Almost Prehistoric
User Rating: 6.5 | Turok: Evolution PS2
Turok evolution lands a bit of ironicness in its name, it more plays it safe. It does not evolve to much more and instead, the core shooting mechanics are great but in an aging time. I am not fond of the past storylines in Turok, though I can tell you that the plot is appropiate enough for its own good. Basically a indian warrior and a western solidier are about to face off in the mid 18th century but they get teleported into an age of dinousaurs with a fair bit of futuristic locales. From there, you are asked to help defend a village from all those lizardy soliders and of course, your arch nemesis. Think of it as a big, flawed plot that manages to be somewhat epic but also stretched over many, many hours of violence. The graphics feature some dullness in colour, there are many varied models and many well done animations all with the lacking damned framerate. The sound department has voice acting too altered to enjoy or sometimes understand while the effects are clear and strong but they output mechanically, and the music is sometimes fitting but mostly forgetable. Turok is a long game and it will take about 30 hours to complete its relatively 20 hour campaign because of no checkpoints. The core shooting mechanics still feel great; you have secondary uses for every weapon, weapons fit themselves, well balanced in many aspects, some weapons poison, decapitate or basically vapourize all with great effectiveness and good reason to swap between weapons. The platforming elements you encounter are responsible for a couple of players deaths but they still are decent. The flight controls feel somewhat akward, go to high and your bird is just going to explode and its too easy to get caught up in the sense of speed and hit a wall or something to kill you. The level design of Turok evolution sometimes feels misplaced; the forests aren't bad but there are too many basic, repeated corridors and opening doors with enemies ready to plough on ought. I could have sworn I was playing star wars in some of the flight sections. There is a decent number of dinosaur types to be found but not enough of them, I only saw a T-REX twice but hundreds of thousands of solidiers. Turok is also too linear with the essence of killing resulting to kill them with guns blazzing to quiet killings. You almost never guide a NPC and it doesn't matter if they die. Enemies can be smart in groups but they tend to pause if they are fighting alone allowing for easy kills. Overall Turok is some good ideas taken too long and too far back; its old school no matter how much the title says evolution. The best memories are few and far between but the last few missions become worth getting into if you've already gone halway through. It should have definately been condensed and given better idea implementation and much more of an updating for itself in the genre. So, if you rent Turok evolution, you won't get as much fun if you bought it because this is one of those games that you can play for a while and get right back into months later so, you decide?
