Turok

Review by IRaptor IKraine

Turok, one of the best gaming franchises for the Nintendo 64 way back when. I didn't get to play the games after the N64 versions so news of this 360 game got me excited. For me Turok is renowned for its puzzle style, gorefest gameplay. None of this is carried onto this Turok game.

"Story"

The game begins and you are introduced to some of the apparent characters. There is a flashback scene which gives you a back story to the life of Turok. These pop up throughout the game and are indicated by a black and white affect. The stroy is laid out and the team you're with are trying to take down a guy called Kane. The environment you're in at the start (Spaceship) blows up and you have to run through the wreckage of the ship. This section introduces you to some of the controls.

The ship crash lands onto this terraformed planet which is were the 'fun' begins. The story from here is very basic. You meet the various members of the Whiskey company which you're now apart of. Some of them die, which is the best thing about the story. Randomly and out of the blue your fellow team mates will be killed which is actually quite surprising, in some cases.

Without giving too much away this is all the story offers, a few twists and turns in characters losses and monster appearances. The ending of the game is pretty epic but very basic mechanism where you go on a rampage with a boss battles. There is a surprising boss battle at the end of the game that I will not share but it was the highlight of the game.

With the story as weak as it is I'm not really impressed by this. The game offers very little reason for you to go back and play through, unless you like to do the game on hard, which is unlocked after your first play through.

Gameplay

Unfortunately there are very few exciting elements here too. The game offers very basic shooting, a simple run and gun style. The weapons are very few and don't offer a lot of excitement. I wasn't pleased to see that none of the weapons of the previous games made a comeback. I would've loved to have seen the Charge Dart Rifle and Cerebral Bore.

There is however two weapons which add a bit of fun to the game. The classic bow and knife return. The bow requires a charge, if you want to apply more power hold the trigger then release. This, if shot in the correct place, can pin enemies onto walls, boxes and such. This can be quite fun as you can clear a corridor, turn around and see the walls plastered with men hanging from their throats. The knife is the best weapon in the game. You can get close to enemies to execute a special move, this is done by pressing RT when it is displayed on the screen. This activates a cool cutscene where Turok will grab a dino by the throat and slit it or lunge at a dino and ride it eventually taking it down. Although this can be fun, the limited take down animations make it somewhat repetitive. When you're in this process you can still get attacked so it can be quite annoying too.

The controls are easy to use and don't offer any complications but coming back to the RT Special moves they sometimes don't trigger which can be infuriating. All you will get from this game is a simple running through levels and killing a number of enemies, there are a couple of situations where you might actually have to think though.

Graphics and Sound

The menu system in Turok is easy to use and is relatively pleasing. The favoured achievement menu returns, of which I'm really keen of, this tracks all your achievements progress so you know how close you are to achieving it.

This is all the game has that makes it slightly impressive. The game runs on the Unreal engine so you can expect a graphically intense game. The characters models are superb, however at some points the faces seem a little low on detail. The environments are key to setting the mood and they fit the bill perfectly. The jungle looks full of life and offers great vibrant colours and impressive detail. The trees look very good and you can hide from enemies in the grass, however so can they.

The sound is also a good element in the game. The sounds of the guns aren't brilliant but are bearable. The main feature is listening out for the enemies so you know they're nearby. This works really well and the surround sound is top notch.

This is definitely the best feature of the game; however a game cannot work well on good visuals and sounds alone.

Multiplayer

Another unfortunate thing to add to the list. The multiplayer is pretty basic but at least it is there. I personally didn't get very far because 3 of the 3 games I played lagged, now this could have been my end however I haven't experienced it on other games. For this reason I was not keen on the multiplayer. The multiplayer offers a CTF, and deathmatch. There are probably more but that is all I could bare. There are randomly placed dinosaurs which knock you to the ground constantly. I'm not sure why they're there as they offer nothing toward the gameplay.

Conclusion

I have to say this game is average at best and does not deserve to be called Turok. The mediocre story with the mediocre gameplay offers nothing to the gamer. If you want a game that has good graphics but not a lot else this game is for you.