Turok 2: Seeds of Evil

"A great game with problems."

Ever since I played Doom, I liked shooters. Goldeneye was great. (Though I don't own it, crazy, eh?) I liked Quake I and II for the PC, and I played Doom 2 to death. When I rented Turok Dinosaur Hunter, I didn't like it at first. But once I got used to the control setup, I loved it. So of course, when Turok 2 came out, I bought it right away. How did I like it? Lets see:

GRAPHICS (8/10)

When I first go got the game, I didn't have the 4meg Expansion Pack. Nonetheless, the graphics were still great. I was worried about slowdown, but it never bothered me. The enemies look great, and animation is the best I ever seen in a shooter. The worlds are covered with fog, but at the time I didn't realize how bad it was. (Compare Zelda 64 and Turok 2. See what I mean?) So fog is pretty bad. Lighting and weapon effects are excellent. This game has one of the most atmospheric levels I ever seen in it: The Mantid Lair. Wow. Imagine a gient bee-hive with blue and purple walls with mites running around everywere. You can almost fell the magots crawling up your neck.

GAMEPLAY (7/10)

OK, here we go. First off, I LOVE using the C-buttons to move around. Aiming with the Control Stick feels very natural. As a matter of fact, I couldn't play this game any other way. Now the bad, not really a gameplay problem, but a game design problem. Saving is a major hassale. Most of all because you can only save at about three places in the gigantic worlds. (Turok 3 is said to fix this problem.) So half the time, you are looking for a place to save, and it gets boring. I Remember spending thirty minutes just looking of a Save Portal on the scond level. (It was ''hiding'' out of view) This is not a ''sit down for a few minutes and kill some time'' game. Make sure you have at least a half a hour per playing.

Although the worlds are well thought out, they seem barren sometimes.

SOUND (10/10)

Music is really good, very moody. Effects are just as good, from dinosaur grunts to shotgun blast to a Nuke blowing up. I'm going to leave it at that.

STORY (8/10)

Most shooters don't have a deep plot. After Turok destroyed the Campaigner in the first game, to awoken a greater evil, the Primeagin. The Primeagin wished to destroy the Lost Lands as a act of revenge for the people that imprisoned him. Nice back story, but thats about it. One neat thing is the mission briefing before each level. The Primeagin is using the different races to do his dirty work for him. Makes it a little deeper, but not much. I hear Turok 3 will have plot up the wazoo.


REPLAY VALUE (7/10)

Multiplayer is fun. But, if I had Goldeneye, I'm sure we would play that. The minute I got Jet Force Gemini, Turok 2 just sits on my shelf in it's cool looking black cartridge saying ''Hey, remember me? It's Turok! I have a black case!'' I have to be honest, I got all the way up to the Mantid Lair without cheating, then it lost my interest. Not thats its boring, but I just didn't have the time to play it. I cheated at first, saw the ending, then played it without cheating. I know, cheating makes a game get old fast, but whats done is done. One of the reasons I did cheat was to save time.

GRIPES

Lack of save points, fog, confusing worlds, and lack of dinosaurs. Turok 1 had a cool T-Rex boss and about five dino types.....Turok 2 only has Raptors and Compys....bummer. Although dinos are missing for the most parts, the enemies are very original.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT TUROK 2

Turok 2 has a lot of stuff that I love, despite my problems with it:

Weapons: A whole butt load of weapons. Each one is useful to, save for one or two. The Tri-Rocket Launcher has some great animation, it even locks on to enemies. The Nuke is without a doubt, the coolest weapon I ever seen.

Enemies: Each level has unique enemies. The most common is the Raptoid and Endtrails. Raptoids are half human, half raptor, and the Endtrails are evolved Tyrannosaurs. Then we have the Velociarapors. Theres the Purr-Linn in the Death Marshes, the Blind Ones in the Underworld, Flesh Eaters in the Warp Gates, evolved insects called Mantids in the Hive, Bio-Troopers in the Lightship, The Undead in the graveyard.....and each species has about three versions. Enemies are not a let down in this game. In fact, its what I like best about it.

Music: Fits the mood perfectly. Screams can be heard in the background.

OVERALL (7/10)

Turok 2 is NOT a bad game, I just never got into like I should. I tried twice. Once I got kinda far, the next time I got really far. I think that Turok just isn't my type of shooter. I'm looking forward to Perfect Dark, but not Turok 3...I'll probably just rent that, maybe get it used. Thats just the way it is. I'm sure about a million people LOVE the game, but I boardered on like. The game is fun, just tedious. So tedious, it makes it less fun. Made a nice deathmatch, but just until something better came.

This review is totally mixed.....I know. I just gave a mediocre review to a far from mediocre game. But heres the problem, I LIKE THE GAME! But it's just put together wrong, in my eyes anyways. If I reviewed this game after I got it, I would of giving it a better score. But this review isn't based on the fact I haven't played it in some time. No no no. Its the way I felt when I first played it. Turok 1 it isn't. One thing I liked about 1 was the jungles and dinosaurs. Not here. Just barren cities and a swamp. If this game had a ''save anytime feature,'' it would have gotten a 8 or even a 9.

All that being said, the Turok Trilogy will be remembered as some of the best shooters of all time.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 02/06/00, Updated 11/09/02