Turok is a fun game online, but Propaganda has bullied the series with their own series of flaws.
+ You can stab a dinosour in the head with a knife.
+ You can also do it with T-Rex.
+ Great looking graphics.
+ Some really cool effects like explosions and such.
- Doesn't feel like Turok anymore.
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Remember Turok Dinosour Hunter? It was a superb N64 action hit, and it kept the title all the way to 2004 with Turok Evolution. Coming from a childhood Turok fan, I have played and currently own every turok game made exept for Turok 3. In fact, I grew up with Turok litterly all my life, and although some where better than others, they were all fun. After the most underrated compnay, Acclaim went out of biz, Propaganda Games has come to curse the serious with an unfinished game. Propaganda Games is obviously known for to stop making games, if you can well remember.
Turok starts the game with our so-called hero, Jospeh Turok. But before I go on, lets just stop there.
Who is Jospeh Turok? Isn't he supposed to be Jospeh Fireseed? The fact that Propaganda couldn't even get the character's name correct is already questionable. Turok scews away that seemingly immortal fireseed indian with a lame, mohawked space marine who's sqaud is totally biased towards him. His orders are to take down a war criminal named Kane (Random-picked name) on some sort of planet that ditches away the Lost Land. However, before Turok can get off the spaceship he's on and get to the planet, a mysterious missle magically pops out of the air and strikes the ship. The ship blows up and lands our so-called "Turok" man on the planet, although the ship was clearly millions of milles off the earth. The planet he lands on is populated with dinosours and even certain prehistoric bugs and anchids. His orders of taking down that war criminal are declined as his sqaurd try their best attempt to get off the planet and back to safety. That is probably the dumbest story, not only on paper, but also in the horrible presentation every presented in the presented history of presentation.
Of course, the story was never a strong point of Turok. Killings millions of dinosours and aliens with laser guns and rockets was! Sadly, this Turok doesn't offer any of that. This Turok might as well be a First person Gears of Wars rip-off in a jungle enviorment. The enemies are merely grey troops that look exactly like the ones you see in Gears of War. Sure, you get a few dinosours and giant scorpions, but the tends to make you lure these carnivores to the opposing soliders. Even the health system has been screwed with the Gears of War recovery form. That is to say, medpacks or exploration have no purpose in the game either. One of Turok's main concept throughout the generations was to explore the world. By viewing the editor's art, you would be rewarded with secret pickups and weapons behind cliffs and in underwater caves. Here, you do no such thing. The jungle is only for the backround; all you do is just keep walking forward, no exploring, no looking for secret caves or pickups, nothing. Kill a solider, and you don't get medpacks, mortal wounds, sometimes not even ammo. The soliders don't even half blood on them, even when you plunge your knife into their chest.
Yes, the knife is one of the boring weapons in Turok. Since our so-call "Turok" man is a special ops, creeping undetected behind an enemy solider initates an on-screen button command--if you hit this button, you trigger a fairly violent death move with your trusty knife in a third person perspective. After the move, the knife is devoid of any blood on it whatsoever, but its easily the most fun weapon to use in the game's arsenal. Among the other guns are SMGs, Pistols, and soviet-based firepower. Although these weapons are fun for a modern game, they also enscrew the charm of the series. Turok should have Nukes, Atomic Atomizers, Plasma bores, and stuff; not russian soviet guns from the 1960s. If you can recall the good 'ol N64 days of blasting dinosours with plasma cannons and cerebal bores, Turok's uninspired weapons will feel like they were crammed right at the end simply to gain respect.
The next plate of food Turok serves you is its aweful graphics. Take away all the color, make the game practically black and white, and give all the walls and floors the exact texture like halo. Can you guess what it is? It can't be!...its....The horrible Unreal Engine. The reason why Propaganda loves to ruin games via this horrible, washed out engine is a complete mystery. The game's textures are all bland and poorly cut, and sometimes, even after the everlong loading screens, half of the levels textures aren't even fully loaded up. Although the series was definetly not goregeous, it still had a colorful theme that was clear and bright to the eyes. This Turok makes you feel like your roaming through an interractive black and white jungle horror movie.
The sound is more forgettable than a person merely breathing. The automatic firing stream of automatic weapons hiccup horrendously, and voice acting is probably one of the only strong points. Music is also a strong point, but it doesn't beat the old school sounds of the orginal. Needless to say, the developers probably muted the original while playing through it, otherwise they would remember the guitar stabs and monkey chatters that were still intact.
You want the bottom line? Propaganda has ruined it all. They have taken games, use their aweful graphics to ruin them, and without playing the actual game, decide to try to revive them. I could remember the good old days of the oringal N64 turok, using glitches to trap the dinosours in spots, and then tipping over trees on them and smashing them. I also have the Turok for the oringinal xbox, and that was also fun and colorful. But with this game, you jump on a few feet, run like an old man, no glitches, no knocking over trees, no nuking T-rex, nothing. Why could they at least make traps or survival tatics; maybe if they wanted to make a new modern day Turok game, they could've made it almost like Far Cry, where you actually felt like trying to survive in the jungle. However, this is none of that.
Propaganda hasn't changed at all. They're still the pushover coffee biz across the street that just can't resist the urge to stop ruining great title. Just like what would happen if Half-Life 2's headcrabs were replaced with sea turtles, or Doom's demons replaced with Iraq terrorists, the new generation of Turok just doesn't fit right. It was a sleezy attempt and a sleezy idea to begin with.