It’s strange that as Rambo returns to the movie screens Turok reappears after a long sabbatical too. They’re kind of similar in a couple of ways; they’re both likeable, ridiculously brave meathead heroes, and maybe they both peaked on their first outing…
Based on a Valiant comic series and dating back to the good ol’ N64, the Turok franchise should probably be part of console gaming’s hierarchy. With its 3D modelled dinosaurs (at a time when the PlayStation could only manage sprites) and vicious weaponry, the early Turok games were impressive but flawed. The trouble with them usually was that a lack of final polish, over ambition or misplaced design ethos frequently led the games astray, meaning that several of them were good, but never great. A PS2/Xbox/Game-Cube version 5 years or so ago got a hugely mixed reception, and now the latest Turok leaves his mythical-sci-fi past behind and turns up as a muscle-bound space marine who’d fit right in to Gears of War (in fact he looks a lot like Dom from Gears).
The back story is a rather hackneyed tale of betrayal and retribution; Joseph Turok, of Kiowa Indian heritage and former black ops commando is now part of an elite special forces squad (known as Whiskey Company), which is on a mission to take down Roland Kane and his army, the Mendel-Gruman Corporation. As Whiskey Company’s ship approaches the planet inhabited by Mendel-Gruman, the ship is shot down, and that’s where the game starts, in a playable sequence that’s reminiscent of Halo’s opening level. Turok is stranded on the planet and must locate other crash survivors while confronting enemy soldiers and a variety of dinosaurs and other ravenous creatures. The cutscenes are rather well done and the macho voice acting is top notch – unsurprising as the cast includes the likes of Timothy Olyphant (as Cowboy), Ron Perlman (Slade), Donnie Wahlberg (Shepard), William Fichtner (Logan), Mark Rolston (Cole), and Powers Boothe is the voice of the villain of the piece, Roland Kane. Gregory Norman Cruz (whoever he is) provides the voice of Turok.
Despite being cut from the increasingly samey-looking Unreal Technology-cloth as most other 360 FPS, the first time you see one of the stars of the Turok show you’ll surely be impressed - the dinos in this game are really good. If you thought the T.Rex in Tomb Raider Anniversary was scary… (or maybe the T.Rex from King Kong would be a better example) then the big old Ladyrex in Turok may well make you poo your pants – she’s huge, loud, superbly animated, extremely believable and wants to eat Turok badly. Known as ‘Mama Scarface’ after your first meeting, you’ll be reunited a few more times too... Without getting into spoiler territory there are also another dino species in the game that are quite simply the scariest, fast-moving and most vicious things I’ve come across in a good few games – they’re truly brilliant foes and you’ll always breathe a sigh of relief when you realise you’re past a group of them. There’s a nice variation in dinos too; big ones, small ones that don’t attack, small ones that’ll attack when they have backup and big herbivorous ones that’ll leave you alone unless you go too close. There are also some giant scorpions – not sure where they came from but they don’t like fire.
To combat the mixture of creatures and enemy soldiers, Turok has a nice selection of near-future type weapons to hand. Apart from his powerful tek-bow (complete with exploding arrows) and combat knife, the expected selection of pistols, sub-machine guns, shotguns, rocket launchers, flame throwers and sniper rifles appear along the way. A plasma rifle is about the only sci-fi weapon in here, and there’s no sign of the unforgettable Cerebral Bore weapon from Turok 2: Seeds of Evil or Turok’s trademark tomahawk. You can only carry 2 weapons at a time but you can double them up and dual-wield several combinations.
Set on a mostly jungle planet that’s only recently been terraformed, the game’s jungle needed to look good and for the most part it does. The graphics vary from some hideous cave levels with messy textures to nicely detailed plants and trees. The plentiful grass sways as anything walks through it and looks fine as long as you don’t look down on it, at which point it reveals its scraggy old 2D roots. There are a few distinct moments of slowdown and texture pop up both in-game and in cutscenes, but they don’t really affect the gameplay in any way.
One important feature that may well have you gnawing your fist in frustration or kicking the cat is the threat indicator. Basically, just like Halo 3 and CoD4 there are no medikits in Turok, damage taken from dino attacks or enemy bullets can be healed simply by taking cover and resting. If you get hit it makes the screen go red, the more damage the redder it gets, to the point where you can’t see what’s going on and die. So far that may sound okay, but on the higher difficulty setting often a multiple attack will leave your vision SO impaired that it’s not so much a ‘threat indicator’ as a ‘you’re going to die now indicator’. You’ll also frequently get knocked on your backside by grenade blasts or dino attacks; this looks great and adds a lot to the frantic fights you’ll find yourself in. Both human enemies and dinos can be killed with your knife with a well-timed trigger press, at which point the game cuts to a suitably gory pre-rendered cutscene for the death. Some attacks can also be fended off with RTE (Real Time Event) type button presses or stick waggling. Jammed doors can be opened by using Turok’s muscles (well, tapping ‘B’ quickly).
Turok’s multiplayer has had a lot of time spent on it and I can’t say I’m all that impressed. There are 7 imaginative and complex maps and some decent game modes with all the options you could ask for, but gameplay-wise it’s pretty standard run & gun stuff with little to make it stand out. Even the addition of wandering dinos to the mix doesn’t really add much to the game. As you’d expect they’re incredibly annoying if you’re the one getting chewed and it’s hilarious if an enemy gets attacked. Some weapons also seem virtually redundant in multiplayer; the sniper rifle is useless and your combat knife is a better bet than dual wielded pistols. Games seemed to vary hugely depending on the host or where the other players are from, with some games unplayably laggy and others fairly smooth. I had a few games in which I simply couldn’t hit an opponent for love nor money, and it’s not a problem I’ve had with Halo or CoD4. One good point is that you can at least get on the MP maps solo, and thus explore without entering a game (handy for learning weapon spawns and base locations). There’s also a co-op mode for 1-4 players, but this is a short-lived affair on 3 specially designed maps, and sadly not the main story mode as in Halo 3 or Gears.
The scenery might not vary that much, from jungle to caves to concrete & steel installations and back again, but the game looks really nice in places, like a memorably pretty waterfall or a misty swamp, and it plays pretty well throughout. Several sections give you the option to play stealthy or go “Rambo”, and that’s a nice touch. Being able to use the shotgun’s secondary fire mode (flares) to attract dinos on to enemies is a truly fun feature, but there weren’t really enough chances to use it effectively on a single play through, but I’m sure the dreaded Achievements will lure me back for more. And why the ffff…heck is crouch mapped to the ‘Y’ button when everyone knows that it should be on the left stick click? What’s on the left click (L3) I hear you ask? It displays an “idiot pointer” to your objective, that’s what – really, really worth displacing crouch for, that. Longevity-wise I played the game through in a few sittings and it didn’t seem all that long, even by today’s standards. It also has some really cruel checkpoints meaning you'll think you've cleared a tricky section only to die and find you have to do it all again - this feels like artificial lifespan-padding to me, and never goes down well. There are also certain points at which the game seems to kill you just for fun in a sort of 'trap', and it's highly unlikely you could possibly survive the first time through, so it's "reload last checkpoint and try again" time. While I’m having a moan Turok also seems to move extremely slowly, which can feel horribly sluggish when you’re being chased by a pissed-off T.Rex... The game does however, have a memorable and exciting end boss battle, which seems to be a real rarity these days.
Overall Turok is an enjoyable adventure, a mostly slick game that ticks a lot of my "what I want from a FPS" boxes. Now the 360’s Holy Trinity of Halo 3, Call of Duty 4 and The Orange Box are out of the way there’s certainly room for it in anyone's FPS collection.
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