After a steady decline since the release of the first title in the "Turok" franchise, we finally get the chance to witness a strong effort capable of changing the way people are now seeing the famous dinosaur hunter. While this is not a sensational shooter, it is an entertaining one, capable of competing with the more popular counterparts; but more important, this latest addition proves without a doubt that Turok is definitely on the mend.

The storyline is not the best asset of this game and after a promising start it quickly disintegrates into near irrelevance, but it is still very easy to follow. Basically you are a Native American named Joseph Turok, member of the Whiskey Company dispatched to a distant planet to deal with the main villain, Roland Kane. He leads a criminal organization known only as the Wolfpack, a squad where Turok was a member some time ago, before deciding to leave because of the ruthless nature of Kane's gang.

Things quickly turn sour after the ship is hit by a missile while preparing to land and the mission changes from eliminating the enemy, to surviving on a hostile planet where dinosaurs roam free. It is uncertain how Kane's experiments and development of chemical and biological weapons caused the mutations as there are no further information on this issue while you progress with the campaign.

With Kane's men defending in heavily fortified strongholds and dinosaurs swarming through the jungle, Turok has an impressive arsenal of his own and a few teammates that accompany him. These cool weapons can be dual wielded and have nice alternate fire modes but overall they are simply too week; even if you choose to fire both weapons at the same time the damage inflicted is still too low to compensate the drawbacks this style has regarding accuracy.

Using your blade to kill silently pays off but the way your knife seems to scratch the armor instead of puncturing it looks silly so I prefer to use the neat bow instead. This is in fact a deadly instrument that works mainly as a sniper gun, very accurate and silent, it is the perfect way to eliminate the guards when there is no opportunity to sneak behind them; if you hold the cord long enough while shooting and the enemy is close to a wall there is a good chance that you'll pin him right there.

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While you'll never spill a single drop of blood when annihilating a human opponent, killing the dinosaurs is really a bloody business; Turok is more than capable of delivering devastating blows to the giant lizards' head and things are bound to get messy each time. This increases the fun factor and gives a better fighting chance to a game that is otherwise built around a weak storyline and with a repetitive nature that has a deterring effect to any player.

You'd be tempted to believe that dinosaurs are the dumber beings on the planet due to the small brain, but interesting enough this is not true; while they are definitely not very clever, they compensate with agility and speed and are deadly when attacking in packs. The truth is that humans seem to be far less intelligent than the reptiles and it makes no exception if they are friend or foe, neither seeming to be aware of the benefits that a good cover might present, when you are under heavy fire...

The opponents will continue to rush blindly towards their doom or remain in the same place, clearly unimpressed by the fact their buddy got pinned to the wall by your arrow. On the other side your teammates won't be troubled by your presence when they decide to blast the enemy into oblivion so if you happen to stand in their way they'll deliver some indiscriminate justice.

After you reach a checkpoint and patiently wait for the next stage to be loaded there are several "hints" that appear on the screen, and of course I've had the chance of reading most of them. Unfortunately their utility is rather marginal, as these are mostly common sense advices, but I recall one of these lines which appeared to be quite cynical, while being completely useless: "Dinosaurs eat meat. You are meat. Run!". Of all the varieties of genius, comic genius seems to be the most exhaustible, for the simple reason that a joke is only funny the first 14 times. The amusing part is that in "Turok" there is no key for sprinting and you are virtually bound to hold on and fight the enemy even if they swarm you and running for cover would be the obvious answer.

If killing dinosaurs, scorpions and regular soldiers in armor is a walk in the park, the "boss fights" are tedious and can easily bring you to the boiling point. There is a spider tank that seems to have a mark on your head and shells you heavily without even making a brief break; a huge water dinosaur that you have to flame like a barbecue for ten minutes before killing it; and the infamous T-Rex that defies any logic. You can shoot him (in the head) with all the weapons on the map, plus some turrets fitted with rocket launchers, grenades and RPGs, arrows and sticky bombs and he will still be trying to make a tasty meal out of you.

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Conclusion:

"Turok" is probably a far cry from the top quality shooter list, with a linear gameplay and ordinary visual effects, but it is nonetheless entertaining and overall, a small step in the right direction for this franchise. Those dinosaurs are more than capable of spicing things up and even if slaying them with various weapons and tactics can only boost its lasting appeal so far, "Turok" definitely offers a unique experience that shouldn't be passed.

Gameplay: 75

No doubt it's entertaining to kill dinosaurs over and over again but after a while it becomes just a routine that is unable to keep you wired for more than a couple of hours. The bottom line is that "Turok" is virtually just a fast paced shooter that allows you to engage in a killing frenzy, with plenty of ammunition and a large variety of guns to choose from.

It is only fair to say that while the characters are not shining in any way they are usually "glowing", especially during the cut scenes, which is by no means a reason to cheer. The environment looks good in some particular stages of the campaign but the jungle is not one of them and with most of the action taking place here, you'll have plenty of chances to complain. Texture patterns are dull and unappealing while the rocks and trees have simply too many sharp edges to look good.

Sounds: 83

The sound effects are excellent, they introduce you in the atmosphere of the dinosaurs' populated jungle and make you very interested in catching any sign of the approaching enemy. Music is very nice as well, with instrumental parts that create just the right feeling for the decisive clashes with the main villain or an encounter with the dreaded T-Rex.

Multiplayer: 71

The multiplayer brings nothing new and interesting and to make things further worse you can only customize the game if you are hosting it. There are seven maps and five modes that include deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag, assault capture the flag (neutral flag) and War Games but they all fail to enhance the single player experience and overall this is more or less just an entertaining waste of time.

Hardware: 73

Even if you own a powerful machine and a good video card there will be enough moments when the frame rate drops greatly and more important each loading time between missions takes simply too much for what the game has to offer.