It's the best Turok in the series...not that it says much.
I never got the popularity of Turok on the N64. The controls and game mechanics were clunky at best, with some of the worst platforming sections on any game. The game was also heavily marred by some of the worst fog-in programming of any game (that is also putting in the prespective of the N64). It sold extremely well on the N64, however, mainly because it was one of eight games for the system at the time it was released.
So when the Turok franchise started going downhill for Acclaim, in both sales and quality, this really was not much of a surprise at all. In fact, I think my exact quote was "When was this game actually good? And how could actually be worse?" Then I played Turok: Evolution and was introduced the Tobais Bruckner, a southern slave owning cyborg who rides a dinosaur...
So, Turok needed one of two things: It needed to buried and forgetten about or it needed a complete overhaul. Oddly enough, it got both.
Here's how I will explain this: Turok is the best game it has ever been, however it still needs a lot of work to compete with competition like Halo, Resistance: Fall of Man and to a lesser extent, The Darkness.
The game ditches the horrendous platforming levels and the horrible fog-in the original had and instead makes a very atmospheric planet filled with indignious wild-life, foilage and dinosaurs. It's not explained why these dinosaurs are here, however.
Instead of platforming, there are sections of stealth that you need to complete with the bow and arrow that Turok keeps with him. It is cool to hide in the tall grass to pick off people, in theory. However, the game's AI is either really smart and can catch you within an earshot or the game didn't impliment it's stealth quite well, because everytime I used the stealthy approach, it ended with death and a restart.
Graphically, it got the complete overhaul it needed. The game looks great when in the sun and grass. However, in the caves, it looks drab and bleary.
Gameplay wise, the development team buried what was Turok and made it an ultra-violent slash fest of a game. Most enemies can easily be killed by stabbing them with a knife, which automatically brings a cut-scene of John Turok performing some execution style kill. While cool when you first try it, it becomes very apparent that the developers used this as a cheap fix to make up for it's shoddy stealth system and it's mediocre at best shooting sections.
Despite some fairly good things, such as lush beautiful graphics and some cool AI with the dinosaurs, Turok simply doesn't have the chops to stand up to the rest of the competition in FPS's. Talking about it more would give it more attention than it deserves, honestly.