Ah Turok. That name, once synonymous with foggy, overly ambitious dinosaur hunting on a console long forgotten, is now a symbol of startling mediocrity. Over the last ten years, this once proud franchise has done everything in its power to sully its good name, a slippery slope that eventually culminated in Turok Evolution on last-gen consoles – a crime against all that is good and right in the world of shooters.

But where most saw a series disappearing into obscurity and futility, Propaganda Games saw an opportunity. It saw a chance to resurrect the legend of Joseph Turok. It saw a chance to hold its head high against strong competition, to pit ancient reptiles and luscious green jungle against the glow of Halo’s ring worlds and the decaying splendour of BioShock’s Rapture. Propaganda Games saw an opportunity, but unfortunately, failed to see how to take it.

The now singularly named Turok is, sadly, as generic a shooter as you could ever hope to find. It ticks all the boxes. Unreal Engine 3? Yep. Gruff Space marines? You bet. A merciless antihero, forced into violence through circumstance and a chequered past? Sounds about right to us. Within minutes of its ‘escape from the ship that’s a bit like the ship in Halo’ introductory level, you know you’re most definitely still in Kansas, and will probably be there for quite some time.

Not that it doesn’t flatter to deceive at times. By far Turok’s most impressive attribute is its wildlife. In a game about a dinosaur hunter, it should come as no surprise to see a few prehistoric monsters roaming around, and at first, it appears that Propaganda has nailed a believable ecosystem. Herbivores leave you alone, smaller creatures are attacked by larger predators, dinos can be seen rucking with your human adversaries and everything is terrified of the T-Rex. The beasts have been animated and crafted with such a care and attention to detail that it almost seems unfair to cull them. But cull them you will. Repeatedly.

You see, Turok only creates an illusion of an ecosystem. In fact, all it really has under its bonnet is a few basic AI tricks, allowing you to turn animals against each other by firing flares on their backs or hoping a human enemy gets in the way. After a few hours play, it becomes all too clear that these beasts are always gunning for your blood, and will appear from nowhere to knock you down, constantly. Repeatedly. Forever. And in a game where your arsenal is impressive, filled with one-handed shotguns and violently destructive plasma rifles, you’re woefully dependant on the one thing you would have thought safe to leave at home – your knife.

Yes, the best way to fend off the hundreds of dinos that pile into you head-first is to equip your hunting blade, wait to be knocked off your feet then hammer the right trigger as you get back up. Nine times out of ten you’ll activate a brutal ‘stealth’ kill animation, and set about repeatedly plunging your knife into the lizard’s prone cranium. Fun the first 40 times you see it. After that, not so much.

Skirmishes against humans aren’t much better. Turok’s controls are just far too twitchty. Even on the lowest sensitivity setting, it’s almost impossible to aim with any sort of accuracy, meaning combat is entirely unsatisfactory. It’s all very well including a sexy bow and arrow, but when a decent shot is as much about fluke as it is skill, there’s little point. You might as well stick with… ah yes, the knife.

It’s a shame too. Turok’s full of cute ideas, and with a stronger control system and level design better than its endless corridors of jungle, it would have made a fun b-movie shooter to wile away the end of winter. You can feel the potential on the few occasions where it all clicks – neck deep in the tall grass, bow in hand, picking off distant foot soldiers when suddenly a raptor crashes through a nearby bush, its slavering jaws headed straight for your jugular. Moments like this are so rare, though, that all we’re left with is a by-thenumbers blast, made too tricky by poor checkpointing and poorer controls.

Perhaps Turok’s greatest crime, though, is how boring it all is. A game about huge dinosaurs, space marines and guns might be stupid, unoriginal and crass as all hell, but it should never be boring. But in making the dinosaur combat less enjoyable than a game of Simon Says, Propaganda has missed its chance at greatness.

So, will this be final nail in the longshut coffin of Mr Joseph Turok? Well, that’s in the hands of the consumer. But if his reputation wasn’t mud before, then surely it is now. An inevitable disappointment? We really should have known better.

Jon Denton