Turok: Rage Wars

"The latest installment in the Turok series,but does it live up too expectations?"

Rage Wars is unique in that the whole game revolves around deathmatch. There is no real single player mode but there is a quest mode in which you fight bots.You must kill a certain number without losing a certain number of lives. This mode won't hold your attention for long as it becomes boring quite quickly. The multiplayer modes are good, but not great. Some of the levels are well designed while others are pale in comparison to Quake's and Goldeneye's. Some of them will have you wondering what species developed these levels,a human or a trained monkey with plastic wings that can't fly and…sorry.I went off there didn't I? I'm back. Like I said,some of the levels are very boring.
Graphically Turok Rage Wars is average.The visuals don't compare to the ones seen in Acclaims other games(Shadowman,Nfl Quaterback Club).This was a shock as I expected mind blowing visuals with an extraordinary amount of detail.Instead I get boring,plain graphics that should have been a lot better. The enemies could be accused of being blocky and warped.They don't really resemble the human physique.Some of their head are square and their bodies sometimes look like pentagons.. The textures are similar to the ones seen in Shadowman but they are not as good.The walls are mainly grey and brown and don't jump out and slap your eyeballs about like other games,Donkey Kong 64 anyone? A lot of the levels are too dark as well and can be hard on the eyes. In one level,I was killed and I didn't even see the guy.He was right in front of me!
Sound:The music consists of tribal indian-esque music which is repeated over and over and over and guess what,over. It is similar to Shadowman's music but once again,not as good.The tribal music suited Shadowman better because it mixed with the overall theme of the game.It just seemed a bit odd to me. The sound effects are meaty and are one of the strong points of the game.
Gameplay: With no single player modes,the multiplayer mode had to be pretty darn spiffy. Unfortunately,it's not. There are a few major problems. I'll start with the control. The control is not as tight as it should be.A perfect example of tight controls is Goldeneye. Your character didn't move to fast,nor too slow. It's the opposite in Rage Wars. The characters tend to dart around a little bit.The game uses the normal Turok control method wherby you move the character by way of the c-buttons and look with the analogue stick.This takes a while to get used to but once mastered,is the best control method.It enables you too look and change directions quickly.I always used this control method in Goldneye,especially in mulitplayer when quick direction changing was essential.
The game plays from a first person perspective which means you see the levels through the eyes of your character. If you don't have friends,you can still play this game.How? Well , Acclaim have incorporated bots(computer controlled characters) and they work well. You can adjust their difficulty to suit your playing standard.They are reasonably intelligent and never get stuck in walls or anything like that.You can even include bots whilst playing against friends.Cool eh?
Overall:Acclaim have definetely refined things since Turok 2's multiplayer mode but the game still doesn't beat Goldeneye. Had the controls been tighter,the action more frequent,the game more enjoyable,then the game might have had a chance.But as it stands this game should only be bought if you are a Turok fan or if you want to add another of the numerous multiplayer games to your collection.Just remember,there is no ''real'' single player mode.
7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/22/00, Updated 04/22/00