The last time I was hunting dinosaurs was in Nintendo64's Turok The Dinosaur Hunter at a friends house and you herd when you died, first time I was "approached" the screen faded to black as the menu popped up quickly. I suppose since the age range is for the younger audiences (thirteen and up) that the older players are getting a little less from this, but with that being said it's minor enough and if you love Dinosaurs it's not going to bother you long enough to matter. Seeing these extinct creatures and seeing how they react to you, might make you feel like a kid again watching Jurassic Park. The first two maps are an introduction as you earn enough trophy points to move from one to the next, but you learn the quickest with your first Carnivore encounters... if you've ignored tips and hints the game has provided to that point. Learning to stay out of sight and stay down wind as you make next to nothing for noise, using a rifle is risky at this point with the sound of a gun shot drawing attention from Carnivores and other Dinosaurs labeled as Dangerous. It does allow you to pay for alternate weapons, such as a crossbow, a sniper rifle and a pistol, however not being able to take a secondary weapon leaves you at a disadvantage, that would be the weapon you have chosen.
Bonuses, license to collect your trophy and have it added to the trophies collection are nice to have, the only issue I could see being a problem for some is your trophies are all alive. I know some don't think much of this, but to the hunters that kill and collect them that way... I can see how it would take away from the experience. Using the tranquiler option with the intent of collect every last one of them alive seems like a wasted effort, however once the Dinosaur falls to the ground they are still alive, breathing and sedated. I assume it was for the younger demographic, so that death wasn't displayed, it is still satisfying to stand beside them and listen, but even then the sedative doesn't wear off. With no option to swap out non lethal ammunition for the lethal, or even a supply point/drop to continue the hunt, limited ammo makes you use what you have sparingly... trigger happy people won't like how fast that ammo is spent. Now there is a bonus down the road that increases how much ammunition the player can carry, but at least it's there.
One last observation is that carnivores only seem to go after the player, perhaps I haven't caught them running down prey other then my self. It just seems that an island full of carnivorous dinosaurs should be a little more realistic, in the way they hunt and choose like a natural predator should. They rely on scent and if you have a trophy kill the carnivore should naturally go after it... sure you loose the one trophy, but being able to either try to collect the predator, or hide and vanish from that situation should be in the game. It just feels like they left some behaviors out including territorial, the Triceratops is labeled as dangerous as are a few other herbivores in the game. I noticed it whenever I'd get close enough to spook any of them, the instinct to be territorial should be present in these prehistoric creatures!
Final Thoughts:
The game leaves some flaws for enthusiasts of hunting games, but it's an experience I've been looking for since Jurassic Park on the Sega Genesis came out. The series did have a handful of games and even made it onto the Playstation platform at least once, but I was still young and hadn't learned video games based on movies are usually terrible. The experience with Carnivores HD is enjoyable and deserves a score of 8/10, now I would have gave it a 6.5, or 7.0, but the extra point is for the fact that I'm hunting Dinosaurs and I love me some Dinosaurs! So if your a fan of hunting games... I'd suggest try before you buy, but if you are a Dinosaur lover it's a risk worth taking and for less then fifteen dollars on the Playstation Store it's cheap fun.