For a game world that runs in your web browser, it's big enough to feel fairly vast. I actually have fun just driving around in the setting they've created, which is filled with scenic vistas...



...lush green palm forests...



...rolling hills...



...and the occasional hidden wonder.



That's right, I've taken too many damn screen shots. But you know what? The game is so pretty it's hard to pick just one, so sue me. Seriously, if you go play this only to drive around and explore, I'll understand where you're coming from.

Perhaps it's that the environmentalist in me misses those days when I was younger, when I owned the Toyota that got 40+ miles to the gallon, when gas was 87¢ and I'd never even considered so much as the concept of peak oil.  Back then, I would sometimes drive around all day through the mountains just for the hell of it and to see what I could see.

But I always stayed on the pavement!

And I never hit any dinosaurs. Honest.

I suspect these guys won't release any more driving games, but if they do, I'll buy them, because their worlds are pretty and their jeeps are intuitively easy to drive with my cursor keys. (Note to the Flashbang Gang: other prehistoric settings are fine, as would be various exotic locales, as would exploring the moon or Mars, preferably based on actual satellite/lander image data from NASA!)

When you launch the game, you have 240 seconds of playtime. Yes, sadly, only four minutes, though they have teased us with the concept of a downloadable version with more features.  Dad says, "We'll see."  Until that day comes, you have to decide what to do with those four minutes they're giving you.

The first few times you play you'll invariably just find it amusing to murder lots of raptors and send their feathers flying (yes, feathers) (and it's worth it to follow this link, wherin they explain why the raptors have feathers... these guys aren't just good at making games, they're also great at writing press releases and are almost convincing in their assertions that their games support—and are supported by—science.)

Next, you might play a game or two to collect the shiny, candy-like orbs (there are over a hundred, and the game keeps track of which ones you've found for the first time from one game to the next).

At that point you may, as I did, read some more of any of the "rules" and figure out that you're supposed to send the raptors into the future for use as taco meat, using the glowing transporters (apropos of nothing, ORVS reminded me a great deal of Nanosaur II: Hatchling, but maybe that's just because it's lush and green and OMG DINOSAURS).

Then in the next game you'll figure out that not only can you pick up the dead raptor corpses using your spiked ball and chain in order to drag them over to the transporters, but you can also do fancy moves wherein you clothesline the raptor with the chain. Then you'll figure out that you can hit one raptor hard enough to make it fly through the air so that it hits a second raptor, wherein you get Raptor On Raptor points...

...and maybe then you'll realize that the designers have come up with all sorts of stupid achievements, and that if you've registered your e-mail address (which, coincidentally, they have yet to abuse by sending me a single piece of junk e-mail) they keep track of all the stupid things you've done, so that you can look at your accomplishments and say to yourself, "Self? You haven't yet won an award for throwing your chain ball over 100m to hit a raptor. I have no idea how we do that, but by golly lets try it!"

Let us not even get into the fact that some people on the Leaderboard have somehow managed to get their jeep airborne long enough and lucky enough to strike one of the occasional and elusive pteranodons that soar through the game world.

First, the part about the game being forgiving. It's fairly impossible to put the game in an unwinnable state. Wait, what am I saying? There is no win or lose, but I guess what I mean is that I almost made my jeep undrivable by rolling it onto its top—which was really difficult, I might add—but I finally figured out how to turn the greasy-side of the jeep down again by popping the back door open and ejecting the raptor-grabbing chain.

Basically, you get points for everything in this game. The more you "screw up," the more points they give you. Slam your jeep into a tree at full speed, thus damaging your hood? 1,100 points. Ram a second tree, thus making the hood fly off entirely? 4,250 points. Accidentally send your car over the cliff while hitting a raptor?  No problemo... let's just give you... lessee... hows about 1,500 for the roadkill, 4,750 for your 55.7m jump, and 19,250 for the 3.3 seconds that the raptor was airborne?  Sound good?

Right now the game is what company founder Matthew Wegner considers "casual."  While it might not be the typical fare of the "casual" demographic (middle aged women), the game is simple, short, and it can't be put into a fail state.  Wegner admits that "it'd be easy to produce [ORVS] into a hardcore game [by adding] an upgrade path, some missions, multiple enemies, and more play space."  He states that this "hard-core complexity" would "close off the game's accessibility" from the casual player.  While that may be true, it would also give the game more depth.  As they evaluate their current titles, deciding which one they might want to expand into a larger game with more complexity, this would be the best of their current candidates.  If they want to keep it open to casual gamers, put in some of those ever-popular Zen Modes that, um, let you kill smaller dinosaurs that don't run in a zig-zag pattern, and leave the enraged triceratops for the rest of us to finish off with our tanks.

As for challenging, see the previous section where I discuss all the stupid achievements you can accrue, until such time as the game sees further development and I can use a man-portable air-defense system, also known as MANPADS, to blow pterodactyls from the sky.

Also, I just like to say, "MANPADS," because that's funny.  Speaking of funny, my last point:

On its face, I realize it's a bit of a paradox, a tree hugging liberal with a bent for social change such as myself giving a positive review of a game in which, as Wegner puts it, you drive "for miles across the plains and through the jungles of the Cretaceous, perpetrating the kind of mass genocide that only a gas-powered off-road vehicle can deliver." But for some reason, it is amusing and fun.

I suppose it's because it's set in the Cretaceous, the animals are already long-ago extinct, they're hilarious when they run away from you, they squak hilariously when you hit them, and they're hilarious as they fly through the air after you make contact.  Even after many playthroughs, something new always seems to pop up... the raptor you chase in slow repetitive circles until you finally tap its hand with your sideview mirror, thus killing it... the raptor who tries to hide between two rocks thinking your jeep can't drive between them (oh, but it can!)... or that first time when you manage to hit multiple birds in very quick succession.