal Majesty. Champions Online has four different aura passives, and for a long time, all but one of them (Aura of Radiant Protection) were pretty bad. During the Free-for-All launch, the three underperforming auras were buffed extensively. After the buffs, the Primal aura emerged as one with the most unique and interesting interactions. In fact, it is one of the most truly interesting powers in CO, because something as simple as raising stats has one of the most unusual consequences in CO's complicated stat system.
