Turok Evolution für Xbox

For those of you who aren't familiar with the series, Turok first captured our attention on the Nintendo 64. Its lush, but pixilated, environments left players open to many possible surprise attacks from Velociraptors and other aggressive dinosaurs. Turok 2: Seeds of Evil brought a sense of real twitch to gaming. Real Twitch implies that enemies will react according to where they are shot. For example, shooting an enemy in the right shoulder will cause his upper body to twist to the right side. Turok 2 also brought head shots as instant kill methods into the equation. Turok 2 also made usage of the N64's 4meg upgrade. Having this meant all characters would be smooth skinned. This also added a smoother tone to all graphics. Turok 2 was one of the few games to actually make good usage of the 4 Meg expansion. The down side to Turok 2 was that multiplayer seemed to be lacking in so many areas. Playing multiplayer matches moved incredibly slow and offered few weapons or chances to use them. On the lesser side, Turok: Rage Wars was strictly death matching. They threw in a mediocre story as to why each character was participating in the Rage Wars. Rage Wars introduced multiplayer modes like Monkey Tag, where players score points by fragging the person who is the monkey. When the monkey gets to the safe point, he/she is no longer "IT". Finally, Turok 3 brought a cinematic approach to the series. Turok 3 combined the fast paced frag fests of Rage wars, with the depth and visual excellence of Turok 2. The down side was that Turok 3 focused mainly on fighting in compounds and laboratories. Turok 3 seemed to loose the whole "Dinosaur Hunter" feeling that the series initially had.

Upon starting each mission, you find yourself completely immersed in lush, green jungles. Shooting your way through the dense foliage brought back memories of the original Turok (except, this looked much better). As you shift terrains, mountains and caves have some nice mapping, but it seems that Acclaim recycled the same old textures, but just combined them in different sequences to give the illusion of different areas. For the most part, this works, but once you realize what's going on, scenery looses its allure. Sky missions seem to be the lowest resolution for textures (though at the speed you move, you'll have plenty of time to notice). The only point in which a sky mission would have a decent resolution is when you hit the wall. When encountering enemies or just random wildlife, players may be looking at a bit of a Monet. From afar, everything looks nice, but up close all the animals and enemies start to get the ugly block person/beast appearance.

Grunts and groans are just run of the mill when it comes to Turok Evolution. If a gun fires, it fires. You hear the normal sounds (nothing out of the ordinary). Enemies yell and shout just before they die, but again nothing to write home about. The only audio that's fun to listen to is hitting your opponent with the cerebral bore. As they writhe in pain before dying, you get to listen the best acting the game has to offer. To be honest, I'd rather listen to enemies hit by the cerebral bore in place of the dialog. It's not only cheesy, but it seems the voice actors decided that games were beneath them.

There are absolutely no complaints about the control in FPS mode. If you can play one Xbox FPS, then you can play Turok Evolution. With the left stick to move and right stick to look, it's pretty straight forward. Flight mode is a horse of a different color. Not only is the flying stiff, but it also moves at a very slow pace. Who cares if you're on the back of a pterosaur, just so long as you can at least get some reasonable speed? I will complain about the loading times. Gamecube was terrible, but Xbox had no reason at all for the loading time that was there. Point in fact, I could surf the web on my 14.4 modem quicker than I could load a level for Turok.

So, what's the story behind this mess? Tal Set was a great hunter, but his people are being wiped out by a confederate general. Now, the question is, what happens when a confederate general (who's prejudiced beyond all reason) becomes cybernetically enhanced and joins up with a troop of Sleestacks (Lizard men). … Give up? … You get a plot that makes no logical sense. It seems that your arch nemesis may hate African Americans and Native Americans, but somehow, he's cool with the dinosaur people. But hey, no one expects much from an FPS when it comes to stories.

What does every FPS player what? Weapons! Turok Evolution has a decent amount of weapons, but Acclaim failed to properly balance everything. Let's take the shotgun for instance. It's utterly useless. Yes, it can produce good splatter damage, but the impact is so weak that you have to pelt your opponents with several blasts. The handgun is everyone's favorite last resort. Surprisingly, it's one of the most useful weapons in the game. A single head shot disables most canon fodder. With the added bonus of a scope, who needs a sniper rifle. And don't ask me how, but apparently a single handgun is powerful enough to hit an opponent 3-4 city blocks away with devastating accuracy. The best weapon in the game (maybe not best, but at least my personal favorite) is the Tek Bow. With a sniper scope, you can take the fleas off a dog's back at ? a mile. You also have the option of Standard, Exploding, or Poison arrows. I personally enjoy the poison arrows. Hit an opponent with one, and watch him puke his guts out. .

Multiplayer is an experience that is all too forgettable. It seems that Acclaim failed to put any real thought into the multiplayer. Of course they have death match and CFT, but who doesn't? The levels are horrible. Players might find one or two levels they enjoy, but a side from that, you're just playing in the Turok world. And hey, where are the bots? Somebody give me a bot. When you think about how often people end up playing games on their own, whether it's in the middle of the night (dang insomniacs) or if you're just a mentally abused shut-in, it's nice to have AI canon fodder to kill/hone your skills. Turok doesn't even support system link or Xbox Live. You can have four players at most (which is at least better than the two players supported by PS2). You can also take to the skies on your trusty Pterosaurs and dogfight in one of one uninspiring levels.

For Gamecube, Turok Evolution was a welcomed change, but after playing the Xbox version, I found different notes to this tune. The problem started after playing other FPS games in the Xbox library. Turok Evolution just doesn't seem to meet the standards. When compared to Gamecube's lack of FPS games (in comparison to PS2 and Xbox), Turok stands out as a lesser god, over shadowed by TimeSplitters 2 and the very few other FPS games. With Xbox, sorry Acclaim, but Halo owners will definitely pass this game by. Plus, the Xbox also has TimeSplitters 2 as well Unreal Championship to satisfy the need for carnage. So, I can't say that Turok Evolution would be a worthy addition to an Xbox library.

To Xbox owners, I say this, if you need a DVD case, there are cheaper ways to get one. Turok Evolution is no more than just a continuation to what was a good series. It has its own merits (even on Xbox), but after getting stuck on the same (boring) levels for hours as well as finding yourself unimpressed by the overall package. Turok Evolution isn't worthy of a Worst Game notice, but it is a pretty bad game. Sorry Acclaim, but your latest Evolution in the Turok series just doesn't cut it.