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I have no particular attachment to the Turok franchise, which stood out from the rest of the FPS pack with its dinosaur hunting and insane weaponry, resulting in a chaotic mess whose very over the top nature helped make it fun. This new envisioning of the former Acclaim property keeps the dinos and little else, for better and a little worse.
Turok sports some pretty amazing fundamentals. There is no cover system per se, but movement is free flowing, ducking behind cover when needed, and dodging to either side to avoid a nasty raptor lunge. You can lunge yourself with the speedy knife run, using context sensitive attacks to bury the blade in the jugular of an unsuspecting grunt. Pity the normal knife attack is so worthless, since the context hit doesn't always kick in where it should. There's a beefy assortment of other vaguely familiar weaponry, from the all important bow, to machine gun, shotgun, pulse rifle, rocket launcher, flame thrower, mini-gun, to the one oddity, the sticky exploding glue gun. Switching between weapons is quick and slick, and even allows to select which hand your dual wielding weapons end up in. Most also include a second attack, usually for an explosive punch, though the mini-gun can be set as an automated turret.
As franchise reboots go, Turok is a pretty decent one. The action is solid and fun, but ultimately lacks anything truly exceptional to stand out from the pack.
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The single player flow is very Halo. Our beefy hero Turok saunters along fairly narrow pathways from enemy encounter to enemy encounter, but the developers are usually good about giving you several ways to take these baddies down, whether by stealth or sniping, shooting from cover or a headlong charge. Dino knife kills are brutal and pelting goons with gunfire as they stagger from the impact is satisfying, though the AI of the latter is lacking. I once tossed a grenade that took out three soldiers in a pinch. When I moved up to check the results, I found a forth soldier just out of the blast radius, standing with his back to me, completely unconcerned with the death of his allies.
The environment design is generally good if a little confusing, occasionally making it difficult to know where you need to go next. It's also a bit too static, where not even the smallest tree or supply crate is disturbed by occasionally massive explosions. It's all visually impressive with the thick undergrowth, rising fog, and spots of shadow, though it's a bit unnatural. Real jungles aren't nearly this green, and long grass can't grow under heavy tree cover (though new environments appear as the game progesses). It's a marked improvement over the movie set feel of Halo 3, but it still falls short of the natural world that Crysis delivered.
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