Rating: Good Acclaim and Iguana have made Turok 2: Seeds of Evil much better than the original Turok, but I still say it's not quite good enough to be worth buying. First of all, the graphics in Turok 2 are absolutely phenomenal with or without the N64's 4MB RAM Pak. The developers at Iguana have pushed the N64 harder than any other third-party developer ever has before, with solid polygonal figures, dazzling special effects, and huge explosions. Also, the enemies are very well designed and the gory death animations are even better than they were in the original Turok. Saying that Turok 2 looks good is a gross understatement. Secondly, the levels in Turok 2 are absolutely huge. This could work to the game's advantage by supplying gamers with hours and hours of fun, but one incredibly stupid design decision prevents this from happening. Not only can you not save your game at any time, but the save points are insane amounts of distance away from each other, and you have to keep playing until you reach the next save point or you'll have to start all the way over from the last one. The logic behind this makes absolutely no sense. When I want to stop playing a game, I want to be able to stop playing; I don't want to be held hostage for several more hours. Many times, I was so sick of the game by the time I reached the next save point that I felt like I never wanted to play it again. Also, the game's control interface makes little sense (why would I want to move around in 3D space with the C buttons when there's an analog joystick just a few inches away from them?), but thankfully you can switch to a much more intuitive Goldeneye-style control interface in the Options menu. Also, Iguana has cut back drastically on the platform elements, so you are no longer forced to try to play an action/platform game from the first-person perspective as was the case in the original Turok. The option to control the game like Goldeneye and the decreased emphasis on platform jumping make the game a lot more fun, but still not fun enough to make me want to do it for hours at a time as I struggle to find the next freakin' save point. The multi-player modes for up to four players are a nice addition, but I found myself spending more time trying to find the other players than I did actually fighting them. The single-player game also suffers from a lack of constant action. Turok 2 is supposed to be a first-person shooter, and I would have liked to have seen more shooting and less switches, keys, etc. Overall, Turok 2: Seeds of Evil is a heck of a lot better than the original Turok, but it's still nowhere near as fun to play as Goldeneye.
© 2001 ivan@mastergamer.com