A solid game that brings a few new features to the genre, but has too many failings to be the game it was promised to be
Onto the gameplay. Turoks gameplay offers a few new ideas to the overcrowded and horribly unoriginal FPS genre. For starters we see the return of the Bow and arrow, which though isn't really a new feature to FPS' (having been done in all past Turok games) it is refreshing to see it back and better tha ever in todays next gen cespool of BFG's and automatic rifles, not that there's anything wrong with them, its just that they've been done to death and then kicked a few times. The arrow is essentially your silenced sniper rifle, unless of course you like the explosive tips better. Along with the bow, is the knife, now I know what your saying, "but DiabolicalX, every FPS has a close combat weapon, and it usually is knife", now that is true, but Turok put a cool spin on things, when you kill with the knife you get a neat little cinematic, where Turok repeatedly stabs them or slits their throat or chest or whatever, works with Dino's and Troopers. The other weapons of Turok are fairly standard, you got your SMG, Shotgun, Pulse Rifle, RPG, Sniper etc. But there are a few other cool, dare I say, bad ass weapons, for example the sticky gun, it fires a sticky bomb that explodes when you fire again, dinosaurs are torn to bits and troopers go flying, though the weapon is useless until the later stages of the game, and even then it is hard to aim. Other weapons include the Chaingun, which has the ability to deploy as a handy turret, though it is unlikely to really kill anything unless you put it in a perfect position, and is actually again usless until the later stages of the game. The shotgun has a nice secondary fire that shoots a flare the attracts dinosaurs, fire it into a group of troopers and the dinosaurs will attack, fire it at another dinosaur and those dinosaurs will attack it, it can stick to people, though whenever your offered a shotgun, you tend to be holding a better weapon. The shotguns recoil is also horrible, for some reason they decided to make it rapid fire, which really makes it hard to aim. These weapons are cool, but you'll rarely need them, once you get the pulse rifle there really is no need to swap it for anything. The Extra Dinosaur faction in Turok makes the game really fun, but it makes the enemy soldiers seem really lack luster, which is unfair because they are challenging and have quite good AI, they are constantly tacking cover, re-grouping and trying to flank you, though sometimes they take cover in front of you, though this is probably because they don't see you, rather than because of AI problems. Stealth is another feature of this game, not to the extent of the CRYSIS Nano suit stealth abillity, but sneaking through the grass knifing people is a big part of the game in the early levels, though it is phased out about half way through the game for a standard run and gun approach. These features are neat and hopefully will be polished and re-used in possible sequels and other games to come. One thing I don't understand is how a bow to the chest will kill in one shot, but a shotgun to the chest will only do half damage, o' well.
Onto the graphics and level environments. The graphics in Turok are very well done, the dinosaurs look great, and shooting them will put craters of gore in their bodies, The bigger dinosaurs look epecially cool, the Beast (the second boss) looks very cool and the T-rex is very well designed and it looks even greater when it's chowing down on enemy troopers, or, god forbid, you. The troopers look good. though there is little difference in the different types of troopers, they are still recognisable by the amount of armour they have, for example scouts where light armour and carry SMG's and have blue visors, while Heavy's where tons of green plate armour and carry's a chain gun, it also has a large black visor. For some reason instad of blood on the troopers there are sparks, even when you knife them. Your buddies look like regular action movie soldiers, from the pale gaunt almost Nazi looking Sniper to the Big burly tank top wearing Black machine gunner. There facial expressions are well done and there mouths move to their word pretty well, the real problem with character animation is the hair, though there is a lack of it, the hair problem really only applies to Kane (main bad guy), he had long hair that seems to not re-act to anyhting, bw it wind or movement, occasionally it goes through his neck, which isn't that good. The environmetns are the down side of the graphics, with set pieces being repeated a lot, and there being a distinct lack of freedom of movement, to be honest this game is something of an outdoor corridor shooter. The grass is well donw in some ways, it parts as you move through it and waves in the breeze a bit, but, like many other games, it just doesn't want to break away from bunching them together in a 2D picture, the large plants are another problem, they don't move for you at all, the just go through you when you move to them, which is annoying when a dinosaur bashes you into them, which does happen a lot. The grround lacks a lot of detail and can seem at times that it lacks necessary polygons. Otherwise the graphics are solid, they managed to take the Unreal Engine and not make it look like they just rented it and planted it, they did make ome noticable changes, for example the blood isn't wuite so viscus and bright, and the chracters do have more detail put in them. Water effects are standard, which is okay because there really isn't that much water. The graphics don't let the game down, they just really could have been better.
Onto the characters and story. OK ay there really isn't much to say about the games story, so I'll just say that it is a fairly standard Sci-FI actions story. The characters are also quite run of the mill, they come in several different colours, the angry smart arse, who has a bone to pick with you, who becomes your closest friend later on, the rookie who is always nervous and worried, the friendly corpral who trusted you from the start, the quite Gaunt and weird looking sniper, the crazy Seargent, the no nonsense Lieutenant who gets shot, etc. As the Gamespot review said, this is an action movie blockbuster game, the voice acting is good, my favourite being Ron Perlman who voices Slade, you may remember him as the smart arse merc from Alien Resurrection, who is constantly pissing of everyone especially wheel chair dude. He actually has the exact same type of character to play in this game, which, as funny as it is, is kind of sad.
Turok is a good game, which could have been so much more, I think its failing was hype, there was so much hype around this game it wasn't funny, it suffered the same fate as Kane and Lynch, though not on the same scale, it had so much hype, that no matter how good it was it would come under more scrutiny than any other game released at the same time.
Antoher problem was the difficulty, now I love a challenge, but they really over did it in Turok, Checkpoints are way to far apart, there are way to many enemies shooting at only you and you hav way to little health considering, there is also a considerable lack of cover, and you can still be shor and killed even when your in a dino mauling cinematic. You'll often play through an entire level again after dying at the end of it.