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Turok Review
Jon Wilcox
12/02/2008
Six years after Acclaim put the final nail in the coffin of the dino hunter franchise, Touchstone begins the task of exhuming it from under the soil...
Like bringing a T-Rex back to life, the re-emergence of the Turok brand in videogames may have seemed like a difficult task following the increasingly diabolical instalments released by Acclaim Entertainment several years ago. After a promising beginning on the Nintendo 64, the franchise was eroded away faster than a fossil in acid, quickly becoming forgotten and surpassed by the likes of Halo.
Thanks to Disney Interactive Studio's mature 'Touchstone' label however, the Native American dino hunter makes a return to videogames on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. Fans of the series may notice quite some difference this time around, with developer Propaganda Games very much re-imagining the brand. So how does this new-look Turok compare to previous incarnations - and to modern day shooters?
Having watched the complete Jurassic Park trilogy on DVD and armed with a trusty bow and arrow, TVG headed off into the primordial jungles to find out...
It's A Jungle Out There.
Set in the future - as most FPS titles seem to be if it's not World War II - Turok follows the eponymous protagonist on a mission to hunt down and eliminate his former mentor, a ruthless soldier called Kane (Tiberium not included). Coming out of stasis in orbit around a planet in the process of being terraformed (hence the rather unlikely local dinosaur population and dense prehistoric jungle), the spaceship carrying Turok and the rest of the special ops team is shot down, leaving them stranded on the planet.
OK, so it may sound radically different to its Acclaim-ed predecessors and comic heritage, but there are several parallels. Turok remains Native American in ethnicity (though he's largely renounced his ancestry), he hunts various species of dinosaurs, and he's still rather handy with a bow and arrow - even if the recurrence of the weapon in the armoury of a future soldier stretches the imagination a little. So much of Turok's overview, perhaps with the exception of those 'terrible lizards', could be applied to countless other first person shooters, especially on the Xbox 360 and PC, where it seems like a week doesn't go by without at least one more FPS swelling the ranks further.
So what can Turok offer amongst the intimidating ranks of Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, and The Orange Box???
Regardless of the storyline and army of Helghast-style soldiers thrown at you by Kane, the true focus of the game is the interaction - read deadly encounters - between Turok and the dinosaurs. The bread and butter of the franchise in the past continues to form a prominent part here; several species of dinosaur are met (and fought) throughout the adventure, including Utahraptors, Parasaurolophus, Dilophosaurus, and of course the obligatory Tyrannosaurus. Other more fantastical creatures, including giant genetically modified scorpions and a gargantuan Nessie-like sea monster with tentacles are also on hand to mix up the 'Lost Valley' environments both above and below ground. Most are general cannon fodder, sneaking up to Turok and the rest of the humans on the planet individually or in packs, the others like the T-Rex and 'Nessie' act as end of level bosses.
It's when you're faced with a pack of Utahraptors in the tall grasses of the rapidly evolving jungles of the planet's surface that Turok provides some of the fast, almost panicky, pace that's perhaps expected when there are ancient carnivorous animals baying for your blood. These raptors, a bit more exotic compared to the Velociraptors of Jurassic Park fame, are more than happy to play with Turok, repeatedly knocking the player down before leaping in attack, forcing rapid 'Simon Says' sequences with the triggers or analogue sticks.
Whilst the aggressive nature of the dinosaurs and their pack mentality work to create a solid enough illusion of AI, it's far from being totally convincing. On first glance, and perhaps the second, the interaction between Kane's soldiers and dinosaurs (even amongst the dinos themselves) holds up. At several points throughout the game, players will come across small groups of dinosaurs attacking the mercenaries, with the loading screen 'tip' that the "Enemy of my enemy...' rings true. The same goes for when Turok comes across a number of the meat-eating dinosaurs. Shooting a flare into the flank of one raptor inevitably draws the aggressive attention of other raptors, giving players some time to watch as the 'dino vs dino' action ensues - again, creating the illusion of solid AI.
There are discrepancies that break the illusion however, such as when the placid herbivores don't react to a rather hungry looking raptor standing next to them. Then again, since the raptors seems to have laser-guided tunnel vision that focus on Turok and Turok only (and other members of Whiskey Company) and not their more normal prey, perhaps it's nothing more than proof that dinosaurs really did have walnut-sized brains...
That's Not A Knife...
The idea of the hunter and the hunted is quite a strong feature of Turok, and it's carried through into the gameplay thanks to the addition of a rather mean looking knife. Used for close quarter stealth combat, complimenting the longer-range of the bow and arrow, the knife is ideal for rapid kills, which like some of the dinosaur attacks take players out of Turok's head so that the dino hunter's special ops training can be viewed in its slashing and gutting glory. Perhaps a little cheap at times, the ability to score fast stealth kills comes in handy throughout the game, and enhances the character's standing as some sort of Rambo-like figure.
The bow and arrow is of course the quintessential Turok weapon, and is used (with real trajectory paths) as a mid-range silent weapon, mostly against Kane's hired soldiers. Coming in both standard and explosive varieties, the bow and arrow can cause the added bonus of throwing the soldiers under attack into a level of confusion. They're also prone to taking cover, though they're not adverse to running to a fallen comrade first, giving players an extra opportunity to silently strike once more.
The other weapons in the game, which include submachine guns, plasma rifles, and bazookas, all work together fairly well. Turok himself can carry up to two weapons at any one time, including the ability to dual-wield the SMGs, and they're also fitted out with secondary abilities. For instance, the machine guns get fitted out with silencers, whilst both the flamethrower and plasma rifle send out explosive grenades of fire and energy. There certainly doesn't seem to be anything missing from the line up of guns, and it has to be said that aside from the occasional cheap kills of the knife, they all seem very well balanced.
An Extinction Threat???
It's fair to say that Turok exceeds expectations. Granted, those expectations weren't particularly high to begin with, though that's more to do with the brand's mistreatment at the hands of Acclaim 'back in the day'. What Propaganda's Turok delivers instead is a shooter that largely treads a similar path to Gears of War, albeit in first person and with extra dinos. Aside from perhaps the largely repetitive meandering through the planet's jungles and terraforming labs, which all together look rather too identical for most of the game, the corridor-based level design works rather well as it has done so for most FPS titles - and it certainly doesn't have the same level of backtracking that Bungie's triple-part franchise had.
Whilst it's not quite the polished mega-title that Epic Games delivered in 2006, Turok nonetheless offers a few nuggets of gameplay that enables it to stand out from a crowded genre. Getting knocked off your feet when a dinosaur barges its way into you, and the added ability to jump to the side to avoid being barged by said dinosaur, both suggest some of the subtler crumbs of the game. In fact, Turok feels more like a third person shooter in FPS clothing than the traditional fare.
But what of its online features?
At a time when multiplayer gameplay in first-person shooters largely wallow in the same ever-revolving mix of Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, and their variants, it's quite a relief to see that Propaganda Games has taken time to develop what is perhaps one of the most innovative multi...oh, who are they trying to kid? Aside from the adding threat of getting eating by the dinos, Turok's multiplayer is the same tried gametypes that drop through most FPS releases today. Despite the best efforts, there needs to be a greater injection of originality or twist beyond throwing in a few extinct animals into a game map. Otherwise, why bother spending time creating the maps and networking features for a title that will impact upon the gargantuan online performances of Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, and Gears of War???
Solid reboot of brand Turok.
AI isn't quite strong enough.
Biggest Half-Life fan!
Date Added:Wed 16th Jul 2008 13:59
Biggest Half-Life fan!
Date Added:Wed 16th Jul 2008 13:57
doomey
Date Added:Sun 23rd Mar 2008 14:27
True the graphics are good and nice, but beyond that the game is really iritating.
I found myself shooting my guns in random directions in the slim hope and po... [ Read full comment... ]
Mcnab 360
Date Added:Wed 27th Feb 2008 11:00
Spec 0ps s0ulja
Date Added:Sun 24th Feb 2008 21:35