Zero Punctuation: Turok

This week on Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee goes dinosaur hunting, with Turok.

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Wow, he doesn't even have Rock Band yet? That's major suckage.

Anyway, I was considering buying Turok, but I might have to check some more reviews now. If it's that bad, I won't waste my money.

I loved the Jurassic Park music in the beginning. lol

Awesome this week, Y.

Ha, ha! This is the best one since quite a while ago. =)

Awesome choice of songs. Also, I agree 300% about health meters.

NICE, very very nice. I agree in every point, and i love how you start to remember the glorius days at the end and then you spoil it! :D

That was lovely. I agree with your first point about controls, having shouted "argh bargh arg arg" many times while trying to nudge over a bit to the left or right and finding myself shooting something off-screen instead. Okay, I know you don't care that I agree with your point, but dammit, I do.

Also, Ron Perlman has been in many zero-budget crap films, so as long as he got paid as much for "Turok" as he did for, say, "Double Exposure", I can't judge him too harshly.

Harharhar, i liked the part about australia not geting games, makes me feel important!

Nice review indeed.

What I really hated about this game were the controls, they were not unresponsive but I couldn't get a single headshot in the game.

Now the other problems were the shiny graphics, a paper thin and ripped off story, and I agreed that this game wanted to be an average game... like Halo which is a really good example.

EDIT: Now I feel the coming of halo fanboys because of the statements of an average or bad fps...

I would say, Yahtzee, if you want FPS with a sense of humor, then play the Postal Series, which features such hilarious bits as pissing on yourself to put yourself out when you catch fire.

Yeah, even Europe doesn't have Rock Band yet... Not even a release date, as far as I know...

Turok is a somewhat enjoyable and fairly entertaining game but there are so many issues that bring the quality of the user experience down.

The sensitivity of the look function always seems to be off no matter what setting it's at.

The damage received by the enemy soldiers is very inconsistent making this feel more like a 'game'. For example; in hard mode, one arrow in the body will take most soldiers down but it will take a whole lot of bullets from a chain gun.

Quite often you'll throw an alternate fire pulse grenade at a soldier, they'll watch it roll, pause, shout "grenade", fly 20 feet in the air only to get up like nothing happened! One soldier took three grenades before taking the courtesy of leaving his mortal coil, this generally leaves the user only using grenades as a distraction.

A lot of the weapons feel weak; they are generally omitted as serious options when you have to face a group of three or more.

In some areas you'll be faced with endlessly spawning enemies until you enter a trigger area. While the trigger events add flair to Turok here they do not feel seamless.

I understand that in a game you want to be the hero taking everyone out (something that COD4 often failed in during the SAS missions) however, having numerous able bodied team members sit back and tell you to take down the giant enemy tank while they share Margherita and tales of times gone by becomes somewhat frustrating after your eight attempt. In fact, this happens in numerous sections of the game, company Whisky seems to be the worst 'elite' team of all time.

While being thrown on ground dinosaurs grenades and rockets is a cool feature it starts to become somewhat jarring. Noting the earlier tank battle; you'll run behind a wall where he doesn't have line of sight on you and whammo! A shell has sent you flying into the middle of the field! By the time the smoke and your blurred vision have gone allowing you to see where you are whammo, another shot sends you flying again! You are left completely disorientated not knowing where you are or which way you're facing, the grey rocks all look exactly the same, by the time you realise you're looking down the wrong end of the tank's turret you're screen goes red and you have to try again!

Despite these frustrations, Turok is, as I said, a good game. Recommended if you have a fancy for Dinos and guns.

Brilliance. He hasnt made one this funny in some time.

Now this is a review I like. Don't just review the game; talk about the genre in general and what it takes to make it better, if not perfect. It helps someone like myself, an aspiring game designer, to know how to appease the most cynical of gamers.

Despite the depth of the rants in this week's review, I can't help but wonder: Yahtzee, you covered FPSes on consoles and FPSes on PCs, but you didn't bring up Wii FPSes at all, which I think is disappointing considering that it's a pretty big debate right now as to whether or not the genre can be taken further on consoles. Sure, it stumbled a bit on Red Steel, but I say nearly perfected it with Metroid Prime 3 and Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 (although, the controls, from what I've heard, have been the only redeeming factor about this, so I wouldn't say it's worth taking the time to review this after your Airborne review).

On a completely unrelated note, it's nice to see you hinting at the fact that you will be reviewing games like No More Heroes and Rock Band in the future.

My god! This has got to be one of the best reviews yet! I loved it, it was so insane!

Either that or I really needed a laugh because I've been in a mopey mood lately.

Another great review. Glad he knows what a good fps is. (looks at metroid prime) Though it really does suck he wont be able to play Brawl yet. If I have the money, I would send him a copy.

You haven't played No More Heroes yet? It's quite good. Although, not without some alarming problems. But it has loads of charm, and characters that seem to have come straight out of Cowboy Bebop.

Now I've seem to have gotten off topic.

Good review, and some nice insight to the creation of Australia.

Hell yeah, undead cowboys. Blood was great.

I noticed that too. What's the deal with health meters being exchanged for "screen grows into increasingly dark shades of red to indicate you are dying so hide behind a wall and let your blood coagulate?"

Don't know about health meters, Call of Duty did a pretty good job I think, you know when your at full hp, 50% hp, and nearly f**cked! Meters are good for games like Final Fantasy when it's all about the numbers but for a good old 'seat of your pants' blaster..I say keep the HUD clear.

Nice detail on Fuckley's face in the dartboard. And Turok even looks like crap in the tv commercial. I never would've tried that game.

very good review but not as funny as some recent one. I was pretty disappointed that he wasnt offended by de-rez. then he could've started some massive comedy war.

very good review but not as funny as some recent one. I was pretty disappointed that he wasnt offended by de-rez. then he could've started some massive comedy war.

very good review but not as funny as some recent one. I was pretty disappointed that he wasnt offended by de-rez. then he could've started some massive comedy war.

Oddly, Halo did feature a health bar.

I disagree with a number of points that Yahtzee brings up. I think that the health indicators they did in Call of Duty 4 or gears of war adds more realism in some respects; you never know which blast is going to be the one that finishes you off. Miraculously being healed is of course somewhat unrealistic however, it is often used to improve the flow of the game; it has helped remove the dependence on quick saving/loading.

With regards to Australia, it is also populated by indigenous Australians. Sadly the Europeans decided that they would bring over numerous infectious diseases and force the indigenous Australians to settle in other areas and destroy their culture. Years later Europe decided to send over their criminals and steal children from the Indigenous population in what can be essentially described as genocide. Then Yahtzee moved there.

beddo:
With regards to Australia, it is also populated by indigenous Australians. Sadly the Europeans decided that they would bring over numerous infectious diseases and force the indigenous Australians to settle in other areas and destroy their culture. Years later Europe decided to send over their criminals and steal children from the Indigenous population in what can be essentially described as genocide. Then Yahtzee moved there.

This belongs in Wikipedia in the Australia page, screw the whole explanations, i love this history lesson better. Makes more sense too and there's a happy ending! :D

That was the best ZP review yet. I was laughing out loud all the way through and it has brightened a so far boring day

Good review.

One has to wonder though what the point of being a games reviewer is in Australia. I mean not only do you have the release date problems but a ridiculously strict censor board.

At the interface party, what game was the map from? I know I've played the game it's from, but I can't for the life of me remember which.

Chaos_Theory:
At the interface party, what game was the map from? I know I've played the game it's from, but I can't for the life of me remember which.

World of Warcraft. :)

Great, but I always feel like cheater when a game has auto aim.

You can hand an actor anything and he'll make the best of it. Sadly the best the script to Turok could ever be was a pint of shit ~~

I enjoy those reviews tremendously. This one again. Sorry to say: I do not play first-person shooters and usually wait until the price drops so that my computer and my wallet are able to handle the slightly outdated games.

Again a very nice perspective on that genre and I really enjoy all the comparisions, the language and the humor.

I wish, this review was longer :D

The Jurassic park theme was very funny. I think I'll try a demo of "Turok" though. Just want to see how bad it is.

davidboring:
Yeah, even Europe doesn't have Rock Band yet... Not even a release date, as far as I know...

I inquired about this at my local GAME store and was told that it's currently looking at a May 9th release in Britain; that's just ridiculous. That's almost six full months after the US.

Admittedly it is still 19 days before the Australian release.