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Turok is back and looking better than ever. Our hands on impressions of the E3 demo.

Turok is one of those franchises that started off with so much promise, yet with every successive sequel it seemed to fall deeper and deeper into the hole of mediocrity. It’s been about 5 years since the last Turok game, and gamers have begun to forget the dinosaur hunter’s existence. Well, Turok is coming back in a big way on the next gen platforms with a brand new developer, story, main character, and the power of the Unreal Engine 3. Let’s just say right off the bat that this is a change for the better. Much better.

Turok has been completely reborn in this new next gen outing. No longer is he a Dinosaur Hunter, but rather he is a Black Ops agent that has been charged with hunting down his former mentor gone rogue, Roland Kane. While hot on the trail of Kane, Turok’s ship gets shot down by Kane’s defenses and he crash lands on an alien planet inhabited by both Kane’s well-trained and highly skilled warriors, and an entire species worth of prehistoric dinosaurs. Armed with a bow, a trusty knife, and a couple of big guns that he’s no doubt to pick up on the way, Turok sets out to find and capture Kane.

Our E3 demo dropped us right in the middle of a dense and very finely detailed jungle environment. Before taking even one step we had to stop and just take a look around as we marveled at how damn beautiful this game looked. Foliage as far as the eye can see, moss covered rocks and logs, and fantastic art design made the jungle absolutely come to life.

Once we snapped out of our graphic induced daze, we spotted our first enemy and charged at him guns blazing. That was not the smartest strategy. Not only did it alarm the other surrounding guards in the area, but it also seemed to wake up the dormant dinos on our west flank. While we put up a valiant effort, the combined force of both the dinosaurs and the surprisingly intelligent and durable enemy soldiers were too much to handle. After respawning we decided to take a different approach. Instead of charging in, guns a blazing we pulled out our trusty bow, pulled it back, waited for the patrol to stop moving, and sent an arrow right into the back of his head.

Our stealthy approach didn’t last long however as we were soon spotted as we tried to make it towards our objective and gunfire soon came from several different directions. Knowing that dinosaurs would soon be following, we took out our shotgun and used its alternate fire to send a flare over to where the enemies were centralized. Since dinosaurs have an “Ooooh shiny” mentality, two dinosaurs followed the flare and started attacking our now terrified enemies. Using this opportunity, we threw a grenade in the scuffle and smiled as bodies and body parts flew in every direction once the grenade exploded.