This game sucks beyond my comprehension. I CANNOT believe that I have spent 40 pounds, a significant portion of monthly disposable income, on this revolting piece of shit.
For fuck’s sake, is it so damned difficult to TEST a game before releasing it? Chapter 2 is all but unplayable… they have you flying some sort of pterodactyl that has huge inertia and is just about impossible to control, and every time you crash into something you explode and are dumped back at the start of the level. You also explode if you go too high.
And - unforgiveable for console with a built-in smegging hard drive - there is no ‘save progress’ feature. You can spend ages getting through a level, but if you make some silly mistake near the end and die … you have to do the WHOLE THING over again!
Perhaps the clearest indicator that absolutely zero thought went into anything beyond pretty dinosaurs and explosions is the fact that it can’t remember the user preferences. I don’t like the default up/down behaviour, so I use the option to reverse it. And I have to do this EVERY SINGLE TIME I PLAY THE GAME. Except I don’t do it for Chapter 2, because the default behaviour feels right (ie the game itself changes behaviour). Talk about inconsistent.
And collision detection is just screwed… the crocodiles in the last part of Chapter 1 can savage you from 20 yards away. If you stand near one and it bites you, you lose health as expected; but if you jump away then it still goes through it’s ‘biting’ animation sequence, the blood spurts from thin air where you were standing, and you then lose health in spite of you’re being halfway over the horizon!
The menus are clue-free too. Upon inserting the CD and turning the machine on, you have to press Start a couple of times to get to the main menu. From there, the option to pick up where you left off is not the default action - far too simple - but you have to scroll down, select Load Game, choose your game from the next menu, answer the imbecilic “are you sure”, then answer another damn fool question - which level from 1 to n you really want to start from - before you can actually start playing!!
I feel so utterly ripped-off. Again. Aren’t there ANY decent games for the X-Box?? Except Halo of course.
Oh well… Enterprise is on the telly, so I’d better stop there.
I never played a Turok game before… I thought blowing up dinosaurs would be fun, dammit! How can it be possible to do a first-person shoot 'em up badly?
Azurik… will remember to avoid it, thanks. I thought Blood Omen 3 was the last word in bad games, but it seems that nothing for the X-box is worthwhile. How can this be? The XBox is an awesome piece of hardware. Where are the damn games??
And - seperate rant - when I bought my XBox I distinctly remember being told that it was “broadband ready”. I have broadband now, thanks. Can I play Halo online? Can I bollocks. Can I even hook the damn thing up to my internet connection? No.
So “Ready” seems to actually mean “Not ready”. Apparently there might be an offering (40 quid setup plus another 35 quid annual subscription) in March next year, but I’m not holding my breath.
I was considering buying Turok aswell, until I heard from someone else that it sucked. Just because a game appears to be “big budget” and from a well known publisher, doesn’t necessarily mean its going to be good.
Before I buy any game I always try to check out a review in a magazine, or get a recommendation from a friend. Not much help to you now, I know. You could always put it on ebay to see if some poor sucker buys it?
I don’t want to hijack this thread, but justed wanted to say: I bought Ratchet & Clank yesterday and it rocks - you have my presonal recommendation that it doesn’t suck!
Resolved: any person who knowingly publishes and disseminates, or causes to be published and disseminated, any of a variety of products commonly known as “video games” who fail to include a feature allowing the user to “save” at any point, for any reason, whatsoever:
Such a person shall be taken to a public place of execration, and there suspended by a rope attached by whatever means are most appropriate to said persons gender.
So let it be written. So let it be done. The Elucidator has spoken. Cringe and obey.
Is it so damned difficult to rent the game from a video store to see if you like it before you buy it?
Yes the pterodactyl is a bit hard to fly initially, but you soon get the hang of it and can have great fun strafing ground troops and having dogfights with enemy air units
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Actually I’m pretty sure the game keeps the same behaviour for the flying and the first person looking. Pull the stick back and you look up/pterodactyl pitches up. Probably it just feels natural for you when flying the bird but unnatural when looking around. Other possibility is that it actually does remember preferences and yours has a problem. When I played it it was right for me every time - I can’t remember if I had to change preferences initially.
I agree completely with the crocodile thing. Also, you didn’t mention this, but the water effects are absolute crap. Sometimes you are looking through clear air, but there is still a layer of water above you. Sometimes when swimming, it’s difficult to get to the top and breath.
Decent games?
Rallysport Challenge, MotoGP, Buffy TVS is kinda cool, Morrowind (I don’t have it yet, but it sounds good).
By the way, despite my defence of Turok, I didn’t like the game enough to buy it. I rented it and played it for a couple of days, so I saved myself $100 Aus. I’m defending it because I don’t really think most of your points are valid, there are plenty of other good reasons not to like it (e.g. the really crappy cheezy 2d vegetation graphics, or the horrible non-environmental way that a map is sealed, or the piss poor AI).
So lets sum up. Next time rent before you buy, and read the online reviews (most aren’t very flattering to Turok).
Doesn’t ANYONE read reviews anymore? It is widely known that the game is awful.
You obviously have access to the internet - my suggestion is that you read some game sites before makin gyour next purchase. Only when people stop buying this sort of crap will they stop making it.
A guy I work with was telling me about Turok the other day. Seems a friend of his brought the game over and told him “Dude, you’ve gotta play this game! It’s like Halo, only with dinosaurs!” After a few minutes of playing, my coworker realized that, sadly, that was not the case.
And Reuben, Medal of Honor: Frontline recently came out for the Xbox. Gamespot gave it an 8.5/10 rating. The PS2 version is excellent, and the Xbox version looks like it’s even better (better graphics, better sound, multiplayer support, etc.). The save-game feature still sucks, but it’s probably worth checking out if you’re looking for a decent shooter.
Xbox sucks. They don’t have ONE kid-friendly game. All I ask for is one fucking Winnie the pooh tra-la-la happy honey pot game. Or something. Just one. Everything is either kill-kill-kill or some ridiculous skateboard game.
I was in Toys ‘r’ Us one day, still deciding if I was going to buy a PS2 console. Seeing a Turok/Xbox display vacant, I thought ‘what the hey’ and tried it. It was absolutely awful. Why on earth would you put such a bad game up for a demo?
Well, I used to think that he was a bit of an ass*, but NOW, I think that I’ll agree with anything he says, ever, no matter what it is! Hooray for Lucy!
None of my local video stores do XBox game rentals.
I know, I KNOW, I should have checked out a few reviews. I’ve just read three online, and I feel like such a mug. My own damned fault. There will not be a next time.
Are any other XBoxers as GREEN with envy as I am of the PS2 folks with their Vice City thread over in CS? Man that game looks so cool!
I have Turok: Evolution for the gamecube. From your descriptions, it doesn’t seem any different than the Xbox version, and despite its drawbacks I actually still like it. The hardest thing for me to get over was the confusing controls, but I suppose Xbox users are familiar with this dual joystick setup.
And I have to disagree with elucidator’s comment. It just adds to the challenge, and from what I’ve seen (my brother is much farther than I am) most of the stages really aren’t that long. Being able to save the game anytime, anywhere, usually makes the game too easy, in my opinion.
