*** Spoiler Alert ***

I rented Turok last week and played through the campaign. I was going to check out the multiplayer as well, but i was never able to find a room with more than 3 other people in it . After a couple rounds of 2v2 I gave up on the multiplayer. I’m glad that I rented Turok for a couple reasons. First, if I had bought it I would be mad about the waste of my $60. It is not that the game is really bad, but it is not good enough to be worth buying. The game goes between some indoor and outdoor settings. The outdoor settings are all graphically very nice and tend do be fun because there are dinosaurs to lure into attacking your enemies. Apparently, dinos are like monkeys and chaise shiny objects like flares. It did not seem very probably, but it did not stop me from firing flares at my enemies so the dinos would attack them. The indoor areas all seemed to be very poorly lit and generally consisted of walking through tunnels/hallways killing everything until you reach the end.

The other reason I’m glad I rented it is because they put some really fun weapons into the game. The story line is very linear and when it is not extremely frustrating it is a lot of fun. There are points that drove me crazy because I would be forced to try them over and over. Most of these were in the middle of the game before I got the really powerful weapons, but after the stronger opponents start appearing. The flamethrower and rocket launcher were both well done and fun to use. Also, the bow and arrows were pretty fun to use once I got the hang of them.

The one weapon I found really annoying was the knife. When you approach any enemy who is not a main boss, with the knife, a right trigger indicator will pop up when they are in range letting you know you can get them with a one hit kill. I killed pretty much every dinosaur with the knife because it was easier and faster than using a gun. Very Unrealistic. Also, the knife was annoying at the parts where the developers want you to sneak through levels and get silent kills with it, but there is no cover system so the only way to hide is to crouch in tall grass or behind cover. But when you do this you cannot see anything. Then, when you stand up to look around the enemies see you anyway. I don’t mind games that require you to use stealth, but when stealth is required there should be a way to achieve that action without getting spotted easily. Such as a solid cover system or active camouflage. My final annoyance with the knife occurs when you get attacked by a larger dino. If you get knocked down you then have to follow the on screen cues to use your knife to fight the dino off. Mostly this consists of hitting the tirggers repeatedly or wiggling the left thumb stick. These were always frustrating to me because it I am holding a gun when I get knocked down why don’t I just shoot it instead of pulling out my knife to do some a random button pressing.

This leads to my other big frustration with the game. The final boss fight. After chasing down this guy for the whole game who is suppose to be this really great soldier instead of getting to fight him the final battle is a choreographed cut scene where you have to hit the button that comes up on screen to keep the fight going. Other than when you get knocked down by dinos this was the only time in the game like this. I found it really poorly done. I don’t understand why you would end the game with a choreographed fight after letting every other fight occur naturally. It was lame.

Overall the game was alright. The graphics were good for the most part. The enemy and dino AI was fun to work with, and the sound was really well done. The voice acting was cheesy, but the sounds of where dinos/enemies were approaching from were really well done. My surround sound saved me from getting hit from behind multiple times. Most of the achievements are for multiplayer, but there are some decent ones in the campaign to get. So, if you were thinking of getting Turok I’d recommend renting it instead because it is not worth buying, but it is worth playing through once.