Exoprimal overview: It’s Iron Man vs. dinosaurs in Capcom’s unhinged on-line shooter

A near-future Earth has been assailed by mysterious House-time portals that pour out hordes of indignant dinosaurs, all wanting to gobble their new human mates. Earth’s solely hope is its exosoldiers: battle-hardened troops carrying fits of powered armour and packing sufficient high-tech weaponry to remind a T-Rex what it means to be extinct. Principally, it’s Iron Man vs the Dinosaurs, performed out as a team-based shooter.

Solely there’s one thing even crazier happening, with an over-arching plot a few rogue AI pulling exosoldiers from completely different dimensions and pitting them towards the displaced dinosaurs with a purpose to check out the newest army tech. Advised in bite-sized cinematics and anime-style scenes, it’s each weird and near-impossible to observe. Fortunately, you don’t actually need to.

As an alternative, deal with how Exoprimal performs. With every sport, you be a part of one in every of two groups of 5 gamers, leap into your robotic exosuit, and head out to battle the homicidal dinos. You run by way of a collection of mini-missions, blasting hordes of outsized reptiles, with the odd deviation the place you battle bigger boss dinosaurs or defend a management level towards the cold-blooded hordes.

The one wrinkle is that you simply’re up towards one other staff doing the identical factor, with every sport culminating in a struggle, or a ultimate sequence of missions the place you win by ending first. Should you lose? Nicely, you’re dino-dinner, although you’ll quickly be resurrected and prepared for an additional run.

In a whole lot of methods, this isn’t a lot completely different from team-based modes we’ve seen earlier than in Future 2, Halo, and even Name of Responsibility: simply full your targets quicker than the opposite staff, and profit from the occasional probability to stuff their efforts up.

On this case, that may imply heading off to assault them whereas they’re busy battling raptors and flying pteranodons, or it will possibly imply getting a power-up that turns you right into a hungry carnosaur, then rushing off to make the opposite staff your lunch.

Going toe-to–toe with T-Rex and triceratops

Nonetheless, Exoprimal does have some issues going for it. Firstly, there’s multiple sort of exosuit to play with, and every may be upgraded with new perks and kit that you simply’ll solely unlock by enjoying — even dropping a sport can see you construct up your expertise factors and bag new loot.

Whereas the exosuits are sorted into sorts — Assault, Tank, and Assist — every class hosts a number of completely different choices, supplying you with the selection to go out with huge armour, and each bodily and digital drive shields, or work as a healer, holding your frontline Assault troops throwing firepower and explosives on the oncoming dinos.

This implies you possibly can play the sport your approach or flit between your favorite fits, upgrading them each time attainable to spice up your injury or your probabilities of survival. For a few of us, that’s going to be stomping into motion in a Roadblock swimsuit, utilizing your shields to carry the scary, scaly monsters again, then sending them flying with a sudden jolt. For others, that’s going to be blasting away with an unlimited machine gun or chucking out grenades that blast the dinos skywards, ideally in flames. Discover what works for you, then benefit from the enjoyable.

It additionally implies that you could work as a staff, with each participant doing their finest to fill their function in an environment friendly ensemble of dinosaur destruction. Once you’ve acquired a livid triceratops thundering your approach, you want your shielders and shooters working in tandem to halt them of their tracks. Within the warmth of battle, taking over dozens of dinos, all of it comes collectively in a single daft however weirdly moreish motion sport.

Sadly, Exoprimal has an issue — and one which goes past the spotty presentation, bizarre consumer interface, and poorly defined sport mechanics. There’s not likely sufficient to it, and what there’s may be one thing of a grind. Whereas there are sudden moments the place the sport goes unpredictably off-piste with a wierd set-piece battle, for more often than not, you’re doing roughly the identical stuff in roughly the identical order throughout a handful of maps. You gained’t have seen all of it inside the first few hours, nevertheless it doesn’t appear to evolve all that a lot.

This wouldn’t be a catastrophe if Exoprimal was a free-to-play title, and options like free loot crates and a premium battle move point out that this may need been the unique thought. It additionally isn’t an enormous downside should you’re enjoying on Xbox Video games Go, the place this type of snack-sized multiplayer sport works nicely for a couple of hours every week till you progress on. But it’s a downside should you’re being requested to spend £40 to £50 on a sport that feels just like the add-on horde mode of one thing higher.

Look, it’s robotic battle fits vs dinosaurs. It’s the form of sport the place you possibly can maintain again a wave of rampaging raptors, then scatter them throughout the streets with a single punch. Even at its worst, Exoprimal is foolish, messy enjoyable in your internal seven-year-old. It’s simply not value that form of cash, irrespective of how unhinged it’s.