After several previous Turok
games, mostly on Nintendo and Game Boy, Turok
gets a reboot for 2008 by Propaganda Games for
Xbox, PS3 and PC. Naturally I'll review the
PC version. Propaganda also created Tron: Evolution
in 2010 before being shut down, which is unfortunate
because Turok is a pretty solid shooter.
Most critics gave it a review
it deserved, if not slightly under-rated. Perhaps
I'm biased because the last 14 games I've played
I've scored 6.5 and under. Not since STALKER
have I given anything a 7.0, although Legendary
would have been deserving of a 7.5 if they didn't
mash the last 1/4. But I have been working my
way through the turds of 2008, so it's to be
expected that I'll start to play the better
releases soon. Plus i've got COD4 and Bioshock
to play soon - sure to blow me away.
Turok doesn't follow much of
a story. You're a soldier named Turok, previously
a member of the Wolf Pack, a specialized military
detachment run by a bad SOB named Kane. Kane's
gone rogue after committing various war crimes
and is now commanding a private army, which
shoots you down into a planet run by said Kane.
So now you and your military unit have to try
to escape the planet, killing Kane in the process
and fighting through hordes of dinosaurs. Average
story, but if you want a story go play an RPG.
Little did I realise that for
half the game, at least, you're battling human
enemies in the form of Kane's army. They have
various weapons but are the same type of enemy
over and over - not particularly smart but have
varying degrees of deadliness. I suppose some
human enemy had to be in the game to give an
excuse for the oodles of ammo around every corner
and some projectile combat. Dinosaurs are all
close range, which could get repetitive after
a while so I suppose it's nice to have some
variety.
The dinosaurs are done really
well. They look fantastic, they sound creepy.
A number of times I could hear their stomps
around me but couldn't see them yet, or the
earth would shatter from a nearby T-Rex. They
also move fast and can deal a good bit of punishment,
especially in numbers. Many times I thought
I was done for as a dinosaur threw me off my
feet and the screen goes red, I struggle to
get to my feet and fire off some rounds sprinting
in another direction still disorientated. In
short, the dinosaur fights are frantic and scary.
They feel like an Aliens vs Predator game should
feel, and that's exactly how fighting a dinosaur
should be. You're about to be ravaged and the
only thing keeping you alive is if you can fire
off enough rounds before it gets to you.
So while the human enemies
are same old, dinosaur combat is pulled off
perfectly by Propaganda, though I wish there
were more different dinosaur species rather
than the handful they designed. But how's the
arsenal? Fortunately, great! The shotgun is
an epic rapid-fire monster which can be duel-wielded
with another lightweight gun, such as the SMG.
You have two fire keys and can fire both at
the same time, which is something you have to
experience to realise how awesome this is. Later
in the game when you get the flamethrower, pulse
rifle or chaingun these require two hands so
you can't duel-wield, unfortunately. But all
three are great guns. Finally a flame thrower
worth using in a game! I just wish you could
carry more than two guns at a time (not including
your knife and useless bow and arrow). By the
second half of the game I sadly had to ditch
my SMG/Shotgun combo because of the effectiveness
of the Pulse Rifle, with it's ammo in high supply.
There's also an alt-fire for
each gun, but it wouldn't work for me. It's
automatically bound to the shift key, which
did nothing when I held it, but I did try changing
the core config files to bind shift to my fire
key so that might have broken it. I've used
shift for main fire for 15 years - why should
I have to stop now? Being forced to not use
the shift key for what I want is a terrible
decision done by Aspyr Media, the company that
did the PC port. In the process of my poking
perhaps I broke the alt-fire as well. Who knows.
Instead I had to use CTRL for my normal SHIFT
purposes, which took a bit of getting used to.
Rule of PC gaming development: allow any key
to be bindable, instead of making assumptions
that every gamer uses WASD.
For the first half of Turok
I only died two or three times - it wasn't particularly
difficult. But as the final few levels set in,
fights can be much more tricky and the difficulty
level ramps up, culminating in a bloody hard
final fight with the T-Rex. This is when it
finally becomes quite noticeable that the checkpoints
are distant. Sometimes ten minutes apart. It's
not such a problem early on, but there were
a few times when I had to replay a large amount
of the game again just because I got caught
in the open. The third to last level had no
checkpoint for probably 70% of the level.
On to the looks - Turok is
a good looking game. Yet another Unreal Engine
3 reliant, which you can tell instantly. The
planet with it's mix of sci-fi bases in amongst
thick forest looks great. Plenty of detail,
everything is nice and big with a few set-pieces
thrown in, though I would have liked a bit more.
But it seemed very dull and desaturated. There's
very little colour in this world. Everything
seems murky and drab, with fog drenched over
everything. This game needed a bit of colour
and clarity to it. And at times some higher
quality textures.
It's also linear, as usual,
with very little exploration. Still, everything
looks professional enough, it just won't be
matching Crysis for it's outdoor beauty.
Overall Turok is just a good
game. The gameplay was interesting enough, the
dinosaurs done very well and weapons were all
fun to use. The looks were good enough, certainly
better than plenty of other Unreal Engine 3
games. I'd certainly recommend it. It's a shame
Propaganda shut down because they had a sequel
in development and a Pirates of the Carribbean
action/rpg.
