Review: Turok

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beddo

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Dec 12, 2007
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Turok is a somewhat enjoyable and fairly entertaining game. However, there are a number issues that bring the quality of the user experience down.

The sensitivity of the look function always seems to be off no matter what setting it's at.

The damage received by the enemy soldiers is very inconsistent with respect to the weapons used, this makes Turok feel more like a 'game' than an 'experience'. For example; in hard mode, one arrow in the body will take most soldiers down but it will take nearly a whole load of bullets from a chain gun.

Quite often you'll throw an alternate fire pulse grenade at a soldier, they'll watch it roll, pause, shout "grenade", fly 20 feet in the air only to get up like nothing happened! One of the tougher soldiers can take three grenades before taking the courtesy of leaving this mortal coil; this generally leaves the user only using grenades as a distraction for the enemy.

A lot of the weapons feel weak; they are generally omitted as serious options when you have to face a group of three or more. The shotgun has little power and while the flare feature is useful for distracting certain dinosaurs it wasn't used with great effect in gameplay.

In some areas you'll be faced with endlessly spawning enemies until you enter a trigger area. Again this breaks the experience of the game and removes an element of seemlessness from the levels.

I understand that in a game you want to be the hero taking everyone out (something that COD4 often failed in during the SAS missions) however, having numerous able bodied team members sit back and tell you to take down the giant enemy tank while they share Margheritas and tales of times gone by becomes somewhat frustrating after numerous failed attempts at certain sections. In fact, this happens at numerous points within game mking company Whisky one of the poorest laziest 'elite' teams of all time.

While being thrown on ground dinosaurs grenades and rockets is a cool feature it starts to become somewhat grating. Noting the earlier tank battle; you'll run behind a wall where he doesn't have line of sight on you and whammo! A shell has sent you flying into the middle of the field! By the time the smoke and your blurred vision have gone allowing you to see where you are whammo, another shot sends you flying again! You are left completely disorientated not knowing where you are or which way you're facing, the grey rocks all look exactly the same, by the time you realise you're looking down the wrong end of the tank's turret you're screen goes red and you have to try again!

Despite these frustrations, Turok is a good game. Recommended if you have a fancy for Dinos and guns.
 

bamforth

New member
Mar 10, 2008
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I will say this - the review from a reader's perspective is simply a selection of poor faults with the game. I know that no game is perfect and so I would be surprised if a review didn't raise some negative points but all too often people seem to want to talk about the bad features of a game and not talk about what they found fun or what they felt was a good decision by the design team.

You have finished and started with two positive sentences which is good and you have also compared to another game that Turok is competing against in the FPS console market which is also good. Also you reveal no spoilers which is something I failed at when I did a review so my wee 1/16th Scottish hat is off to you for that.

I would say that you show promise and I think that a more balanced review possibly with a few more points that haven't already been raised by others would fix this. Other than that not bad.