Well the smell of blood has finally lured Acclaim’s comic inspired FPS bloodbath out onto the store shelves. Its hard not to nitpick some of the things about the game seeing as I personally had high expectations for the game, but all in all it is a very good game worthy of the TUROK name.

The story has you playing the role of Tal’Set as he is pulled from his own world into the lost land. His mortal enemy is also drawn into this world where dinosaurs roam through a portal or tear between his dimension and the lost land. The story unfolds rather well as the game progresses but then again it also lacks in some story telling as most of the important detals are explained in text before you begin the chapter. Something more cinematic would have been nice but the text gets the job done just fine.

For Xbox owners thirsting for a worthy follow to Halo, Turok is not it. Thats not to says its a bad game, its actually a great game. What I am saying is that the enemy AI and the overall feel of the game is of a lower caliber than that of Halo. I had high expectations for this game until I discoverred it was being cross developed for PS2 as well and that it was designed with PS2 in mind. That in itself poses limitations because that means the environments are smaller and the textures are not as good as they could be. I have tried out the gamcube and PS2 versions of the game as well as my brother got it for the Gamecube. The poly count has been increased but could have been better that what it wound up being.

So let me break it down for you.

Graphics: Ok the graphics are great and the nice touches like the moving foliage is a nice touch. Some of the textures are much better than others giving the game an incomplete look in some areas. This version of the game features the enhanced effects for fire and explosions that you wont find in the GC or PS2 versions. The weapons and the effects are great and the animation on the characters is good. Its just missing that last level of polish that would have brought it up a notch.

Sound: After hearing the sound effects of the landslide in the PS2 and GC versions (sounds like a tommy gun rather than a rockslide) I was pleased by the supior sound quality the Xbox version offers. The sound is decent and works. The weapons sound good as do the grunts and groans of death from your enemies. Nothing to write home about but they do their job, and better than the other two versions of the game.

Gameplay: Well if you can play halo you can pick up and go in Turok same overall control layout with some exceptions. It plays well and the framerate maintains pretty solid with little or no lag noticable. One other mention is the Xbox version has the best load time of all the versions the PS2 takes quite some time to load the level and surprisingly the GC version loads quite a while, which is odd for a GC game seeing as most games for the GC hardly appear to load at all. But regardless the gameplay is solid and easy to get into. The sniper scope is awesom and necessary as the game can get hairy if you dont do enough sniping of those pests oin the cliffs above you before entering a new area.

Reviewers Note: Turok is a good game if you hunger for blood its got plenty of it not quite the buckets that Turok 2 did but enough to quench. Great and imaginative weapons good graphics and good sound make for a good game, could have been better and most likely would have been if it was developed for the Xbox first, but the best version of the three games also I might add the hardest as there are extra enemies added to ares in the Xbox version you wont find in the PS2 or GC version. Turok Rocks, mulitplayer dissapoints with no bots and no online play but its fun for four friends to go head to head, still wish there were some bots though.