Dino wars

An epic, story-driven game, Turok is set on a dark, mysterious planet in the near future.

Turok is another one of those comic book stories resurrected into a computer game by Touchstone and Propaganda Games. The Xbox 360 version delivers its promise of an exciting first-person shooter game filled with monsters, great guns and plenty of blood and gore. It's not difficult to master the controls of this game if you have played the Halo series and other similar games.

The plot is similar to other shooter games, but with its share of twists and turns. You play as Joseph Turok, a member of the special forces squad Whiskey Company tracking down a war criminal on a mysterious dinosaur-infested planet. The elite unit is after Roland Kane, who used to head Turok's special-ops unit, but has since gone insane. Kane has escaped from a war prison, and Whiskey Company hopes Turok's familiarity with Kane's behaviour will aid in his recapture.

The only problem is Kane has a well-equipped army and is also involved in some pre-historic genetic engineering. This gives Turok and his team some terrifying moments with dinosaurs.

The story is, of course, set in the future. You have to deal with two factions of enemies – human soldiers and the carnivorous dinosaurs. The interesting aspect of this game is that you can send a dinosaur after a human soldier using a special flare. Or you can let a patrol of human soldiers take on some raptors and calmly move in for the kill when the situation is in your favour.

Besides the guns, Turok is equipped with a knife and a bow.
This highlights the game's focus on stealth kills. Turok can stay hidden and take enemies out, but there are times an enemy could spot you and start firing away. The bow is not much of a defence in that situation. The knife attack is a great way to take out a small lizard, if you have the nerve.
Once Turok attacks, the screen moves to a third-person view that shows Turok cutting the creature to bits. Having said that, it's not easy to nail a nimble raptor.

Coming to the guns, nearly all the usual arsenal is there, including a handgun, the MP-style SMG, a sniper rifle, RPG and a shotgun. Turok also gets a sticky-bomb gun, a pulse rifle, a chain gun and a flamethrower. The guns have an alternate-fire function. Like in Halo 3, there are dual-wielding combinations. You can swap weapons using the D-pad, which is pretty handy.

Besides the single-player campaign, Turok features an online-only multiplayer arena for up to 16 players. The usual multiplayer-matches are all there, including Capture the Flag, Deathmatch and Assault.

Turok has some strong competition from the likes of Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4. But then most gamers like variety. The lush green jungles of Turok could be a refreshing change from the battlefields of Call of Duty and the alien world
of Halo 3.

• Rating: 18+
• Platform: PC, Xbox 360, PS3
• Price: Dh349
• Available at: All the major games stores in the UAE.