Turok:God FPS were crappy

I've been exclusively playing Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis and Turok Evolution on the PS2 recently. Partly because you won't be able to play PS2 games through the TV anymore, already it hurts the eyes unless you spend ten minutes of naffing through the menus everytime you switch from DVD to TV to PS2 to Wii.

I've been playing Jurassic Park genesis because JESUS FUCKING CHRIST KEVIN FROM OHIO YOU'VE SEEN A Ceratosaurus hunt and eat most of a herd of Dryosaurus and you're pissy because the trees aren't authentic? Ahhh the thrills of accidentally deleting security fences.



As for Turok Evolution, I've been trying to finish it for that other neglected webpage. Now, I know it isn't particular a great shooter but considering how easy it is to roll your eyes far back into your own head everytime another FPS comes out it is easy to forget the kind of crap we had to put up with. Here's a list of my personal peeves at Turok, some are specifically aimed at that game but other problems are typical of the late 90s-early00s console shooters.

1. Before cover mechanics every firefight was just a war of attrition. Okay so game developers have shamelessly jumped on the Gears (kill.switch whatever) bandwagon but god it used to be tedious. Turok runs like this. A Walk round a corner. B Five guards telepathically home in on you. C shooting lots of shooting D. Hoover up the generous supply of first aid kits E. Move onto the next area and return to A. If you are good at Turok you'll manage to top up your health to 100% at E ready for A. If you are bad at Turok then in between D you end up backtracking as far as you can go depserately trying to find the health packs hidden by shitty graphics trees and polygonal cavities.
2. For a game about dinosaurs chapters 3,4 and 5 don't really have any. The levels with the teleporting pricks is particularly annoying.
3. Sometimes for reasons I can't work out, some weapons just disappear from your inventory. According to the 'boards' of yesteryear it was done to increase the level of challenge. In itself this is fine except the levels are littered with ammo for guns I had last level. NEED TEKBOW, NEED TEKBOW, NEED TEKBOW.
4. AI. Okay AI is still deeply flawed in most FPSs. Developers will tell you that their game has superior AI and within five minutes you'll see a goon taking cover the wrong side of a sandbag, troops lose interest once you run far enough away from them and guys running round in little circles is still not a rare sight. But jeezus it used to be bad. Once section of Turok, the stealth
5. You can just run through the levels. I've found you can either complete a level by moving forward two steps, dealing with the spawned in baddies, picking up health then moving forward two feet or you can just sprint through the whole level, opportunistically picking up health. Sadly, the latter is 56% more fun than the former. Sometimes though the game will present a wall that only explodes once you've cleared an area type thing. :(
6. Comedy violence. Turok had problems in Germany until it turned the bad guys into "Robots" but it's hard to see how they got so heated over some hilariously comic cartoon violence. Turok uses the Quake school of hit a dead body enough times and it'll turn into beef steaks technique.
7. There's a pterosaur riding flying section that's worse than the flying section in Dinotopia: the Sunstone Pirates.
8. level is so inconsistent. Sometimes you'll get spotted a mile off and the alarms will sound. Most times the bad guys will pursue you unless you go around a corner in which case the Sleg won't forget you, they'll just wait for infinity for you to come back around the corner. Other times you can (if you haven't randomly lost the sniper pistol between levels) just headshot everyone from 2 miles away and nobody will pay the blind bit of notice.

Some things never change though. The classic, mount-a-turret-gun-and-guys-will-pour-out-in-front-of-you sections are still going strong. Sadly, there are also some features that have fallen off of the back of box feature lists these days. Turok's always been good for the crazy weapons. The Flechette minigun feels particularly weighty and has about a four minute warm up time. Turning goons into mincemeat with the four round shotgun attachment really feels vindictive. Also, you can shoot the guns from bad guys hands and they'll surrender. Remember that? There was a phase of that being the next best thing.

That's it. Make your own conclusions. I'm outta here to show Virginia from Missouri some more dinosaurs up close. Apparently she thinks there aren't enough or that the $120 to see the viewing platform is too steep. I'VE BROUGHT DINOSAURS BACK FROM EXTINCTION VIRGINIA YOU THINK THAT SHIT IS CHEAP?