Turok - 7/10
From around mid last year, Turok was one of my most highly anticipated games, the early screenshots, monthly news feed and the odd pop up trailer had me and many others hungry for more. Hyping this game up myself was probably my own fault, i was visualising so much and maybe expecting too much from the beginning, but the drops of news articles stating co op gameplay and advanced dinosaur AI had me thinking about all the great possibilities this next gen Turok could offer in terms of gameplay. Sadly my wishful thinking was not to be, in fact, i think this game has failed to reach ALOT of peoples expectations, which is a shame, considering how great the Turok series was, particularly on the N64.
When mixing the two, Co op gameplay with intelligent AI, if executed correctly, could have resulted in a world beating experience, picture the scene, you're controlling a typical square jawed army marine grunt with 3 or 4 soldiers by your side. Imagine the options, you could split up, in groups of two, the jungle setting is free roaming, big enough to impress, maybe half of Oblivion would have been enough. Your AI controlled troopers could get killed while you're not in the scene, attacked, eaten by raptors, you can hear their echoe-ing screams from the distance, maybe as you explore you will eventually stumble over that troopers dead corpse? Program things to happen, even if we *the player* dont have to be involved. It would almost feel like Predator with a mix of Jurassic park, a winning combination right there!
Then ponder about how advanced the dinosaur AI could have been, very very intelligent AI is possible, just ask the team behind FEAR, when i first heard the developers talking about the dinosaurs AI and natural instincts, i was picturing something on the lines of raptors communicating, hunting in packs, being able to sense your presence even though you never made a sound, you and your men could be hiding under a field of long grass, only to see blades of tall grass in the distant be trampled down by a pack of investigating dino's. When thinking of natural instincts, a still puddle of muddy water, it begins to ripple due to the nearby stomps of a distant T-Rex. Some of what i have mentioned is in the game, but only in light shades. Why wasnt all this AI/Instinct talk used to this level? is it that difficult to achieve? Is the avaerage gamer expecting too much from the seventh generation of gaming? Should we expect this much from todays games? Yes, why not? Hasnt gaming advanced? Why not to this level? Again, maybe i was expecting too much, but even an experience similar to what i expected would have been great, but sadly it never happened, hell, they even decided to ditch the Native Indian character from early Turok titles and replace them with a bunch of neckless army grunts with mohawks which sort of dims the feel of the Turok title.
Storyline wise the game is pretty much Starship Troopers meets Jurassic park, you're Joseph Turok, a former member of Wolf Pack, but now a member of Whiskey pack, and your mission is to track down fellow team mate, Kane, who is stranded/lost on the very planet that your space ship has crash landed on. Seems like abit of a coincidence, but thats the ways of a video game plot these days. Seems like a pretty straight forward, get-in, get-out solo mission...until you find out that their are dinosaurs lurking around the island.
When you get into the game, behind all the early trailer excitement lies a FPS that really does nothing new or better than any other FPS, Turok doesnt come close to flagship shooters such as Halo 3, Bioshock and Resistance Fall of Man and with future FPS trying new ideas *Haze* and looking amazing *Killzone 2* it really does leave Turok in a flat position, and with the recent burst of screenshots from the amazing looking Resistance 2 pretty much kills any effort Turok makes to put a smile on your dial. There are some intense and action packed moments to be had in Turok, the combat and kill animation sequences are grisly and are well executed, painting the grass red, slashing a dinosaurs throat apart with your knife becomes the order of the day and is quite fun to do. During stealth missions it can also be top notch fun to crawl through a patch of long grass, blade in hand, pushing the terrain down as you go, and grabbing that nearby guard and tearing his throat open before dropping his limp corpse into the bush and resuming your mission. Another highlight is the bow, there is a tasty line up of futuristic weapons *Flamethrower anyone?* to grab hold of *if you can be bothered trying to use them due to the over complicated weapon select window*, but you will most likely find yourself using the bow the most simply because of how fun it is to use. I must admit, i never expected one could have so much fun with one weapon, but the bow mightily impressed me, use it stealthy, thats when you really reap the benefits when skewering that distant guard with your fresh, sharpened harpoon. Its a gold moment and great stealth tactic, more of this would have made a world of difference to Turok.
The dinosaurs and there animation/AI was a mixed bag in my opinion, the raptors were lacking something, maybe its the way there lifeless limp bodies literally rolled down the hill as you walked over them, either the rag doll physics were taken to new over-the-top heights or these dinos dont have enough meat in them and are light as a feather, they were unrealistic in movement and were far from frightening like real dinosaurs should be. The T-Rex on the other hand was glorious to behold, the boss of the dino's is HUGE, and almost doesnt fit on the screen, when it opens its jaws, the hefty roars almost mow down the forest and its bloodied teeth really make it, a monster to be afraid of. I only wish it was seen alot more during the game, maybe more moments of T Rex catching a chopper out of the sky with its jaws, chasing down a gun turret mounted jeep full of marines, mauling away at a group of raptors or ripping a marine clean in half, gruesome i know, but when did dinosaurs become fussy eaters?
Visually, the game is good and its bad, there are times when the game looks spectacular, the lost world jungle settings can look marvellous at times, steamy jungles, fallen tree trunks, tall grass rustling in the wind, rippling riverstreams and waterfalls as big as niagra falls. The jungle setting is beautiful, make no mistake. The dinosaurs, most of them, looked a tad glitchy and unrealistic, their rag doll physics alone will demonstrate how unrealistic they are alone, but they also have jagged blocky edges, especially in the arm/leg joints. The T-Rex was the only dinosaur that truly made me proud, but apart from that, the others pale in comparison. Enemy marines looked and reacted a tad stale as well, and are no where near as detailed as expected. its like the developers were happy to throw on a black flak jacket and a helmet and call it a day. In a word or a few, it felt lazy.
Overall, Turok, for me, is THE biggest disapointment of the seventh next generation age of consoles. I hyped this game up so much, probably expecting too much, which is probably what hurt in the end, but thats the life of a console, there will be disapointments, Lair failed last year, Turok lets the majority down this year. Turoks downfall makes me hungry for a next gen Dino Crisis from Capcom, if there was ever a game that did dinosaurs so well, it was Dino Crisis, it needs to happen, and maybe it will in the future. There is certainly a place for dinosaurs in gaming, that space most certainly can be filled, if either Dino Crisis returns this era or Turok goes back to the drawing board, releases new and fresh in 2009 or 2010 and makes all the assumptions that seemed impossible, possible, which i believe is possible considering the hardware these next gen consoles possess. In the meantime, the fresh announcements of Resistance 2, Timesplitters 4 and Red Faction 3 put Turoks dull next gen debut behind us. Give it a rent, love it or hate, beg for disapointment, pretend to like it, you will be feeling a number of emotions with this game, good or bad, is up to the individual gamer and to an extent, what you were expecting from this game. I expected alot but got about 60% back, which left me disapointed. Turok failed Tu - Rok my world.
Submitted by callan5
09/02/2008
9
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