Turok

I grew up with Turok; there was something fundamentally awesome about a Native American warrior fighting dinosaurs. A combination perhaps only rivalled when a Japanese toy maker decided to combine toy robots with toy cars to make The Transformers.

The story has changed over the years from a warrior taking shelter from a storm finding himself in a prehistoric world full of monsters, to a dystopian future full of half dinosaur, half men trying to wipe out humans once and for all.

It hardly seemed to matter that it had a story as coherent as the Highlander series. Nothing was going to slow me down in turning dinosaurs into arrow filled pincushions. Finding yourself on distant planets fighting humanoid lizard men at the behest of Adon - a space born Lara Croft imitator - whom my partner refers to as the boob-lady.

You don't have time to ask how you ended up in space just pick up the shotgun and start clearing some streets. Besides, who's going to ask questions when there's a T-REX within earshot

Turok for those who haven't come across it has been a series running since 1954 and continues to this very day in various incarnations. In fact I was only playing a flash game the other day when I heard in the intro music the powerful words of "I am Turok!"

It's also a cross platform series with comics, games, action figures and even an animated movie.

For anyone who had an N64 it was Goldeneye that mastered the FPS deathmatch. It was Turok Rage Wars however which perfected it. Npc "bots" are usually lacking any significant challenge in games even nowardays, especially when pitted 1 on 1 with a good player.

Rage Wars (excuse the cheesy title) not only delivered the solid AI to give you a good run for your money but at times during the campaign you'd be fighting three on 1 in a real test of wits.

Imagine your favourite fps game now had the option to play deathmatch against 3 Voracious Velociraptors. Yeah...you've got a new favourite fps.

Throw in a few inflator guns, brain drills and monkey transformations and you've got all kinds of carnage.

Turok 2 is worth a mention because of the great story but it was totally overshadowed by Rage Wars.

The next time I came across Turok was on the PS3 (not going to even acknowledge the PS2 game my friend made the mistake of buying). It got a lot of negative press for being too hard for today's gamers...

Admittedly it was pretty rough in places. I don't understand how that's supposed to be a bad thing though!

It's not your average MMO that allows you to mine enemies until you're good enough to take on bigger ones. It's hard. You step out of a corner and get pinned down with mini gun fire to be blown up by a grenade lobbed behind your cover.

During the last boss TREX battle I was running round crates desperately firing arrows up it's nostrils. Only to have it disappear. It had doubled back and snuck up behind me. It's as scary as it sounds. The oldest trick in the book but instead of your buddy it's a TREX as big a plane. Boo...

It's a shame to see that Turok inhabits the bargain bins of both game and comic shops but a great chance for new fans as well as old to discover/rediscover a great character who may just outlast those who enjoy his story.

~Fraser

All artwork is owned by Touchstone games, Propaganda Games and Dark Horse Comics respectively