The Turok franchise is a fascinating case study. After enjoying glory days on the Nintendo 64 as a first-person dinosaur shooter, the series hasn’t been able to recapture that status since. There have been attempts, from the middling 2008 effort to remastered versions of those original adventures from yesteryear.
Now, Saber Interactive is giving it a go with Turok: Origins, which focuses on co-op shooter action infused with elements of the franchise’s “dinosaurs meet sci-fi” flavor. After spending some time with it at Summer Game Fest, the hallmarks are there, but Turok: Origins hasn’t quite won me over yet.
At the start of the demo, my teammates and I are given the opportunity to choose a class between Cougar, Bison, and Raven. Each has its own set of skills to unlock, and each can be switched on the fly between missions. I like that I’m not locked into a single class from the start of the game, and I appreciate the ability to mix and match my upgrades to fit my playstyle.
What makes choosing a character a bit more interesting are the customization options, which were surprisingly robust. Each weapon featured a number of different mods, which affected everything from basic stats to the weapon’s core use. As if the Cerebral Bore needed to be any more powerful, but now I can mod it to my liking before taking on the Xenia. That’s pretty neat.
I’m then dropped into a lush jungle area with my two teammates and set off to explore. We eventually come across bad guys, which turns into a standard arena shooter experience. I’m running, jumping, sliding, strafing, and shooting, while enemies pop out of portals that appear throughout the stage trying to take the team down. I did like how enemies would use the environment to their advantage, with Xenia baddies jumping out from bushes and trees to attack, though I’m not sure if that was intentional or not.
Eventually we get to a big bad, the Metal Maw, which is a massive T-Rex-looking dinosaur with a pointed jaw and a set of rocket launchers on its back. I really enjoyed this fight; that Metal Maw had some nasty tricks up its sleeve and kept our group guessing until we eventually took it down. It was here that I noticed my team’s special abilities working in tandem too, which really emphasized the co-op focus that Saber is going for here. You can play it solo, but based on how important teamwork was in this demo, I suspect you’d have a bad time if you tried.
The second level of our demo took place inside of a dark temple, and this part offered a bit more variety in our mission. We were tasked with providing backup for a friendly NPC, who was caught in an ambush by a large enemy force. Her lifebar would slowly tick down as time passed in our attempt to save her, which put some urgency into our attack. I liked being put in this position, and it gives me hope that the full game will offer more “missions within missions” like this.”
This second level also introduced Turok: Origins’s platforming approach, and this part felt fine, really. I wasn’t particularly impressed with the platforming challenge, but I was able to jump and land without worrying about missing the mark. The mechanics felt as they should, and the platforms were placed well throughout the level. So far, so good on the platforming.
Finally, we dropped into a room that was clearly meant for a battle against a boss, and sure enough, a reptilian beast standing on two legs burst into the room. This guy liked to charge the team and send us flying, while also inviting some smaller enemies to distract us as he tried to run us down. This was another solid boss fight, perhaps not as good as Metal Maw, but I liked the challenge of having to constantly keep an eye over my shoulder for the charging brute.
As my fellow writers and I were fighting through the Xenia hordes, I struggled to find anything that felt overtly unique to Turok: Origins in the core gameplay experience. Mixing up the gameplay objectives was a nice touch, and seeing a modern version of the Cerebral Bore put a nostalgic smile on my face. In the heat of the action, however, this felt like a standard co-op shooter.
This could be due to the limited time we had, or the way the classes were structured, but Turok: Origins feels safe; it’s following the co-op shooter formula pretty closely, though I will admit it’s doing a good job of it. The boss fights were interesting, and the ways that our different builds complemented each other will be worth exploring further in the full release.
I just wish Turok: Origins had made more of an impression on me, just as the original did back in the late 1990s. We’ll see if it can bore itself into my brain when the game launches later this year.
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