Primal Rage

In Primal Rage, a meteor strike has devastated the earth; civilization has been utterly reduced to rubble and humans have regressed into tribes of Stone Age dwellers. Into this new radiation-scarred world, primitively referred to as "Urth", primordial rain forest has covered the land and numerous new species have evolved.

Out of their ranks emerge seven creatures who wage war for control over the new world; they are torn between those who wish to keep peace on Urth, and those who attempt to plunge the world into further chaos for personal gain. These creatures have otherworldly or supernatural abilities and each is said to represent a different aspect of nature i.e. life and death, fire and ice; and they are considered to be a "god" of their respective sphere. There are four "Virtuous Gods" and three "Destructive Gods" (although these terms are presumably relative, since the character Sauron is counted as "good" despite being described as "constantly hungry" and a destructive tyrant).

Primal Rage is a traditional two-dimensional fighting game in which two players select characters to battle each other in one-on-one combat or a single player finishes a campaign of fights against the CPU over increasing difficulty. The final battle of the single player game consisted of fighting all the other CPU monsters with an increased power bar made available to you in a mini-game prior to the fight. A total of seven characters are available for players to select from (as listed below). Each character has his or her own specialized set of attack moves and abilities. In the game, the object is to deplete the opposing character's health meter as fast as possible.

While fighting, human tribesman will move in the background and worship their gods during battle. This allows for the creatures to toss them around or devour some to regain strength (eating your opponent's worshipers grants more health than eating your own). Prior to the final battle a mini game commences in which you are required to eat as many worshipers as possible to increase your health for the endurance round. An Easter egg of human volleyball could be triggered by keeping worshipers off the ground batting them back and forth between you and your adversary.

Unlike most fighting games, where "special moves" are performed by moving the joystick, followed by pressing one or more buttons, Primal Rage features a system where the player holds down certain buttons, then performs the joystick movements. Later revisions of the arcade game added the ability to perform "special moves" the more traditional way of motion followed by button presses, but kept the original method as well. After the opponent is defeated, a brief moment is allowed for the player to perform a fatality that finishes the adversary in a more dramatic fashion, these were performed in a similar manner to the special moves. Some were more Easter Eggs than fatalities, such as Chaos's 'Churl'.