Turok Review

If there's one aspect of Turok that shines, it would have to be its choice of cool weapons. The developers divided your arsenal into equipment used for silent kills and those suited for plain-old guns-blazing FPS-style action. They've successfully balanced the game, so players will find themselves resorting to both of these styles of play. The bow and arrows provide an excellent ranged method of killing your opponents. Whereas the knife (evidently Turok's favorite weapon) allows your character to sneak up on unwary foes and execute them swiftly and without drawing the attention of other sentries in the area. There's also a huge number of available combinations in terms of dual-wielding -rifle/shotgun, dual pistols, etc. One of the cooler combos is a shotgun in one hand and a special mini grenade launcher. You can use the grenade launcher to fire sticky bombs that attach to foes (or to quickly create an improvised minefield), while brandishing the shotgun for close encounters. More weapons are included: snipers, rocket launchers, plasma rifles, etc. Take your pick.

If you're expecting top-notch visuals, Turok will be a letdown. Fair enough, most of the outdoor areas look okay and are filled with a decent amount of objects and foliage. Looking a bit closely though, one tends to notice a range of poorly textured surfaces and general lack of detail that could've brought the game closer to modern-day visual standards. It just seems a bit bland on occasion. Not to mention that certain indoor sections made me feel like I was playing the first Halo on the original Xbox.

The multiplayer in Turok, which we thoroughly experienced before the game's release, is another point of Turok which deserves praise. You can enjoy seven maps and a variety of weapons that are on offer. Deathmatch, CTF are included, of course, in addition to online co-op. The bad news is that although gamers may have fun playing any type of multiplayer match they prefer, there's really nothing out of the ordinary to be had here. Even the co-op isn't as fun as was promised initially.

That's just the whole problem with Turok. Plenty of features were thrown in, but were never made to truly shine. There are even a few boss fights, such as facing a colossal T-Rex and a huge spider-like tank. Both seem underwhelming - the T-Rex is defeated too easily, once you learn where to hide and how to kill it. Hardly what I'd call epic. A similar thing can be said for the tank scene.

It often appears good gameplay mechanics and a few neat ideas have simply gone to waste, due to hasty programming, run-of-the-mill story ideas and the fact that the developers made so little effort to exploit the true potential of the Unreal Engine 3 (which we've already seen in games like Mass Effect, BioShock, Gears of War, etc.).

Turok is a fun FPS game, but one that lacks depth in many aspects. In the end, odds are players will fail to immerse themselves in a setting as bland and superficial as this.