Is Orion: Dino Horde worth your time? (Overview and Opinions)

[Lizard]

That's the question quite a few people have been asking. With recent complaints about this game from various sources, and how it's not much different from it's last version Orion: Dino Beatdown, it's time to give it a second opinion. This is not a review, I'm not going to give it a score. I am just going to give you, the reader a run down on what the game is, how it plays, what's new, what's good, what's bad, and so forth.

This is the state of the game as of April 22, 2013. Aspects are subject to change in the future and may not reflect this recommendation as accurately.

Now let's get started.

Orion: Dino Horde is a Sci-fi Action Co-Op Shooter from Spiral Game Studios. It plays very simliar to any type of survival game type you would expect from modern games. It's basically you, and 4 other players against 10 waves of dinosaurs of increasing difficulty and numbers. You have a generator to keep intact throughout all 10 waves as well. The Generator is what powers your two main buildings. When it goes, you go.

You can play as one of three classes. The jetpacking, rocket launching, grenade tossing Assault class. The cloaking, deadly and precise Recon. And the tough, wisecracking, I'd totally get a beer with this dude, Support. Each class has their own role within the game. The Assault would be the damage dealer, using high explosives to damage large dinosaurs. The Recon would be your stunner and disabler, using their specialized weaponry to deal devastating single target damage. And the Support is your healer, repairman and crowd controller. Supporting the team with, higher shields, smoke grenades to shoo away dinosaurs, healing other classes, repairing the generator faster than other, repairing vehicles and mass area of effect damage with the minigun or flamethrower.

Within your two main buildings you can buy new weaponry and augmentations with credits you earn from killing dinosaurs and capturing outposts. Within weapons you have your sidearms, which are you pistols and small fire weapons, your secondary which are shotguns and submachine guns, your primary which are larger rifles and sniper rifles, and adrenlene weapons which are class specific. You can also restock health and ammo, buy upgrades like double damage, reload speed, clip size and firing rate. You can also change grenade types if you so desire.

Inside the other building you can buy Augmentations. These better your class with things such as double jumping, super jumping, not being grabbed or eaten, double shields, better melee damage, carrying twice as many weapons per category, eating raptor corpses for health and so forth.

Keep in mind that if you die, you lose EVERYTHING you bought. So playing as a team and surviving is mandatory. Credit amount is decreased per difficulty making it harder to get back to where you were.

Now, you may be looking at footage and saying "Hey, this looks just like Dino Beatdown. What gives?" Well you're half-way right. Dino Horde is a major revision to what Dino Beatdown was, and Dino Beatdown was in dire need of it. Beatdown was bare bones, only had one survival game mode and 3 dinosaurs.

What Dino Horde gives you is 5 game modes, Survival, 3 Player vs Player gamemodes with each class and Rampage, which is like Capture the flag, but with an egg and a player controlled mama T-rex who doesn't like pesky humans stealing her unhatched babies. The three PvP gamemodes are Dude Huge which is King of the Hill styled with Support, Rocketeer which is Free for all deathmatch with Assault, and Ninja Nappers which is stealth based melee and sniper rifles with Recon.

Horde also gives you a revamp of the original survival mode, dubbed Survival 2.0. The original survive and protect the generator gameplay is still there, but it's been changed drastically. You can not buy vehicles anymore. Every three rounds you have a small break to go and capture an outpost. Once captured this outpost supplies your team with 2 vehicles depending on the wave. The longer you survive the better vehicles you get. The maps are now smaller to accomadate this. You no longer move base to base. There's toggable slow motion, you can't hide in your buildings anymore, "fight for your life" a'la Borderlands and a teammate revival system.
Augmentations were added, as well as new weapons. 2 New Vehicles have been added to the original 4. The Cobra Tank and the Penguin Buggy. New dinosaurs have been added to the original three. The Compy, Pteradon, Dila, Ticeratops, Stegosaurus and Spinosaurus. New gameplay mechanics to the dinosaurs have been added. The AI is better, some dinosaurs will charge you. The Dila will spit acid at you, Rhams now divebomb you, the Pteradon is now the dino that picks you up instead and Larger Dinosaurs will slam the ground knocking you around or break your vehicle.

This is all new and completely different than Beatdown. Horde also gives you better graphic options, a Pay to Pretty store where you can buy hats, armor colors and taunts, dedicated servers, matchmaking, new effects and and update to some models.

Now that you know what this is, and what has changed. Let's talk about the good and the bad. Again, my opinions on what is good and what is bad. I might like something that you might not like. That's fine. We're all entitled to our opinions.

What I like about Horde, besides reptilian dinosaur friends, is this. It's fun. It's a fun game to play with four of your friends, four random people online, or to play solo. The co-op gameplay is solid. There's not that many hic-cups when it comes to playing the game. You fight, upgrade, get vehiciles, slaughter more dinosaurs. Plays like Killing Floor, if you have ever played it. The environmental visuals are amazing. There are a lot of colors and contrast within each world you play in. It's a nice change from the grit and brown and bloom that I'm getting tired of seeing. The dinosaurs are interesting and make gameplay fun while trying to strategize what to fight, what to avoid and how to kill it while keeping everyone alive. Gameplay features like reviving other team mates, passing out money and buying upgrades are great too. It was a much needed addition to the original game. The voice overs, while a bit cheezy make it worthwhile. Especially Support. The ragdolls in the game also are great. Seeing a dino derp out on the ground is hilarious. You can even push them around with a car before they pop out of existance.

Now, what I think is bad about the game. Big one right here and now. The animations. Some of them are bad that they are good, and some are just downright embarassing. Take for instance the sprint animation. I hate this SO much. It's clunky, robotic and stiff. It's been this way since they added third person in Beatdown. What's worse is that this sprint animation doesn't take in consideration WHAT you are carrying. For instance, I'm carrying a revolver. In first person you can see my player pull the gun up while running, going to third person, you can see them running like they are carrying a rifle. WHY?! Another animation issue is the way the torso moves when looking around. There's just something about it. They wobble back and forth stiffly on a hinge. There's also the way the head follow the camera in your deathcam. It's uncanny and just locked onto your screen, staring at you. 2spooky4me.

The Raptor/Compy/Dila attack animation is sub-par. For instance, he's attacking a vehicle. Not vicious at all. It's just him biting it, over and over and over. Staring into nothing, just biting. Amazing. Another would be the in-car first person weapon drifing. No clue why it likes to slide out of your hands and detatch, but it just does. These are just unprofessional and I would have never passed such a thing if I had to make that decision.


Besides animation quips that I mentioned there are also some technical problems with the game. Namely performance issues. I can only get a decent framerate with this game on high if I don't turn on the particles and fog. Which means no weapon effects, no bullets, no showing where your tank round or explosive goes, no jetpack jets, and no blood. Nothing shows when you turn off particles. It makes it look like you're shooting air. I can run most high end games with this computer, but this Unreal Engine 3 game shouldn't run this like on my computer. Many times they have said there are performance boosts in their beta patches and such, but again when a Gladiator Jeep drives by and the dust from the wheels get into my view I get frame tearing and lag all over. Not fun.

And then you have common run of the mill bugs. I've had my repair gun not working, I've been stuck in a vehicle and can't get out. which also pushed me and someone else into a small hidden wall which was pretty cool I'll be honest. You've got AI pathing issues and enemies getting stuck where they shouldn't belong. And storebought skins that won't apply after you respawn.

Lastly, the price of the game. The game is right now $15 on Steam. While this adds a much needed update to the game, the quality of said animations really makes me not want to pay that much. Even though I got this for free or being a pre-existing owner.

So, in conclusion, It's got solid gameplay and some interesting venues and gameplay that takes bits and pieces from more known titles. The animation quality is pretty bad and unprofessional, performance issues, and minor bugs abound. If all of that can be fixed, then Great.

Is Orion Dino Horde worth your time? It's a sturdy Maybe. I enjoy it a lot more because I can look past such bugs and stuff and find fun in it. You might not. Get it while it's on a sale. $7.50 is a good sale price if you ever want to get in on it. Right now at launch for $15 it's too much.

So, there you have it. My opinion on Orion Dino Horde.
Now if you excuse me, I got Hordes of Dinosaurs to Beatdown.

[Lizard]

Offline would mean Solo play, and there is no friendly AI.

[VeilStrider]

Actually solo play is a bit ambiguous. I can play solo Diablo 3, but it doesn't mean I can play Diablo 3 offline.

[Blind Dog]

Not sure about offline per se. You have to log into steam first.

[Spider]

You need to be loged into Steam while launching the game or launch steam in offline mode in order to play this game offline. DRM sucks, but this is a MP game, why would you want to play offline? just curious.

[that's what she said]

Wall of text... and then comes conclusion: "It's a sturdy Maybe." what the... what kind of opinion this is?

[TheDahminator]

created on my birthday :D

[Lizard]

Did you really need to bump this from almost a year ago?

[Psychic Kitty]

Someone i guess likes reviews based on I thinks and just looking at pictures..

Notice the reviewer simply says a bunch of things are solid.....but no real examples...

The thing is the details....liars have problems with details....you always know you are reading a review by a liar when they dont have any actual details.

And if they get super defensive and still wont mention details...then you can be sure they have never played and probably never will.

[MightyMoe]

sounds like the kitty hasn't had tuna in a while

[Evil Shredder]

İlk olarak Psychic Kitty tarafından gönderildi:

Someone i guess likes reviews based on I thinks and just looking at pictures..

Notice the reviewer simply says a bunch of things are solid.....but no real examples...

The thing is the details....liars have problems with details....you always know you are reading a review by a liar when they dont have any actual details.

And if they get super defensive and still wont mention details...then you can be sure they have never played and probably never will.

He stated that this wasn't a review. Good job on reading.

[Hans Blitz]

I agree on everything but the performance issue's everything runs fine on my machine on full settings, i've been lucky and only had one crash and i think thats because the program doesn't like it when switching between game modes. Still one dollar wasn't much to part with, i tip more then that everytime i buy a beer.