(continued from previous page) ...and reload your weaponry as well.

One of the things that disappointed us most was that there was no real sprint option. Everything seems to always be forced at a power walking level. Call of Duty 4 may have spoiled gamers by adding in this feature, but Turok could have sorely used it. When a gang of dinosaurs is chasing you, you’re going to wish you had a bit of extra speed to catch a breather and regroup.

Voice acting for the game was very well produced. You can finally tell we’re in the next generation of gaming when the majority of voice acting is hitting a high level of entertainment. The emotion of the characters was there as was the ability for their voices to make you feel a part of the experience.

As far as difficulty goes, this is going to be a new love or hate relationship. We all love games to challenge us but sometimes Turok can just be downright cruel. The order the difficulty occurs is sometimes ridiculous. You’ll often find yourself breezing by sections of the game and all of a sudden it’s like you’ve hit a perfectly clean window that you didn’t see and you’re not proceeding to get your butt kicked. The rollercoaster difficulty is obviously a huge concern because it makes it difficult for newcomers to truly adapt to the situation and enjoy the game fully. It won’t be as rough for the hardcore enthusiasts, but causal gamers are becoming increasingly more apparent these days.

In terms of enemy artificial intelligence regarding the Wolfpack members you're slaughtering and the dinosaurs you're butchering, stupidity seems to work best. The Wolfpack soldiers will usually spot you and have all of them run at you in a straight suicide line or they'll stand their ground and shoot with terrible accuracy while you mow them down. This becomes increasingly easy over time if you have the bow equipped. You'll be able to take out an entire station of enemies from a hundred feet away with ease as the arrows take down enemies so easily.

Bosses are also what attribute to the roller coaster difficulty of Turok. Sometimes they become very linear as you're given only one way to defeat them even though you have an entire arsenal of weapons at your disposal. You may have to run across a linear plain to get a certain weapon that will be able to easily take out the boss; however if you don't move right away, your opponent will just obliterate you into nothingness. In terms of actual enemies, you'll come up against everything from T-Rex's, mutated dinosaurs, and eventually, even Kane himself.

The first thing we noticed about this title’s graphics hit us right in the face. The texture work needs a lot of help during cinematic sequences. On top of the noticeable tearing, as well as terrible refresh rate, we noticed an awkward blur outlining the other individuals in the game. Fortunately enough, we rarely saw this as an issue during the actual gameplay experience.

As much the as comparisons and the demo may have shown you, the graphics are not all that bad. Turok is full of moments where we can take in the world around us and just appreciate it for what it is. With the literal movement of tall grass as we moved through it and the detail to the environment, we found ourselves enjoying the surrounding area. Though there is a sense of washed out feeling to the games look, it almost adds to the atmosphere to an extent, unfortunately it doesn’t make up for the fact that the game does have that issue.

Turok does feature a pretty extensive multiplayer opportunity, but it ends up being as lackluster as the single-player campaign itself. The game offers you the obvious deathmatch and capture the flag experience as well as the much anticipated co-op ability. The problem with this game’s co-op mode is it’s only around three to four levels deep; which pretty much suffocates the excitement it could have brought to the table. There are 7 maps for online play but none of them are any special either. The online experience is pretty ... (continued on next page)