Turok Review, Continued
Turok's story can be broken down into two scenarios: Turok vs. the environment and Turok vs. Kane. This double-whammy conflict makes things tough, especially when the game refuses to give up on beating you to a pulp, throwing wave after wave of oppressive forces, whether it's man or reptile. Imagine, if you will, hiding behind a rock, and the enemy forces are bunkered down in an abandoned base up ahead. You might actually succeed in taking out the first round of enemies, but then the second wave takes its position and you go through the elimination process again. Bullets fly everywhere with uncanny precision, yet your teammates can't seem to fire a decent shot. Then a swarm of Velociraptors begins swarming the area while projectiles whiz by your ears. They not only tackle your opponents, but these brutal lizards literally knock you down to the ground over and over and over again. Eventually they might actually eat you if the bullets don't sink into Turok's skull. Needless to say, enduring both can get very tiring.
If there's one positive note Turok has going for it, it's the highly entertaining boss battles. The initial T-rex boss wasn't much of a fight, as the center of the arena featured a hollowed-out tree used for cover. The T-rex could stuff her big head inside, but for the most part, she was easily taken down with the available firepower. But once Turok faced the boss known as the Spider Tank, the gloves were off and each successor boss proved to be more of a challenge than the last. The Spider Tank relied on the blast damage of its rockets and its ability to reload quickly. The Sea Monster proved to be a huge challenge simply because it lurked in a dark cavern lake. The final boss gave the game a proper, exciting climax. On a whole, Turok lacked inspiration and excitement in many large areas of the game. In fact, it seemed to grow boring and stale despite the hostile environment. But the boss battles livened things up and made the overall experience worth playing.
Turok's compound bow is the game's best weapon, but targeting the firearms can be extremely difficult with console controls.
What also made Turok worth playing was the use of the combat knife and compound bow. Forget the other weapons: these two tasty toys made Turok an interesting killing machine. The latter - his C9 Perforator Compound Bow - felt like a primitive sniper weapon, complete with a zooming feature for easy piercing and tension characteristics that can actually pin an opponent to the wall when released at maximum. His other special weapon - the P23 Combat Knife - became an important part in taking down dinosaurs, as these monster lizards proved extremely fast and hard to pierce using conventional weapons. With this weapon equipped, the game will flash the Right Trigger icon to activate the "Instant Kill," an awesome maneuver that will slash the opponents' throat, jab the blade deep into the predator's skill, or gouge out an eye. It's bloody good fun and quite rewarding when the persistent beasts never stop coming. There's a sense of satisfaction watching their corpse quiver on the ground in a pool of blood. The knife also comes in handy when trying to get out of an area quickly, as it weighs less than the other three weapons he is allowed to carry.
If you count the knife and bow, Turok actually carries around four weapons. However, he's only allotted two slots for firearms, and in most cases, it doesn't matter which. The dual-wield feature depends on the size of the weapons; he can hold the HOG 9mm Handgun in his left hand and the Enforcer Shotgun in his right, but the War Horse Mini-Gun, Redfist RPG and L66 Pulse Rifle require the use of both hands (but you can still carry one of each). Fans of any FPS franchise will feel right at home with Turok's arsenal. What makes them appear different is the actual environment: weapons need to be reloaded, and when five Velociraptors are bearing down with their tongues hanging out like hungry dogs, the weapons suddenly become annoying. The pulse rifle actually overheats, making it a bad choice in heavy situations despite its rapid fire; however, its alternate fire - the Disruption Grenades - comes in quite handy.
It's just too bad the controls are all screwed up. That may be a little harsh, actually. The button assignments were fairly easy to fall into: move Turok with the left thumbstick, aim with the right. The left trigger buttons handled the left-handed weapon and vice-versa. The primary beef with the scheme is the controls' sensitivity; no matter how the bar was raised or lowered, there just wasn't a happy medium. The guns' natural kickback intensified the out-of-control aiming already present. Even the bow and the 92 Stalker Sniper Rifle were difficult to master in heated settings simply because the enemy usually moved on by the time you won the fight with the on-screen crosshair.
Without the implementation of a duck-and-cover option (which should be a standard feature by now), keeping alive while fighting the control sensitivity only adds to the game's difficulty and length. The same control problems also held true online as well although it seemed as if some gamers found a way to overcome the sensitivity quirkiness. [Editor's Note: Turok is scheduled to arrive on the PC April 15th.]
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