Title Turok Date 02.18.2008 Genre FPS Platform PlayStation 3 Developer Propaganda Games Publisher Touchstone

Ah, yes. Dinosaurs. Guns. Shooting dinosaurs with guns. Seriously, what's not to love? Touchstone and Propaganda games seems to think that way as well, so out comes Turok, a next-gen re-imagining of the classic Nintendo 64 franchise. To tell you the truth, I didn't really have much playtime with the original Turok games (I charge 5 bucks for every Virtual Console game idea, Nintendo), but I did buy Turok: Evolution when it came out for GameCube. Let's just say that it involved a cybernetic civil war general riding a dinosaur and that it went back to the store about a week later. Anyway, with my super sexy PS3 staring me in the face, I decided to give this new Turok game a chance. Shooting dinosaurs, people, come on!! However, can the new Turok still stand tall in an overcrowded FPS market that includes Halo 3, Call Of Duty 4, and The Orange Box?

JURASSIC STORY
In Turok, you play as… Joseph Turok! Basically the Native American version of John Rambo, Turok is currently on a spaceship as a member of Whisky Company, a group of well-armed commandoes. Their mission is to apprehend Roland Kane, who is in command of a paramilitary force and currently holed up on a backwater planet many light years away from Earth. Kane also happens to be the former leader of Wolf Pack: a special black ops group that Turok also used to be a part of, pretty much making Kane his former mentor. While flying over the planet, Whiskey Company's ship is shot down by Kane's forces and violently crashes on the surface. As Turok gets out of the flaming wreckage, it becomes clear that Kane and the paramilitary force scientists have genetically enhanced and terraformed the planet, causing it to become one huge jungle. So not only do Turok and Whiskey Company have to deal with Kane's forces, they have to deal with the dinosaurs and other nasty beasties that now inhabit the planet. I suppose as the cliché line goes: “The hunt is on!”

While Turok and Kane's backstory isn't all that interesting and doesn't really play that much into the game until the end, Whisky Company's fight for survival may just keep you going, thanks to some pretty cool characters. You may find yourself caring just a little bit for these guys as their numbers start dwindling down and the odds become increasingly stacked against them. Thankfully, Turok does, in fact, have their back…

JURASSIC GAMEPLAY
Turok controls pretty much like every other shooter out there: fire, alternate fire, crouch, move, turn, d-pad weapon select, blah, blah, blah. Shooter veterans should have no problems…plus no one really has a choice since Turok only has ONE control scheme that you can't customize. This is 2008, people, I should be able to fully customize my FPS controls.

Turok's weapon system is pretty similar to EA's Goldeneye: Rouge Agent. Turok has access to weaponry such as machine guns, shotguns, and pistols. He can also use heavier weapons such as pulse rifles, flamethrowers, chain guns, RPGs, and the very cool sticky bomb gun. Turok can duel wield any combination of the shotguns, machine guns, pistols, and sticky bomb guns to help him deal out the damage to the baddies. Each gun in the game also has a pretty cool alternate fire that Turok can utilize, like the machine gun's silencer and pistol's three round burst. Some cooler alternate fires include the sticky bomb gun's minefield creator and the chain gun's auto-turret mode. However, the most useful alternate fire would have to be the shotgun's flare launcher, as the flare can be used to lure dinosaurs away from Turok or even to lure them to a group of human enemies so that they can do the work for you. It's pretty cool to watch a pack of Velociraptors snack on the unsuspecting fools. Turok also carries with him at all times his two favorite weapon choices for stealth kills: bow and arrows and a knife. The bow can fire either normal arrows or explosive ones when equipped, and can be zoomed in for a more accurate shot. You hold down the fire button to ready the arrow, then you just aim at what you want dead and release the fire button. The arrow will have more of an impact the longer you hold the fire button, which could cause the arrow to pin an enemy against a wall. With the knife equipped, Turok can do normal knife swipes with the alternate fire button, but the real fun comes with the fully animated stealth kills. Just get close enough to an enemy and hit the R2 button when the icon shows up on screen and Turok will gut his foes with extreme prejudice. The animations when killing human enemies may not be that exciting, but Turok's vicious slaughtering of dinosaurs is definitely something to behold. It's not everyday that you play a game where the main character walks casually up to a Velociraptor and stabs it repeatedly in the head or jumps on its back to slits its throat. All in all, weapons are neat and knife kills kick ass.

Turok mostly takes place in the jungles of the planet, occasionally going underground through caves or through the bases that Kane's forces have set up throughout the jungles. Besides some branching paths you could use to flank enemies and such while fighting them in the jungles, Turok is unfortunately a linear affair. Your main opposition will come from Kane's forces who come at you fully armored and come in such flavors as the machine gun guy, the shotgun guy, the chain gun guy…well, you get the idea. Unfortunately, no amount of cool weaponry can save your enemies from their extreme stupidity. The basic rules of FPS stupid AI apply here: stand out in the open, never take cover, and never notice that the guy who was just walking beside you just got an arrow through his back. Of course, what's the best way to compensate for terrible FPS enemy AI? Say it with me kiddies: make all of them have superhuman accuracy! Don't you just love it when you take cover behind a tree, then stick your head out just a teeny-weeny bit to try to get a shot off just to have every machine gun bullet that your enemy is firing at you from five miles away magically find themselves lodged in your head area. I though I was playing a Medal of Honor game circa 2003 a couple of times, but then I remembered there were no dinosaurs on Normandy. Thankfully, your ally AI fares a little better. For most of the game, one or more members of Whisky Company accompany Turok, and they do help kill enemies and take care of themselves pretty well.

Now comes the second half of Turok's opposition, the dinosaurs and other nasty beasties that now roam the planet. You've got your Velociraptors, your T-Rex, your…smaller dinosaurs, your…bigger dinosaurs (sorry, I don't know all their names), and you even get giant scorpions and some really annoying flying bugs to contend with. Most of the time you'll be fighting against packs of Raptors, which can lead to some pretty intense confrontations. They will come at you at very fast speeds, circling you and using the jungle terrain to their advantage. Dinos will usually attack by knocking Turok on his ass then going in for the kill with a neat animation. When this happens, you'll have to fight off the dinosaur by pressing the buttons that flash on-screen as fast as you can. Succeed and Turok will use his knife to fight off the dinosaur or, in the case of some smaller dinos, break their backs like so…with his KNEE! There were also some parts in the game where dinos would just jump on Turok out of nowhere, sometimes scaring the crap out of me. You may also think that you could just bust out the knife and one-hit kill every oversized lizard that comes your way, but that doesn't always work, since dinos are pretty fast and you can't even use the knife against some of the bigger ones. Hands down, the best parts in Turok come from fighting the prehistoric monsters. Whether it's running through the jungles fighting off packs of raptors or mowing down giant scorpions in a cave with a flamethrower, these are some pretty exciting game moments.

So what could go wrong with such a game? Well for one, the difficulty in Turok fluctuates between “easy-going and OK” to “dear god this is so frustratingly difficult I want to tear my own head off and kick it around my house a little!” Seriously, one minute you'll be fighting 2-3 Raptors and maybe 5 or so human enemies in the jungles and everything is going smoothly, then the next minute you're at one of their bases fighting off a platoon of stupid enemy soldiers with inhuman accuracy killing you all the time. The whole game is mostly half an hour of decent FPS difficulty followed by a soul-crushingly difficult “dear god, why?” segment. It doesn't help that the game uses a checkpoint system that usually places checkpoints too far apart from each other. This same frustration occurs during the boss battles as well, as the game gives you NO clues on how to really beat any of them. Really, how was I supposed to know that once I got that T-rex on the ground I had to equip my knife and run right at its face to perform a stealth kill? Fights against giant robotic spider-tanks and giant mutant eels may also cause broken controller syndrome. Finally, in a game where your enemies include fast-moving dinosaurs, Turok move pretty slowly and there in no sprint button. Believe me, you will be wishing for a sprint button during the final boss fight…

Turok also features a pretty decent online multiplayer mode. It features the usual suspects: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture The Flag, etc. There are several maps to choose from with their own weapon sets to use for up to 12 players online. One neat twist to these games is that dinosaurs and scorpions are also let loose on these maps to provide even more opposition to your human opponents. Online also features a co-op mode for four players, which is basically just getting from one end of the map to the other while taking out AI controlled human enemies and beasties. Unfortunately, there are only three co-op maps, so I doubt most people will be doing them for very long. Turok also supports online leaderboards and your PSN friends list, but doesn't support voice chat. Overall, a nice diversion if you want to take a break from Warhawk or COD4.

JURASSIC GRAPHICS
Turok runs on the Unreal Engine 3 and is probably the best use of it on the PS3 since Epic's own Unreal Tournament 3. The jungle environments are lush and green, pretty to look at and highly detailed. Dinosaurs are also very detailed and nicely animated; seeing the T-rex for the first time may cause some “oohs” and “awes”. Weapon effects are nice and character models are decent. Dinosaurs bleed a whole lot when knife-killed or fired upon (it's especially cool to blow them to pieces with a sticky bomb), but for some odd reason, human enemies never bleed. Humans in Turok-land seem to bleed sparkles instead. Overall though, pretty impressive.

However, there are some scratches on the surface. Some websites say the PS3 version of this game has serious problems. I consider serious problems to include the game freezing every five minutes or your PS3 blowing up halfway through the game. Turok includes none of these, but it does have some problems. There are some ugly textures and bland environments, mostly when going through caves or enemy bases. The framerate can stutter every once in a while, but it's nothing too serious. There is also some screen tearing, but it's mostly noticeable during the game's cut-scenes, which are done using the in-game engine. For the most part, though, Turok is a nice looking game.

JURASSIC SOUND
Turok features some mighty impressive sound design, especially if you have a surround system. Sounds of the jungle come through every channel, and can help you pinpoint the location of stalking dinosaurs. Dinosaurs, by the way, sound awesome with their roars and grunts and such. Weapons and effects get the job done as well. The orchestrated music score is also pretty good. Turok also features some stellar voice acting from Hollywood talent such as Ron “Hellboy” Perlman, Timothy “Hitman” Olyphant, and Donnie “New Kid On The Block” Wahlberg. I will say though, that whoever plays the Whisky Company sniper Reese sounds like he's about to fall asleep for the next thirty years. A very solid effort overall.

SHOULD JUR-ASS-IC PLAY THIS GAME?
Multiplayer may hook you, but as for single-player replayability you unlock the extra hard “inhuman” difficulty after beating the 10-15 hour game on normal mode. The game also features accomplishments you can earn by doing certain things in the game (pinning an enemy to a wall with an arrow, not using the shotgun during a section of the game), however, I don't believe you earn anything by getting all of them, other than bragging rights.

Turok is a fun shooter that, despite an uneven difficulty, dumb enemy AI, and some graphical issues, should at least be given a try, especially if you're a fan of blowing away something other than human enemies. Will it replace COD4, The Orange Box, or Halo 3 anytime soon? Hell no. But it's still a very solid rental title for fans of the genre.

KEWL
+Nice jungle environments
+Weapons are fun to use
+Knife kills are awesome
+Dinosaurs look great and are highly detailed
+Pretty fun online multiplayer mode
+Great sound and voice acting
+Some replay value

LAME
-Bland non-jungle environments
-Mostly dull story
-Dumb enemy AI
-Uneven difficulty levels
-Checkpoints sometimes placed to far apart from each other
-Boss fights are frustrating
-Some graphical and framerate issues

Game Score

B-

Reviewed By: Eliot Ballade