Review: Turok - PC, PS3, Xbox 360 - 7.5

Turok has quite a history, being known for its great console shooter installments and legendary cerebral bore. So, it suffices to say that a lot of gamers were excited when a next-generation Turok was announced for consoles and the PC. But, can it live up to its predecessors while at the same time competing with industry shooter giants?

There\'s no more time-traveling in Turok, and the story is very much sci-fi convention. It plays like a movie with tons of action and plot twists. You play as Joseph Turok, a Native American warrior who is sent with soldiers to hunt down a rogue military company of which he used to be a member. If you\'re looking for a deep story, shy away from Turok. All you do is crash on the planet, find survivors, find a radio, and eventually escape the planet. The one interesting thing is that the planet has been made into a laboratory where evolution has been sped up. Unfortunately, in typical fashion, the purpose and creators of this planet remain mysterious for further installments. The majority of the game takes place in jungle environments and some indoor areas.

The majority of the game, in typical Turok fashion, has you fighting dinosaurs. If you\'re a big fan of dinosaurs, there\'s plenty of varieties of lightning-quick raptors, docile vegesauruses, and, the mighty Tyrannosaurus Rex (a boss).

There are no surprises in Turok\'s arsenal, you get your standard pulse rifle, shotgun, machine gun, rocket launcher, and more. Taking a page out of Halo, you can only carry two weapons but you can also dual wield. Ironically, the best weapon is your trusty knife. There are several cinematic action sequences where you have to hit a certain button to execute a cool kill move. Unfortunately, if you use the knife a lot as I found myself doing, the animations tend to repeat depending on the type of dino you\'re fighting.

The majority of the game has some solid shooting gameplay, but there are dissapointments that bring them down. The mandatory evil humans just take away from the fun of fighting dinosaurs. Their AI is weak when fighting at distances and can\'t melee you up close. Some sequences and boss fights are dragged out for far too long and get rid of any sense of accomplishment. Checkpoint saves are also few and far between. The game runs about 10 hours, but a lot of that can result from the repetition of difficult settings.

The graphics are ok for a UE3 game. The Jungle environments are definitely nothing great compared to Crysis. Textures seem messed up. Granted, there are some great animations, particularly when dinosaurs lie twitching to death on the ground.

Multiplayer adds the standard DM, TDM, and CTF options. But, dinosaurs spice up most of the matches. There\'s also a handful of co-op missions that let you tackle some side quests. Co-op supports up to 4 players, and the action is a lot more intense than in regular single-player because the number of enemies and dinosaurs have been ramped up considerably. No one\'s playing online though.

Turok is essentially about battling dinosaurs and there\'s not much more to it. The rest of the game just gets forgotten and the plot is just average.

Gameplay: 8 - Standard gameplay, but the knife is fun to play around with.
Presentation: 7.5 - Story is simply like a Hollywood-summer blockbuster, predictable. PC version feels blatantly like a console port.
Graphics: 7 - Not the worst looking UE3 game, it does have some decent jungle scenes.
Sound: 7.5 - Ok voice-acting. Dinosaurs sound like dinosaurs?
Value: 7.5 - Ok campaign. Multiplayer doesn\'t stand out above the crowd.

Final Score: 7.5 - Turok succeeds at giving you dinosaurs to blast, stab, and choke. But, it doesn\'t do much else.

Marcin Skok
Editor-in-Chief
"The Gaming Corner"