Price: £39.99

Players: 1-2

Turok Evolution apparently takes you back to Turok's early days as a fight with your enemy, Captain Tobias Bruckner, in Texas 1886, sees you fall into a rift throwing you back into the Lost Lands where you're rescued by the River Village, arch enemies of Lord Tyrannus who has appointed Bruckner as his new general (see... the baddy came back with you) I was a big fan of the original PC game with its then-cutting edge 3Dfx graphics and wide, expansive and well-detailed levels with a number of interesting puzzles to be solved. The sequel lost it somewhat, as the levels were too big and I found myself roaming around in circles after a few of them and gave it up. Inbetween outings for the dinosaur hunter have seen the light of day on the N64 and the Gameboy... and now this is meant to be a new dawn for Turok as he appears on all the major consoles. Early on in the PR marketing campaign I received an easter egg (as in, eggs that dinosaurs lay, although this one was yummy chocolate in a green wrapper - try teaching a Triceratops to do that!), but sadly the end product being reviewed here turned out to be rather less sumptuous.

Firstly, you instantly lose the feeling of a "go anywhere" play area because you can't... go anywhere, that is. Stray too far and you get hemmed in by 'walls' of shrubbery which, when mixed together, makes you feel less like you're in a jungle and more like you're on a film set with a load of cartoon cut-outs, such is the effect given by the scenery. If you've ever seen the video for Morgan's "Flying High", then you'll know what I mean. Also, the soundtrack loops, so the music heats up at regular moments rarely corresponding with what's onscreen thus losing its emphasis as a result.

As I mentioned earlier, I enjoyed the original PC game, even though it did at times feel like a great game engine in need of a better game. However, at least it gave you a feeling of being there, partly because they looked so spacious. In comparison, here it's just tons of confusing greenery after another and after too much of it... it gets boring. Another problem? Go too long on a level and die then you have to restart from scratch as you can't save mid-level. However, while an early flying level was broken up into smaller chunks as you got to the next part, the picture stilted and then stopped and then you were told that the next part of the level was loading. It was almost starting to resemble Daikatana, dare I mention that turkey's name. If I need go on, there's also slowdown and pop-up along the way. Sorry, but there's just too many things wrong and not enough right as if the developers haven't learned from the problems of the past.

GRAPHICS SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC PLAYABILITY ENJOYMENT
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Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2002.