Console ports to PC are a rocky road. And unfortunately this port doesn't withstand the bumps.
Keep in mind that my typical tastes in FPS's have fallen to games such as Painkiller, Half Life 2, and Prey while I truly enjoy an inventory based sci-fi shooter like S.T.A.L.K.E.R..
That said let's look at the good. Teaming up with Touchstone, Propaganda games put some quality into this game with nice cut scenes and excellent voice acting. The acting talents of Ron Perlman and Donny Wahlberg are without question in my book and they are a credit to this game. I would also list the fast action and surprise factor as positive traits with many instances of being blind sided by fast moving and hard to spot dino's. The voice acting and action do not save this game for me and we must press on to the bad.
Some of these traits could be counted in the good column if they were coupled with a better overall combat style of play. First off is the lack of a comprehensive HUD. Specifically, there is no 'loaded' ammo indicator, no health indicator, no mini-map or radar system, no detection indicator, and a very muddled and limited weapon control system. Overall this left me with the feeling of not knowing where I was and how I was set offensively. I assume this blind HUD system was intended to add some realism to the game making you feel, perhaps, a bit helpless and uneasy. However, I tend to enjoy all the input that a robust HUD offers. If I wanted uneasy realism I would most likely hide in my back yard with a paintball gun and snipe the local thugs or go play FEAR. The weapon accuracy of the automatic weapons in this game can be described as hitting a bee with a gatling cannon. I've never quite experience this level of frustration in aiming except perhaps while aiming in Resident Evil 4 with no mouse support. Waisting an entire clip of ammo on a target and hitting very little is fine if I'm playing a cover based FPS like Gears of War but not here. Granted we have the knife and bow at our disposal but that brings more problems. There is no effective stealth indicator in the game so getting a clear shot off at a stationary target is almost unseen and attempting to one shot a moving target while being sprayed with lead is not within my skill range. The knife could be useful if you can understand the cryptic "what to do" messages while in close combat. I must emphasize that I am solely a PC gamer. I do not play console games and when given the letters A and D on the screen with arrows below them I look at my keyboard in confusion yelling "I am pressing A and D but I'm dying!"
I digress. These last two issues I would consider personal erks and not really valid for all players. One, I consider my game system to be in the moderate range. I have played all the afore mentioned shooters at max settings with no difficulty but in order to get smooth game play and the chance at hitting anything this side of the barn I had to run Turok on low. Yes, I heard the screams of horror out there but I like smooth game play over detail and I'm using a 7900GT, 2GB ram, a Pentium D 930, and a Raptor drive. My last gripe would be the 18GB of HDD space that is required. Even when I did play on high settings I did not see any awe inspiring graphics or extended game play that would constitute this kind of space. I look at a game like Oblivion with hundreds of hours of game play, an immense game world, massive amounts of NPC's and items and I think if they can pack it all into 4.6GB what's the deal with Turok.
Long and short, Turok left me with buyers remorse. This game is and feels like a port. Some console / PC gamers may interact much better with this game and enjoy it more but I did not. Here's hoping for a better PC game future than old news ports.