Orion: Dino Horde

Bring Me Some Pizza!*

For most of us, we played with dinosaurs when we were growing up. Well, Orion: Dino Horde (previously Dino Beatdown) ups the ante on that play with dinos, jetpacks, tanks and shoot-em-up gaming that has the potential to put other games to shame.

Orion: Dino Horde is the current iteration of the Orion game from indie developer, Spiral Game Studios. In an excerpt from their site, they describe the game as a "fast-paced, first person shooter with a heavy emphasis on team-based, multiplayer play. The game itself is set on an alien world that is similar in nearly every way to our earth in prehistoric times."

To some people, that makes perfect sense, but I know there are a few of you out there saying "What the heck are they talking about?" In simple terms (and by that, I am in no way implying that any of you are simple), the game is a a first person shooter where you and a team of mercenaries have to protect your base from a horde of killer dinos. Paleo-nerds of the world unite!

Of course, Survival isn't the only game mode available to play. There is also a Rampage mode where 5 humans have to steal three eggs, all without getting killed by a player controlled T-Rex or his army of AI controlled dinosaurs. While I haven't had a chance to play in this mode myself, this on it's own sounds epic. There are also several Arena based game modes that are variations on the standard game.

A Tyrannosaur going after a Falcon VTOL craft

As you play, you gain access to various new weapons and augmentations that you can purchase with credits earned through game play. These can range anywhere from your standard assault rifles and pistols to not-so-standard compound bows (haven't had a chance to try those yet) and rocket turrets. As far as augmentations go, you can get increased damage, credits, or even decreased fall damage, all very useful things. You also gain access to various vehicles that spawn onto the map after certain objectives have been fulfilled. Let me tell you, the first time I played and my team got a tank, it was awesome.

The game play itself is decent enough. You can't really go wrong with shooting dinosaurs that are trying to hunt you down and kill you. The addition of the big dinos is, in my opinion, one of the best ones. As you play, big "boss" dinos will spawn in, and they require the whole team to work together to take them down. Taking them down will cause the game to go into slow motion for the duration of their fall and reward you with a nice pile of credits for spending.

The multiplayer matchmaking was kinda appalling though, at least it was prior to the latest update. Before, you picked the gametype you wanted, and it would automatically choose a server for you. While this is fine and dandy, if you ended up with a host who didn't want to start the game, you could be stuck leaving and entering the same lobby for close to an hour before a new one opened up. The latest update made it so you could choose the server you wanted based on the map, gametype and difficulty, making it a lot better.

7½ stars ain't bad

Overall, the game is pretty darn good. It has high replayability due to the number of maps and game modes, as well as they growing community behind it. Plus, when the next version of the game comes out, anyone who owns the current version will get their game upgraded for free, even if the game name changes. If you ever wanted to shoot some dinos, or even just enjoy multiplayer shooters, Dino Horde may be for you. It is available for purchase on Steam.

*This is one of the taunts that your character will yell if you are on a streak of killing dinosaurs.

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