Very Underappreciated...
Story: There is not much to say really when it comes to the story. You are Turok, a native american space marine who is traveling with Whiskey company to an alien world in search of a war criminal and his rogue company of soldiers of which Turok used to be a part of. this puts Turok on bad terms with many if not all of the crew for obvious reasons. After that their really is not much else storywise apart from being shot down and trying to kill the war criminal and just trying to stay alive.
GAMEPLAY: You will learn as you play that Turok is very handy with a knife and a bow, two weapons which sets the game apart from others. The knife is the most lethal weapon in the game but really can be used as a silent killer or as a last resort, you can just rush the enemy with your knife but you won't last long with more than say three enemy soldiers or dinos to deal with. When you approach an enemy with your knife drawn an icon pops up and Turoks knife raises indicating that he is ready to strike. and when he does he pulls off a great little 3rd person cinematic in which involves Turok slaying a beastie of soldier with brutal efficiency. The problem with the knife kills is that they can be quite hard to pull off on creatures that move quickly which leaves you exposed. The bow is one of my favourate weapons of the game, it is silent and can be a one shot kill for soldiers and dinosaurs if the shot is well placed leaving you with a feeling of sadistic satisfaction as you stand over the corpse of a soldier who has an arrow through the face or perhaps a soldier who is impaled on a tree. Later the bow gains Tek Arrows which brings an explosive solution to any problem! You can also hide in the grass and pick off enemies without giving your position away (for those who scoff at this i say you can because i played a good portion of the game this way). The other weapons of the game are bog standard and some are boring (no exotic traditional Turok weapons, sorry). Some have useful alt fire mods such as the minigun that can deploy as a turret or the shotgun that has a flare launcher which can attract the attention of nearby dinos towards enemies and more importantly, away from you. One problem I do have is that if you are hit by an explosion you end up facing in the direction of the blast and yo can lose your bearing easily if the explasion was behind you.
As you progress through the game you will come across moments where Turok is pounded to the ground and starts to be mauled by a beastie, when this happens icons flash up indicating which trigger or stick you must use in order to fend it off. These moments are easy to deal with but Turok constantly takes damage as he fights so you may have to be quick when this occurs, Turok can also be mauled at random by a pouncing gribly so you need to be on your toes. These moments don't happen very often and the fixed maulings are well placed out and can come at any time and not at the most obvious moments, it really keeps you on your toes.
The game is nicely split up with some buildings with are a stark contrast compared to the exotic exterior. unfortunatly the inside areas can be rather dull and you do find yourself wishing you could be outside fighting dinos.
The soldiers in the game are quite dull and look like the Helgast out of Killzone (without the red eyes) and sound like the Combine out of halflife 2 (the voices can be fairly similar at times).
The enemy AI is quite smart and will try and out flank you, throw grenades when you are in cover, seek cover themselves and snipers never really stay in one place for long. The dinos will out flank you and ambush you if they get a chance and perform hit and run attacks, (one type of dinosaur is a menice for this). One gripe i do have with the AI is that the herbivores don't have any drive for survival and will happily stand still and be mauled by a pack of Raptors which feels rather silly considering how easy it would have been to implement into the game.
The game itself is not very long perhaps taking as little as 7 hours to complete on your first go which is a bit of a disappointment, it could have been a lot longer but then i think of it as quality over quantity. The checkpoints in the game are few and far between and if you mess a bit up you may have to start five minutes back but this usually doesn't happen so you can't really complain. There are four boss fights during the game and they are just right difficulty wise and can be done on two or three attempts.
GRAPHICS. The graphics and effects in the game are impressive altough not the best, the characters are well designed and rendered, so too are the monsters with a good variety of skins and colours. The animation of the Dinos are superb and you do feel a sense of dread when you are being ran down by a Allosaurus or a Tyrannosaurus. The environment looks fantastic and really does feel like a completely hostile planet where anything can jump out at you. The outside areas are varied and each looks great, from the tunnels and fallen trees to the ash wastes and lava fields you really do feel that you have stepped back in time to the age of the Dinosaurs. The buildings are pocketed throughout the game and look a bit like the stuctures from Jurassic Park in many ways but the range of detail is rather lacking in many ways.
The sound in the game is really good, the voice acting is great and the ambient noises from the environment are superb.
CONTROLS: The controls in Turok are good but the layout cannot be changed at all only the up down look and that is it. For a FPS the buttens seem to be muddled and took a while to get used to (Y is crouch for some reason). However I found the sensitivaty to be just right and i can honestly say i don't know why people complain about it.
Multiplayer: Multiplayer revolves around the standard games which you have in all FPS, Deathmatch, CTF, Team Deathmatch, etc are all there and can support up to 16 players a match. This seems really bog standard but it comes with a lethal twist, the maps have a third team... The Dinos. The dinosaurs are AI controled and will attack anyone without prejudice, this is great for those who hate players that camp out with sniper rifles and pick people off (Gears of War anyone?) since players that do camp will find a gribly trying to disembowel him in a short space of time. This added effect makes games fast paced and bloody and it is entertaining watching two players having a knife duel only to be pounced on and duely lacerated by a Dinosaur. The game also supports Co-op online where the games enemies have been ramped up in numbers and difficulty and some added areas have been included for those who play co-op.
CONCLUSION: Overall the game is well made with some great graphics, audio and some memorable moments, with a good multi-player and fairly long, if lack-luster (plot wise) story mode, it makes for a great game overall and is a very underappreciated title. I know it might not be for everyone but if you see the game going cheap second hand it might be worth picking it up.
SCORE - 8'5