http://www.herald-dispatch.com/entertainment/x520206901

Gamer's Corner: 'Turok' teaches the importance of timing

Feb 13, 2008 @ 08:01 PM
The Herald-Dispatch

Do you hate dinosaurs? Like, really hate them? If you owned a shop, would
you deny dinosaurs service? Would you walk across the street to push an
elderly dinosaur over? If so, you're going to love "Turok," a first-person
action game for the Xbox 360 and PS3 that pits you against the extinct
beasts ... and a bunch of dudes. But mainly dinosaurs.

If the name sounds familiar, there's good reason. This is a relaunch of a
series that fizzled out after its heyday on the Nintendo 64. Though the
plot is still basically the same (angry Native American fights dinosaurs),
the series has been modernized and "edged up" to the point where it'll
almost be beyond recognition for long-time fans.

One of the nice improvements is that everything, from the jungle
environments to the dinos that inhabit them, looks really gorgeous, even
the human enemies are fairly generic. The jungle, though, is so real it's
spooky and really adds to the immersive quality.

While the dinos look great, fighting them never seems as satisfying and fun
as it should be. You'll still get a thrill from blowing them away every
once in a while, but all the lizards are so very, very stupid it almost
seems like an unfair fight -- and they're the ones with the razor sharp
claws.

Sadly, their human counterparts are just as dumb as the dinosaurs, with
them being able to detect your presence at seemingly random distances. Once
the dinos are removed, this feels like any other action game ... and not a
particularly good one at that.

Thankfully, much of the game is supported by a really excellent cast of
voice actors including Powers Boothe and Ron Perlman. Just when a dumb
enemy threatens to pull you out of the experience, their grizzled
characters can get your head right back into the game.

Here's the bottom line with "Turok": I haven't had a lot to play lately, so
I keep going back to it. But if this had been released in the fall glut of
games, no one would have noticed. If anything, I hope "Turok" serves as a
lesson for other publishers: A decent game can seem top shelf when there's
not much else hogging the limelight.

Justin McElroy is a freelance writer living in Huntington. His writing
appears on video game sites like Gamezebo.com and Joystiq.com.