PRIMAL RAGE

PRIMAL RAGE (Atari Games, price varies) It's hard to say what's more remarkable about this fighting contest: its immense 3-D-rendered dinosaur combatants or the fact that it marks the return to arcade prominence of Atari Games, which had been made nearly extinct by the likes of Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter II. True, the controls here are not as precise as they could be, but Primal Rage still represents a de-evolutionary leap over the competition. With its 33-inch monitor, eye-popping Ray Harryhausen-like animation, and gore-shutoff switch, this game is to other arcade games what a brontosaurus is to an iguana. A- -Bob Strauss