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When we last left our hero he had just defeated the Campaigner and destroyed the powerful Chronoscepter. By doing so, however, Turok awakened an even larger evil force. Called the Primagen, this evil let loose dark soldiers, comprised of demons, dinosaurs and unholy hybrids of both, to destroy the Energy Totems, six pillars that serve as the only barrier to the Primagen's freedom. If the Totems fall, so does the Lost Land. And so Turok will have to make his way across the six different lands, virtually killing everything in his path, in order to reach each Energy Totem in time.
Gripped with excitement yet? Neither were we. Unfortunately, things are going to get worse before they get better. The back story is a strong indication of the rest of Turok 2's shortcomings, as play control, gameplay and graphics all follow suit.
Control lacks precision, and feels like Turok is walking in mud. The mouse movement is average, and for the most part, feels like most other shooters. However, when walking around, Turok 2 has a strange effect that throws off the eye. Perhaps it's the lack of peripheral vision, even in the highest resolution, but lateral and forward movement is best compared to walking around in a generic sniper mode. Anyone who's played Vigilance knows the feeling exactly. Unfortunately, this flaw hampers otherwise forgivable play control.
Gameplay is arguably the worst aspect of Turok 2. Each mission has a certain set of criteria that needs to be met before Turok can be warped out of the level. These include powering up generators, rescuing children and of course, killing, killing and more killing. That in and of itself is fine. Sure, there's no real innovation, no story driven plots, no character development… but the net effect is a forgivable tried and true method of progressing throughout the game. However, moving around each level involves the dreaded, and we mean dreaded, "if you're stuck, you probably haven't found all the switches" gameplay. The least Iguana could have done was give us the "blue key/blue door" scenario. Even games like SiN succeed in mixing in enough variables to make opening doors enjoyable. Instead, we found ourselves grinding our teeth in frustration every time we were forced to backtrack after coming onto a locked door because of a hidden switch we missed… not exactly our idea of fun.
AI on the other hand, is for the most part functional. Enemies will do their best to try and avoid your fire, often ducking behind objects or simply running away (although we were only able to trigger the latter response twice). Pathfinding techniques are also impressive, with raptors jumping over fallen trees and small gaps while giving chase. Enemies will also turn on each other, if one happens to get in the way of another's attack.
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