Review – Turok (PC)
- Ethan Cole

RUNDOWN
If nostalgia isn’t enough for you FB's, the prospect of killing dinosaurs oughta be.

STORY
There's no real story worth mentioning, you're Turok some guy with some shady past sent to kill Kane; a Sam Fisher/Ethan Thomas hybrid who evidently trained you.  There are dinosaurs and soldiers; you kill them all with an assortment of weapons while learning about Turok's past – which incidentally, everyone (Turok included) seems to know, the only snippets revealed serve to inform the player; thus has little bearing on anything.

PRESENTATION/GRAPHICS
This is a console port.  Evident in many ways, especially the menus and quick time button mashing events; which don’t translate too well to the PC; they work, but it feels foreign (though no where near as awkward as Indigo Prophecy).  Additionally, there is a single save – based on checkpoints (regardless of where one saves), but replaying a chapter is accessible through the load menu.

Turok follows the Riddick style of switching from first to third person for mundane events without a logical reason, but it’s far less jarring.  It's stupid for something as trivial as climbing a damn ‘ladder’, but it's easy to see why they did it for the knife kills.  The blood splatter looks nice, not the best, but nice.

The facial animation is surprisingly good, with characters evoking the needed grimace or panic – there isn’t much a range in regards to the script, but what’s here is gets the job done.  The dinosaur animations aren’t bad either, with each species moving in a unique fashion.

It's also obvious that this is the Unreal engine, through the look of the ships and armor.  However the graphics aren’t necessarily up to snuff with one might expected of a next-gen title; it’s serviceable but tends to resemble an arcade shooter at times – particularly the muzzle flashes and flare-balls.

The in game cutscenes are fine, despite yanking control away from the player; this nothing new – and if you could tolerate it in titles like Gears of War, it shouldn’t be a problem here; and at least they’re not trying to make some lame attempt at a ‘scare’.  The flashbacks on the other hand look fairly mediocre; the grain effects and the whole flashback-look is serviceable, but it’s a bit blocky and pixilated; on the low fidelity side.  Further, for cutscenes to activate (cueing the next objective) you have to hit a specific mark, rather than just activating when the action is complete; killing all the enemies in sight doesn’t cut it, so more often than not you can end up running around like cock on a nude German skydiver.

Levels feel repetitive; almost all similar either being caves, a jungle or some base.  There’s not much variety – made more annoying when bearings are lost.  The levels tend to feel like it’s trying to veer out of the box of a corridor shooter, but it’s still stuck within that framework, as there’s a false sense of open space.  Towards the latter portion of the game, a few of the levels begin to look distinctively interesting; but this is only because they’re a welcome change from the endless caverns and jungle previously trampled.

The load times are fairly long when it comes to restarting a checkpoint, but at least there’s something spinning to indicate the game hasn’t crashed.  As for stability, there’s the occasional stutter where the framerate drops by half; screen tearing in a few instances; sometimes objectives won’t activate requiring restart from the most recent checkpoint; and the odd enemy warping like something out of a high latency multiplayer match. 

GAMEPLAY
Lots of guns, lots of shooting and a nice mix and match combination of weapons; akimbo: shotgun in one hand, machine-gun in the other.   The assorted weapons are the regular and expected run of the mill expected from this style of sci-fi shooter.

Flashes of Rambo, the bow is a nice weapon; the explosives in particular.  The aim mechanic is interesting; holding the right mouse button, it rotates to range stance, hold fast, staggering until ready to be released.  An ideal tool for long range stealth kills – provided ranged right.  The bow can be quick fired if there’s an enemy closing in too quickly – just don’t expect it to pack as much punch as a lead wad (unless you’ve fired off an explosive).

The knife, this is your friend.  It’s a friend that can kill instantly and save you from the jaws of death.  Additionally this friend is impervious to stain; a special stainless-steel uber-alloy that never gets pitted with scratches or splotches of blood.  Its instant kill is effective, but almost too effective – granted the ability to just knife the shit out of almost anything that comes your way, sequentially.  This is a friend that’s not replaceable with a bullet, regardless of how repetitive the animations may become.  Note: This friend is best suited for dealing with dinosaurs, as unlike soldiers, they don’t stop you with bullets.

“Shift” (default) is a modifier; holding it down and clicking the left mouse button (default fire) either results in an alternate fire for some weapons; for others it switches ammo or attaches a silencer etc; whilst clicking the right mouse button throws a grenade.  It’s unfamiliar, but it gets the job done.

Mostly unseen in an FPS; a jump-doge of sorts, regardless if crouched or standing, moving left or right (holding the key down) and pressing jump will result in Turok diving in said direction.  This isn’t a John Woo inspired moment.  It’s merely an evasion to keep your balls attached, and to this effect it works.

The enemy AI is fairly retarded, but when you can gut a chain of them in a row, after a while it just becomes dumb fun only if you have nothing better to do; perfect for killing time... that is until the novelty wears off.  The ally AI of squad mates tend to fair better; they can hold their own and wont die – they’ll just remain on all fours until you’ve killed the enemies in the vicinity.

Turok isn’t a difficult game but there are a few things that create problems resulting in an at times tedious experience.  For one, the “bosses” are pretty boring, despite their scale; mostly consisting of ‘keep shooting until they go down’ or pattern recognition. Whilst mechanically this isn’t anything new – it’s just not engaging.  And the final fight with Kane isn’t a fight or battle: it’s a quick-time event (reminiscent of Resident Evil 4).  The battle with the Sea Monster was another disappointment; at least Turok could’ve pulled some Beowulf-lite shit.  The knife and the third person mechanic would’ve been a perfect finisher for most battles, but the only time it comes close to being implemented is with the T-Rex; they’ve got the right idea here but never take it far enough to become satisfying.

Whilst the game is linear it’s easy to get lost and lose one’s bearings.  The objective information is vague “Find X” and navigation reticule is fairly useless – disappearing as soon as it thinks you’ve reached the needed waypoint. There was one section that yielded promise conceptually; a mission where you’re to head towards a column of smoke, but the levels are dispersed in such a way – geometry obstacles giving the illusion of a greater space.

AUDIO
The B-movie dialog is appropriate for the package, consisting of your usual gravely voice dudes.  However almost all the voices sound the same and scream the same thing; regardless of whether they’re friend or foe.  Despite the talent featured it ends up a gravely voice contest, thankfully there’s enough personality to prevent it from being dull.

The guns and explosions are serviceable, nothing special, although the shotgun sounds pathetic; effectively: a glorified flare gun.  The same with the music; it serves to get the action going and it does the job.  The dinosaurs sound like rabid animals; a little to Earthly-zoo in some instances, given it’s another planet some poetic license is warranted – and perhaps more could have been done.

WRAP UP
Turok; a dumb run and gun semi-fun shooter best enjoyed in short bursts; the novelty wears off fast.  If you’ve nothing better to do and want a dumb-as-nails shooter that provides some mild entertainment; this is worth the rental; for consoles.  There are far superior shooters for PC gamers.

Rating: 6.0/10
Cumjackulation Rating: 7.0/10
(ratings explained)