''Carnivores: Ice Age'' is a

first-person shooter First-person shooter (FPS) is a sub-genre of shooter video games centered on gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action through the eyes of the protagonist and controlling the pl ...

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

developed by

Action Forms Action Forms Ltd. was a Ukrainian video game developer based in Kyiv. History Action Forms was founded by art director Yaroslav Kravchenko, lead Video game programmer, programmer Oleg Slusar, executive director Igor Karev, and deputy director ...

and published by

WizardWorks WizardWorks Group, Inc. was an American video game developer and publisher based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The company was founded in 1980 and, in 1993, WizardWorks opened the CompuWorks and MacSoft divisions. In 1996, WizardWorks was acquired ...

for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

. It is the third game in the ''Carnivores'' series. Unlike the previous games, in which the player must hunt dinosaurs, ''Carnivores: Ice Age'' allows the player to stalk large

Cenozoic The Cenozoic ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterised by the dominance of mammals, birds and flowering plants, a cooling and drying climate, and the current configura ...

animals such as

mammoth A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus'', one of the many genera that make up the order of trunked mammals called proboscideans. The various species of mammoth were commonly equipped with long, curved tusks and, ...

s and

saber-toothed cat Machairodontinae is an extinct subfamily of carnivoran mammals of the family Felidae (true cats). They were found in Asia, Africa, North America, South America, and Europe from the Miocene to the Pleistocene, living from about 16 million until ...

s. In 2011, the game was

ported In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally desi ...

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...

and Android devices by Tatem Games, and to

PlayStation Portable The PlayStation Portable (PSP) is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 12, 2004, in North America on March 24, 2005, and in PAL regions on September 1, 2005, ...

by WizardWorks.

Storyline

The game's story follows the events of its predecessors, in which an Earth corporation purchased the rights to a dinosaur-inhabited planet codenamed FMM UV-32 and created the DinoHunt Corporation, allowing customers to hunt the planet's dinosaurs. Scientists also found

Ice Age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gree ...

animals living in the

Arctic The Arctic ( or ) is a polar regions of Earth, polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenla ...

regions of FMM UV-32 and they set up a separate hunting program for big game living there.

Gameplay

''Carnivores: Ice Age'' is a

in which the player can hunt 10 animals, including '' Diatryma'', ''

Megaloceros ''Megaloceros'' (from Greek: + , literally "Great Horn"; see also Lister (1987)) is an extinct genus of deer whose members lived throughout Eurasia from the early Pleistocene to the beginning of the Holocene and were important herbivores durin ...

'', ''

Smilodon ''Smilodon'' is a genus of the extinct machairodont subfamily of the felids. It is one of the most famous prehistoric mammals and the best known saber-toothed cat. Although commonly known as the saber-toothed tiger, it was not closely related ...

'', and the

woolly rhinoceros The woolly rhinoceros (''Coelodonta antiquitatis'') is an extinct species of rhinoceros that was common throughout Europe and Asia during the Pleistocene epoch and survived until the end of the last glacial period. The woolly rhinoceros was a me ...

. Weapons include a handgun, rifles, shotguns, and a crossbow. Accessories such as camouflage, cover scents, and radar can be used during hunts, but their usage decreases the player's ultimate score. The game features five levels, each with diverse landscapes and creatures.

Ports

''Carnivores: Ice Age'' was

mobile device A mobile device (or handheld computer) is a computer small enough to hold and operate in the hand. Mobile devices typically have a flat LCD or OLED screen, a touchscreen interface, and digital or physical buttons. They may also have a physical ...

s, first appearing for

in the United States on February 8, 2011. The game was later ported to Android, and the iOS/Android version was later released for the

PlayStation 3 The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on Novemb ...

and

under

Beatshapers Beatshapers Ltd. is a Ukrainian video game developer based in Kyiv. Games developed/Own IP * ''MelodyBloxx'' (PS minis, cancelled) * '' BreakQuest: Extra Evolution'' (PSP and PS Vita) * ''StarDrone Extreme'' (PS Vita) * ''Z-Run'' (PS Vita) * ''Re ...

' development. These new versions of ''Carnivores: Ice Age'' feature the same animals as before but with the inclusion of a few new weapons and creatures to hunt. But maps remain the same as the original, with only minor tweaks to enhance gameplay.

Reception

The iOS version received "generally favorable reviews", while the PC and PSP versions received "mixed or average reviews", according to the

review aggregation A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

. ''Slide to Play'' reviewed the iOS version and criticized the game's difficulty, but stated that, "For the committed mammoth hunter, Carnivores: Ice Age offers a pretty good experience."

References

External links

*{{moby game, id=/carnivores-ice-age 2001 video games Action Forms games Android (operating system) games Beatshapers games Commercial video games with freely available source code First-person shooters Hunting video games Infogrames games IOS games PlayStation Network games PlayStation Portable games Single-player video games Video games developed in Ukraine Video games set in the 22nd century Video games set on fictional planets Windows games WizardWorks games Yeti in fiction