''Carnivores: Ice Age'' is a

first-person shooter A first-person shooter (FPS) is a video game genre, video game centered on gun fighting and other weapon-based combat seen from a First person (video games), first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action directly through t ...

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

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 programmer Oleg Slusar, executive director Igor Karev, and deputy director Denis Vereschagin. K ...

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 acquire ...

for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

. 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 Era ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterized by the dominance of mammals, insects, birds and angiosperms (flowering plants). It is the latest of three g ...

animals such as

mammoth A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus.'' They lived from the late Miocene epoch (from around 6.2 million years ago) into the Holocene until about 4,000 years ago, with mammoth species at various times inhabi ...

s and

saber-toothed cat Machairodontinae (from Ancient Greek μάχαιρα '' machaira,'' a type of Ancient Greek sword and ὀδόντος ''odontos'' meaning tooth) is an extinct subfamily of carnivoran mammals of the cat family Felidae, representing the earliest ...

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 desig ...

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

and Android devices by Tatem Games, and to

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

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 g ...

animals living in the

Arctic The Arctic (; . ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the North Pole, lying within the Arctic Circle. The Arctic region, from the IERS Reference Meridian travelling east, consists of parts of northern Norway ( ...

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 Pleistocene to the early Holocene. The type and only undisputed member of the genus ...

'', ''

Smilodon ''Smilodon'' is an extinct genus of Felidae, felids. It is one of the best known saber-toothed predators and prehistoric mammals. Although commonly known as the saber-toothed tiger, it was not closely related to the tiger or other modern cats ...

'', and the

woolly rhinoceros The woolly rhinoceros (''Coelodonta antiquitatis'') is an extinct species of rhinoceros that inhabited northern Eurasia during the Pleistocene epoch. The woolly rhinoceros was a member of the Pleistocene megafauna. The woolly rhinoceros was larg ...

. 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 device is a computer small enough to hold and operate in hand. Mobile devices are typically battery-powered and possess a flat-panel display and one or more built-in input devices, such as a touchscreen or keypad. ...

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 and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE). It is the successor to the PlayStation 2, and both are part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. The PS3 was first released on ...

and

under

Beatshapers Beatshapers Ltd. is a Ukrainian video game developer based in Kyiv. It has rebranded and is now known as Fortell Games as of 2022. Fortell Games Fortell Games, Inc. is a Ukrainian-American video game developer based in Kyiv, Ukraine and Santa ...

' 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 and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

website

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

. ''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

* {{Carnivores 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