Cole, Logan, Slade, Reese, Kane, Grimes and Cowboy. All of the above have at least two things in common: they’re all ultracorny, clichéd action tough-guy names, and they’re all the names of characters in Turok. We’re guessing we probably met characters called Black, Drake, Stone, Hawk, Steele, Savage, King, Tex, Duke, McBastard and He-Man as well, but weren’t formally introduced. But anyway, so what? What’s in a name?

Well, while Joseph Turok would still be the same strong, silent, brooding, mega-hard, dino-decking mo-fo if his name was Cindy Honeydew or Celia Meadows or something, the fact that most of his supporting cast sport such trite monikers ought to tell you something about his latest game – it’s very generic. It could have been called ‘Predator Gears Of Starship Aliens War Troopers’ (with dinosaurs), although we have to admit Turok fits more neatly onto the box. But again, so what? There’s no harm in a bit of cheese? People like a bit of familiarity. Go with what you know, and all that...

Yeah, true. And at first we were prepared to cut it some slack, figuring that if you did want to remain well within your comfort zone and play an FPS exactly like every other FPS you’ve ever played then you’d quite enjoy Turok. But it wasn’t long before it went from harmlessly generic to plain old bad, resulting in the rapid dissolution of our live-and-let-live mood.

The sad truth is that it’s whenever Turok attempts to break away from the norm, even if only just a little bit, that it fluffs it most badly. Take the dinosaurs for a start – the closest thing Turok has to a unique selling point. They ought to be the best thing about it, especially considering you can take them on armed with just a knife. But they’re actually probably the worst thing about it. As you can see from our ‘Turok’s One Button’ boxout, fighting most dinosaurs is a tedious, repetitive, unsatisfying business, which often feels like one long quick-time event, although in defence of quick-time events, they do usually at least make use of more than one button.

You’re also supposed to be able to manipulate the dinosaurs into attacking enemy troops and such, which would have spiced things up considerably if it weren’t for the fact that it rarely, if ever, works. On one occasion we climbed to a high vantage point and spotted a group of enemies in a base below with a cluster of dinosaur eggs nearby. We shot at the eggs hoping that a pissedoffasaurus would show up and attack the nearby enemies in defence of its nest. One did show up and eventually advanced upon the squad of grunts, doing so in a confused, zig-zagging, ‘my AI has no sense of direction’ sort of a way. But almost as soon as it had engaged the troops in combat it was dead, no match for their guns, teamwork and marginally less clumsy AI. What a waste of time. We might as well have just shot them.

We came to the exact same conclusion after following what initially appeared to be a helpful piece of loading-screen advice. Apparently, our shotgun can fire flares, which will distract and attract dinosaurs so, in theory, if you can land a flare near some troops it should get them eaten. But in practice, the flares don’t seem to work unless you fire them very near to the dinosaur you’re trying to get the attention of, which totally defeats the object. Again, straightforward shooting and stabbing is less tedious. Less tedious, but still very tedious.

Another piece of loading-screen advice outlines the importance of using your ears, as enemy threats aren’t always visible. Our advice would be not to bother, seeing as the source of a noise isn’t always where your ears tell you it is. The sound of a 20-foot lizard bearing down on you from behind ought to sound loud, close and behind you, but it tends to sound much like a dinosaur in front of you, only quieter. This is very unhelpful.

Slightly more helpful is the fact that whenever something knocks you off your feet – be it an explosion or a big, scaly headbutt – you always automatically turn to face the source of the impact before being flung backwards by it. This is useful against dinosaurs, as letting them knock you over then pressing R as soon as you get up virtually guarantees a kill, but not very useful when trying to figure out where you’re going. These mini ‘getting knocked over’ cut-scenes, along with the ‘stabbing dinosaur’ ones prove totally disorientating in a game world with too much identikit greenery, and not enough radar, compass or map. There is an objective arrow, but it’s inexplicably part-time in its nature and rarely ever shows up when you actually really need it. Therefore, we found that reaching the end of each stage could get pretty difficult, unlike reaching the end of this review which, given the enormity of our vitriol towards this smelly old bum of a game, was easy bloody peasy.

Gavin Mackenzie