urok, by its very nature, seems to be all about change. Originating as a comic book in the 1950’s, Turok passed through more hands than bad stock tips, and finally achieved its most popular incarnation as a console FPS during the late ‘90s. Since then Turok still hasn’t stayed put, having fallen once again into the hands of a new creative force.

Propaganda Games has decided (probably wisely) to forgo many of the fantastical story elements – time-traveling dino-riders and world-eating super beings – found in the earlier games, and has instead focused on a more traditional science fiction narrative. But just as Joseph Turok crash lands on an alien world looking wearied and beaten from the experience, the game itself collides with the newest generation of first-person shooters and walks away humbly.

The game’s not all bad. It’s filled with a few tense moments, mostly due to the wild dinosaurs that roam the alien planet you’re stranded on. You’ll see a T-rex shove over a few trees and your stomach will drop as he comes at you, dry swallowing any small creatures that get in his way like they were meat candy. Then there are the lurkers. These fearsome reptiles are part jungle cat, part dinosaur, and part Satan. They usually hunt in packs, and you’ll see them circling around you, climbing tree trunks waiting patiently for their lunch (i.e. you) to walk by. The grass effects aren’t bad either. It’s fun to watch the ripple of a grenade blast flow across an open field.

Turok’s showcase feature, its living, exploitable ecosystem, sadly doesn’t live up to its promise. Sure, you can make omelets out of every egg in a raptor’s nursery to lure out the mother, then send her, blindly fueled by rage, to attack a group of human enemies – and don’t get me wrong, that’s cool – but there aren’t many opportunities like this throughout the game. The ecosystem as a whole doesn’t feel very alive.

The toilet paper-thin story is something that the characters from Gears of War could really get behind. Let’s just say that the dinos provide all the smart, witty dialogue. I will give Propaganda props for getting some decent voice actors, however, like Powers Boothe and Timothy Olyphant.

Poorly spaced checkpoints, dank too-similar environments, and magical teleporting allies are a few other annoying and strange traits that cause this game to fall down a few notches. Most notable is the fact that you are constantly being spun around, feet skyward, during heated firefights. This is kind of a cool effect during scripted sequences, but it’s frustrating every time a grenade goes off nearby or a dinosaur attacks. It’s too easy to get disorientated, lose your cover, and feel cheaply killed.

Turok’s multiplayer offerings are all pretty bland, too. Dinosaurs exist in the online games as well, but they’re AI-controlled bots only meant to add some extra randomness to each match. Instead, they offer little more than an extra target to practice on while passing through an area. Multiplayer, like so many other elements of this game, feels well-intentioned but fails to impress.