Samurai bears. Puzzle-solving robots. Snowmen with bombs. We're used to suspending a little bit of belief when it comes to the games we play. Off-Road Velociraptor Safari, however, really tests the limits. You play a raptor driving a jeep with a spiky ball and chain attached to the rear. Your goal is to chase down other raptors and throw them into a teleporter that sends them to the future. At this point it's a good idea to throw intellectual understanding out the window, because this game is all about hitting dinosaurs with cars for points.
Off-Road Velociraptor Safari is presented in full 3D thanks to the Unity plugin, the same engine under the hood of When Orcs Attack. And, for a browser-based game, it looks great. Drive through the lush jungle using the [arrow] or [WASD] keys and tap the [B] button for a quick turbo boost. The [spacebar] deploys the chain and spiky ball that's used to clothesline raptors or drag their limp bodies to the teleporter. As for the cool jumps, crazy crashes and lavish stunts, that's up to your own driving insanity.
The goal in Off-Road Velociraptor Safari is to get a high score, and there are several things that factor into this. Capturing and teleporting raptors is the most obvious way, but you also net a few points for doing spectacular stunts, damaging your vehicle, and grabbing orbs scattered around the stage. Each time you increase your score there's a small window of opportunity for you to multiply it by doing the same thing again. An online high score table lets you track your numbers and compare with dinosaur safari-ists around the world. There are even a few achievement awards to be uncovered.
But forget all that stuff, this game is really about driving around (as a raptor), knocking over dinosaurs, smashing into stuff, and pulling off cool stunts. Seriously.
Analysis: Yes, Off-Road Velociraptor Safari is a strange game idea. Yes, that's what makes it fun. The raw dose of driving, destruction and dinosaurs is enough to get just about any gamer's blood pumping, while the 3D environment is ripe for exploration. The wild arcade-style action gameplay encourages crazy stunts and stupid tricks, which is always a nice bonus. The controls are a bit clunky and take some getting used to, but they work fine in the end. Smashing into velociraptors and dragging their bodies around does seem a bit disturbing at times, but there's just enough fiction to the setting to keep realism at bay.
The only real drawbacks to this game are technical in nature. For starters, Off-Road Velociraptor Safari requires the Unity plugin, which you must download if it isn't already installed. And even with everything ready to go you can expect a long load time, no matter your connection speed. Some players have also reported numerous slowdown issues with the game. Hopefully the developer will pull out the toolbox and start optimizing the game very soon.
Despite its technical limitations, Off-Road Velociraptor Safari is crazy enough to work. For raw dinosaur-based jeep-driving carnage, look no further. Play Off-Road Velociraptor Safari.
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Comments (may contain spoilers)
Yeah, I liked the game, but it was very jerky in movement. I had a hard time finding my way around.
Posted by: rkr7
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January 30, 2008 6:57 PM
I don't see myself playing this game anytime soon, but for the record I want to say that my first thought was "This isn't quite as cool as a Tyranosaurus in an F-14".
Posted by: octochan
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January 30, 2008 7:18 PM
1...FPS...Can't...Steer...Would...Be...Fun...If...Framerate...Was...Playable...
Posted by: Dave
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January 30, 2008 7:45 PM
Anyone with framerate issues: There have been several pseudo-solutions that work for some users (but not all). The dev team is working on fixes, but in the meantime:
Posted by: JohnB
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January 30, 2008 8:03 PM
This is macwin, not macwinlinux game. Unfortunatelly.
Posted by: XLII | January 30, 2008 8:07 PM
This is sheer awesomeness. Beautiful gameplay, really addictive. Check out the names of the combos in the leaderboards... hilarious! It's brutal, the physics is pretty spot on. I think I'm addicted... would be great to get multiplayer on the go with this though... that would rank it all time classic. It's kinda like Fear and Loathing 2: The Jurassic Era. I'm hooked.
Posted by: Toby | January 30, 2008 8:18 PM
is anyone else having problems with Unity recognizing keyboard commands?
i've tried all the above solutions - my fps seem fine, i have a good connection, nothing else is running... and still i can't use the arrow keys to drive.
eh?
Posted by: Anonymous | January 30, 2008 10:15 PM
GAME. WAS. AWESOME.
Simply AWESOME.
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
I'm on the leaderboard for the second longest jump kill, too. Someone try to beat that. Now.
158 meters. CAN'T BEAT THIS.
Posted by: Bushido | January 30, 2008 10:36 PM
This game is seriously awesome, but it NEEDS a free-play (non-scoring, unlimited time) mode.
CLOTHESLINED!
RAPTOR-ON-RAPTOR!
I'm going to introduce this to a raptor-loving internet community which I am a part of.
---
scratch that, they already know about it... maybe I'll just bump the thread. Incidentally, it was a member of that forum that was the first person who got the pteranodon.
Posted by: JonMW
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January 30, 2008 11:33 PM
OK guys, I had the low framerate issues too. I know you all hate internet explorer (understandably,) but it runs 100x faster than on firefox. guess its just optimised for it. good game once i figured this out.
Posted by: Koniferus | January 30, 2008 11:40 PM
Correction: This game is tagged as Flash, but it's actually Unity, not Flash.
Posted by: Peter Hosey
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January 31, 2008 12:13 AM
Thanks, Peter. I've updated the entry.
Posted by: Jay
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January 31, 2008 12:41 AM
I had absolutely awful frame rates in BOTH firefox AND IE. No difference really. Nothing else running, sound turned off (which really kills a lot of the fun) and it was unplayable. One little tap on the left or right key and I've turned 90 degrees in 1 frame. I'm sure this could be cool if they could work out the frame rate issues.
Maybe if this were a downloadable game, my ATI 1950 could take some of the load. Even oblivion runs smoother than this.
Posted by: Muppetoid | January 31, 2008 2:12 AM
Unity engine has a very impressive dynamic shadows demo:
http://unity3d.com/gallery/live-demos/shadows
Though it tends to take over the PC.
Posted by: yow | January 31, 2008 2:44 AM
I had some strange problems with TypeKey: it wouldn't let me log in, but when I came to a different login screen of theirs, it was OK. Strange.
Posted by: yow
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January 31, 2008 2:53 AM
xkcd, anyone?
Posted by: Ace_NoOne | January 31, 2008 6:02 AM
They really need a downloadable version.
I'm sure Unity would love to be the new Flash and end up in everyone's browser, but right now it's not doing anything that I recognise as appropriate for a plugin. It seems like a great way to write cross-platform (PC/Mac) games, but browser plugins are about more than providing lazy users with an easy way to run sandboxed binaries. Unity apps don't interact with web content at all. They don't belong in the browser.
Posted by: Dom
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January 31, 2008 6:52 AM
I really wanted to like this game, but the incredible slowness and choppy framerate, coupled with the fact that more than half the time the browser crashes after the first game, really hampers the fun. Also, why make a count of orbs up to 100 when you're given such a short timespan?
Without some technical tweaks and different gameplay modes, I remain pretty disappointed.
Posted by: Mallomar | January 31, 2008 12:39 PM
This game plays too slowly to be playable for me.
Posted by: Arnos
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January 31, 2008 7:04 PM
The game doesn't run too slowly for me at all, even in firefox.
Mallomar: You're not expected to collect all 100 orbs in one go, silly. Grab an orange orb - that'll increase your orb count by one, permanently. In subsequent games, that orb will be grey metal - an "old orb".
Collecting all orbs will result in an achievement.
I've gotten over the fact that there's no free-play mode - I don't think that there's any real chore in pressing "play again" every five minutes, and as soon as I learn the layout of the map, the achievements will be much easier to obtain.
Ace: xkcd was the community that I was talking about. They know about it already. The mods even made an anouncement to stop making posts telling people about the game (I'd imagine that they've come up time and time again).
Posted by: JonMW
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January 31, 2008 9:32 PM
JohnMW: "Grab an orange orb - that'll increase your orb count by one, permanently." Perhaps I would have noticed this had the browser not crashed after game one, thus likely not recording my orb collection. I distinctly remember collecting orb 1/100 more than once.
I guess my computer's just not good enough for this game. Oh well, on to the other hundreds of games that work for me.
Posted by: Mallomar | January 31, 2008 10:45 PM
"Unity apps don't interact with web content at all."
sure they do but the dev has to make it happen.
and this game is a riot. hope the folks having problems get a chance to play because it's great!
Posted by: Anonymous | February 1, 2008 8:42 AM
This didn't crash on me. A quirky, interesting little game once you get the hang of it.
Posted by: Scramble125
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February 1, 2008 10:42 AM
"I'm on the leaderboard for the second longest jump kill, too. Someone try to beat that. Now.
158 meters. CAN'T BEAT THIS. "
------------
I got a 234 meter long jump once. I think the game glitched when it happened though, 'cause I don't think it's actually possible to do that. It happened while boosting, running over a raptor, and going over a cliff. Too bad I didn't register an account...
Posted by: MrDomino | February 1, 2008 12:00 PM
What are those windmill/fan things? Is there a way to use them?
And, has anyone here gotten all 100 orbs yet?
Posted by: SavEagle
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February 1, 2008 1:23 PM
I got all 100 orbs yesterday, the first day I played it. Since they are saved from game to game it's not that hard. There were a few that were tricky (off ramps or bridges) but most were fairly easy. If you can't find some just watch the pteranadon before you hit the "Play" button. You can spot the ones you're missing much easier from up there.
Anyone else notice that you only get FOUR minutes instead of five? (240 seconds = 4 minutes).
Posted by: btravis72
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February 1, 2008 1:31 PM
ooo nice game
a little tip for the framerate, dont kill anything!
sure the game is about killing stuff, but as soon as i release the chain and kill stuf the framrate goes haywire....
I got 284m longjump with 2 raptors booster and cliff, but then game crashed :(
Posted by: andre | February 1, 2008 1:55 PM
Anyone know what the dinosaur eggs do? I grabbed one and took it through the exporter but only got 3,000 points for it. Considering they are hard to get I'm guessing there's more to them?
Posted by: btravis72
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February 1, 2008 2:02 PM
Oh my goodness, this game is awesome! Once you get into it, it's amazing - there are so many different things you can do to earn points! Here's some off the top of my head...
I have laughed so hard playing this game. It's just pure amusement.
Posted by: rxhnd01 | February 1, 2008 3:33 PM
Has anyone figured out with the deal with the windmills/fans? They seem a useless part of the game.
Posted by: SavEagle
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February 3, 2008 3:21 PM
I feel I should give a shout out to the website run by the owner of flashbang (the guys who made this game if you are no aware). Fun-motion.com, I don't mean to plug, but I expected this site to be in the article, It's a site where one the owner and creator of this title reviews and post links to (mostly) free physics based games and it's also where I first heard of this game before it was finished.
Posted by: Cody | February 4, 2008 3:45 PM
Windmills make it easy to do barrel rolls by boosting off the side of them. Only purpose as far as I can tell.
Posted by: Anonymous | February 8, 2008 9:25 PM
I love this game! Some of the achievement names are hilarious.
I haven't had any problems with framerate or the browser crashing - I guess I'm just lucky.
The only minor complaint that I have is the "cinematic camera style". It makes it more difficult (to me) to line up combos. I've gotten the hang of it though.
I also agree that a time-limit-less Free Play mode would be great.
Posted by: Amy
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February 9, 2008 12:08 PM
Running a MacBook Pro 2.16Ghz 1Gb ram and Safari (how appropriate is that?) 3.1 on OS X 10.5.2. This game ROCKS with frame rates as smooth as silk.
Most fun I've had in a long time.
Posted by: Anonymous | April 15, 2008 9:35 PM