Major Disappointment
Turok Evolution was heavily hyped, and was released to much fanfare, earning middling to good reviews. Suffice to say I don't agree with the somewhat positive reviews of this game. To put it shortly, in light of all the prerelease hype surrounding this game, to call it a pile of s*** would be a compliment.
Let us go over what this game promised, shall we? This game was supposed to resurrect the dying Turok franchise and was supposed to have "revolutionary AI," "lifelike graphics", "innovative gameplay," etc etc. Now, if it came anywhere near any of those, I could excuse this game, but since it doesn't, let me point out its flaws.
As for the revolutionary AI, I guess it's revolutionary in that it has made no steps forward in being more intelligent, unlike most new games, which usually attempt to improve upon past achievements. Case in point: there can be two guards standing right next to each other. You explode one guard's head with a non-explosive arrow (don't ask me how that works), and the other guard just stands there. Hmmm...
Lifelike graphics? Well, to be honest, the environments aren't all that bad. The foliage looks good, although many times it is too thick to see through, so hiding in the foliage to stalk your prey (one of the cool features the developers promised) is pretty much useless, unless your goal is just to get killed by enemies you can't see. However, the character models are not so great. Most look like they were recycled from the N64 Turok games.
I suppose when they said innovative gameplay, they were referring to the extremely irritating pteradactyl flying sequences that are mixed in amongst the levels. Not only are the controls during these sections a little subpar, but the levels are just plain hard. Far more difficult than the rest of the game, in fact. This creates a really uneven experience, as you will easily blow through most of the first person sections, and then find yourself wanting to smash your controller during the flying levels.
Add to this a boring soundtrack and an especially stupid story that revolves around an evil, racist, Chuck Norris wannabe cyborg named Tobias Bruckner and you have one really truly awful game.
The one and only redeeming factor in this game is the multiplayer, which has always been Turok's strong suit. But even this is a little underwhelming. There is one gun that is essentially a homing one-hit-kill gun that bores into your opponent's skull and kills him. If anyone gets ahold of that, it is just a competition of who can shoot first, which honestly isn't that appealing.
Bottom line: The multiplayer is average at best, but it is still the best part of this otherwise abysmal game. Your money is better spent on just about anything else. Stay away.Read full review
