Turok is a reboot of the classic Nintendo 64 Turok games. I loved the Nintendo Turok games, mainly for their incredible levels, enemy variety and vast selection of weapons. I was hoping that a new Turok game could match the ambitions of the old games while bringing them into the current generation. Changing the story was a move which I was fine with, as it left the developer room to make their own setting and story.
You are a native American named Turok. You are part of a military unit deployed to a planet in a futuristic setting sent to hunt down a rouge military group called the wolfpack, and to capture their leader, Kane. Kane also happens to be Turok's former commander. The rest of the cast are largely generic space marine types, though they serve their purpose fine. What starts out as an interesting premise is never expanded upon. The story has some flash back scenes setting up a grudge between Turok and Kane but its really under developed and feels unjustified. The other characters are dull and lack impact. The ending was highly unsatisfying and the story was very weak.
Throughout the game, you will encounter many enemies. The planet is home to numerous types of dinosaurs. Raptors will hunt you in packs, but you will meet smaller dinosaurs as well as much larger ones. There are also non hostile dinosaurs which really add to the feeling that the world is alive and inhabited. You will also have to face troops from Kane's army. Its unfortunate that these are the main enemy in the game as the dinosaurs are much more fun to fight.
Graphically the game is very bland. Despite mainly being in jungle environments, the levels are fairly boring, grass looks lifeless when it could have been made a staple of the game, and backgrounds dont look great at times. Character models and animations are also poor, with the exception of the dinosaurs who look generally great and the knife kill animations which are great to watch initially. While the main menu screen has some nice heavy orchestral music the game has generally poor music and voice acting, with the exception of slade who is voiced by Ron Pearlman who as always does a great job.
The game is at its best when you are fighting dinosaurs. There are a variety of weapons which all have secondary fire, but its nothing compared to the weapons that were available in the old games. The knife is king in a lot of the combat, providing the best kill animations. When fighting human enemies, the game becomes much more boring. While the dinosaurs are fast, change tactics and are exciting, the soldiers are like grunts from any other shooter. I have also found that they are bullet sponges, able to soak up vast amounts of damage before dying. This does not make the combat more fun and is just frustrating.
Checkpoints are extremely scarce, and this becomes a point of huge frustration as the game progresses. Some sections are long and difficult corridor crawls which require shoot outs with numerous groups of enemies. If you die on the last group you may have to fight them all again, and this happened to me more than once. Seeing as combat against human enemies is not the best part of the game as it is, I thought it really detracted from the experience to force players to repeat these sections. The multiplayer is also lacking. Most of the maps seem to be taken from points in the game, the modes are fairly poor and there are very few players online. There are some co op missions for the multiplayer, but no co op for the campaign. I thought that co op in this campaign would have been great, and this was a great opportunity which Propaganda missed.
Turok isn't a complete disappointment, though. I did enjoy large sections of the game, and some of the dinosaur enemies are really impressive, as well as other creatures you encounter. There is also plenty of frustration in this game. The shooting becomes repetitive and the game is overall mediocre. The game is a decent length and has multiplayer and co op missions but I was bored of it fairly fast at that stage.
Overall Turok is a competent shooter with dinosaurs. It has bland levels in general and not the best graphics but no major bugs that I encountered and had its fun moments. A decent bargain bin game.
Pros: Dinosaurs are cool
Ron Pearlman is great
Knife kills are very well executed
Cons: Frustrating combat at times
confusing levels
multiplayer is not very good
game needs more checkpoints
wtf: Ron Pearlman told me I have cancer
Score:
4/10