In 1997 the Nintendo 64 sported one of the best-received shooter titles of that year with the acclaimed Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, which was later ported to Windows. With the coming decade sequels would be issued that never quite met the standards of the original, and each and every release seemed to be a bit worse than the last. News of a current generation release was met with a “ho-hum” by gamers that had mostly forgotten about the Turok franchise. In fact, most of the pre-release talk about Turok involved the infamous “team kill” achievement, with very little newsworthy discussion of other game elements. Now that Turok has arrived on the Xbox 360, does it live up to the glory of the N64 title most of us knew and loved, or is it another forgettable incarnation in a handful of forgettable sequels?
Despite the title “Turok” the 2008 edition shares little in the story line of the previous games. The protagonist is Joseph Turok, a rugged Special Forces type who is equally comfortable with a chain gun as he is with the bow and arrow of his Kiowa ancestors. Turok’s back-story includes training with the paramilitary unit, Wolf Pack, spearheaded by the game’s villain, Kane (very original name, fellas). Turok’s past comes back to haunt him as the newest member of Whiskey Company, and causes friction between himself and his squad mates. The story unfolds with a mixture of dialogue with fellow Whiskey members, and flashback sequences to Turok’s undoing with Wolf Pack. Whiskey Company must travel to a far-off planet to apprehend Kane and bring him back to Earth, but upon crash landing they find a world rife with dinosaurs and Kane’s Wolf Pack minions. As the story unfolds, we find Kane and M-G Corporation engaged in a nefarious plot that Turok must stop for the good of all humanity.
The first time one plays Turok two things will stand out, great graphics and horrible controls. Let’s accentuate the positive to begin with. The world on which Turok is set is a lush, green planet with great looking vegetation and landscapes. To fill out the scenery, docile dinosaurs round out the ecosystem, oblivious to your combat operations. Although approximately 70% of the campaign is set at night or in dark caverns, when present the lighting effects are done extremely well. The visuals are held together by a solid frame rate that stutters only when the autosave feature kicks in, however since the checkpoints come after you’ve cleared an area, the hesitations are not a huge problem.
As any Turok fan would hope, special attention was paid to the dinosaurs. They are visually stunning, animated very well and move and behave in ways that science theorizes that they should have. Both human and create alike can be stunned and knocked down, only to get back up and continue the fight. There is a decent variety special knife “fatality” animations which show Joseph Turok skillfully bringing down raptors or stealthily dispatching Wolf Pack soldiers. Overall, Turok’s graphics are among the upper tier of current generation titles, and will not disappoint even the most discerning of gamers.
Complimenting the eye-catching graphics is game audio that does an excellent job in making the gamer feel as if his is in a jungle environment. In fact many dinosaurs will be heard before they are seen, so careful attention must be paid to audible cues. The voice acting is fairly standard and does nothing to disappoint. Musically, the soundtrack does enough to build suspense and augment the action without overbearing game play or other audible elements.
