Following in the wake of last years earth-quaking blasters - BioShock! Halo 3! Call Of Duty 4! its going to be hard for any new shooter to make an impact as we roll into 2008. And although theres nothing actually wrong with Turoks return to console land, theres little new to seduce inveterate gorehounds, or anything this game does significantly better than its rivals.
Set on an alien planet where the titular hero crash-lands with a battalion of buddies, the adventure finds players butchering both humans and dirty great dinosaurs, the latter of which dont give a damn which side theyre chomping on, so long as it tastes good. This dynamic where you can lure dinosaurs towards groups of enemies, then sit back and enjoy the fireworks adds extra energy to the action, as do the knife and bow-and-arrow stealth attacks that must be used to avoid alerting lurking lizards, and each weapons secondary function that allows you to hatch different combat tactics on the fly with the simplest of button presses.
But while its all tremendous fun and genuinely thrilling to battle a towering T-Rex, the action doesnt feel different to any other quality blaster currently doing the rounds. Crucially, the game also lacks the unique visual style of BioShock where an imaginative world helped to wind you inexorably into the experience and the grand heroics of Halo 3, where players were happy to spend time with a standard blaster as theyd invested emotionally in Master Chief and his excitable companions.