Turok
February 10,2008 - He’s standing right there. Who is he? A Mendel-Gruman soldier, completely unaware of your presence. You’re packing a shotgun and a pulse rifle you picked up from a fallen enemy, but you decided to take care of his silently, so you turn to your bow. Just as you set up for the kill, some noise comes from the jungle cover and out pops a vicious raptor. As the raptor attempts to shred apart the solider, other MGs open fire on the beast. You just got an advantage, because now you can use the shotgun’s flare to lure the beast towards your enemies and have it kill them, simply so you can kill the beast with only your knife. That is one of the many situations you could get yourself into in Turok, but unfortunately, it doesn’t quite get as exciting as it could.

Obviously, you play as Joseph Turok, but this new title doesn’t follow any previous storylines, in either video games or comics. As a former black ops commando in the Wolfpack, you are now a part of Whiskey Company, an elite special forces squad. Your goal is to take down your former mentor, Roland Kane, but your mission takes your to a planet full of dinosaurs and genetically altered insects. Along the way, you realize what is really going on and it takes all you have in order to survive.

Throughout the course of the game, the story plays out pretty decently, with blatant melodramatic points, but the mentioned problem is that it never gets overly exciting or exhilarating. It starts off slow and never truly picks up. Granted, there are points that can get intense and provide a decent amount of fun, but it doesn’t match up with other first-person shooters out there. Still, the context makes it a pretty good time, it just doesn’t impress as much as others.

Turok handles pretty well. Leaping over the back of a dinosaur and slicing its throat always gives off a sense of reward, but it is even better when you kill 5 dinosaurs in a row with your knife. Sticking an MG soldier to a wall with an arrow also provides a good amount of pleasure. And no, we’re not sadistic bastards, because you’ll find it fun too.The weapons fire normally and have a good hit detection. Range and accuracy are also incredibly high, especially with the bow and pulse rifle. Keep in mind, though, it doesn’t make the game incredibly easier. There are a few points where you may be throwing the controller down a small fit of rage as you are presented with too much. The only problems we had with any weapon were with the turrets. They jammed up a bit too quickly, but the trick is to fire bursts rather than continuous fire. All the carry-around weapons have an alternative fire, which was great to see. The shotgun, as mentioned, has an unlimited amount of flares stocked into it, but one of the greatest alternates is the flamethrower’s napalm grenade. You’ll get some great use out of this when facing insects.

The AI handles better than most games, thankfully, but there are some weak points. The game speaks truth when it says they will flank you because, well, they will. If you pay too much attention to one guy firing from behind a box, you could fall victim to the MG soldier coming up on your left side, or the one who climbs up to a turret and fires down upon you. The dinosaurs won’t do this as much, but the insects have their own methods. Razorwings, surprisingly lethal flying creatures, will hunt you down to no end, so you really have to take advantage of turrets and chain guns. But like we said, there are some weak spots. Sometimes sneaking up on an MG is incredibly too easy. There were numerous times when we actually crossed into the soldier’s peripheral vision, only to go unnoticed and stab them in the back. Dinosaurs are a bit jumpy when attacking you, especially the T-Rex. It may be looking one way, but suddenly you’ll find yourself knocked down and soon in the dinosaur’s mouth. Not cool.

We would have liked to see a bit more variety of weapons, but with the ones at your disposal, it gives you a decent amount of choices for how to use them. When infiltrating a base, you can take advantage of gas tanks littering certain spots. Or when you are down in the caves, you can use the gas spewing out of the ground to set fire and blow up your enemies. If you’re running low on ammo, try to find some ladders or other high points to get the drop on your enemy and knife them. But if you’re stuck between some dinosaurs and MG’s, there is no better choice than the shotgun flare. Use the flare to take the attention off of you, giving you a small window to find some cover. But even that presents some problems, primarily the lack of a sprint. Including it wouldn’t have made the game too easy; rather, it would have made the game a bit more enjoyable. But it is truly a pain to try to “run” away from a T-Rex in pursuit.

An essential standard for bigger FPS titles, Turok supports up to 16 players for online combat. All your classic modes are here: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, CTF, and so on. There is also a separate co-op option that takes advantage of three maps. The other online modes will have you compete on 7 maps. It may take you a little while to get into a game, but once you do it gets fun but nothing to dump Call of Duty 4 for. You may also be met with some lag, but that is not a guarantee. The new missions for co-op is great to see, but at the end of the day, there are still only three missions.

Turok is pretty impressive graphically, but mostly with standing models. The characters look great and their mouths move well with the words being spoken, but there were a few points where textures failed to pop up on dinosaurs and different environments for a noticeable amount time. The game also looks a bit odd when standing too close to some surroundings, once again leading to the “not as impressive as…” argument. Turok’s sound, though, is noticeably better. It has to be, in all honesty, because you must listen for noises in the jungle in order to survive well enough. The voice acting is good, with only some melodramatic lines bringing it down. Surprisingly, it is somewhat star-studded. Ron Perlman, no stranger to games, voice Slade, but Timothy Olyphant (of Hitman film “fame’), William Fichtner and Donnie Wahlberg also lend their voices to the cause.

So while this Turok may not be of the same quality of Turok: Dinosaur Hunter on the Nintendo 64, but it will leave you will an enjoyable experience. Still, dinosaur throat-slitting can only go so far, and that along with some other cool features isn’t enough to warrant a definitive purchase. It is worth your time, however, so give it a shot if you can.

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