The Turok franchise has always had an interesting premise, and in its beginnings it was coupled with the kind of stellar gameplay that put it on the map. Ever since the franchise left the Nintendo 64 platform however there hasn’t been a good game released bearing the name. The latest entry into the franchise, simply titled Turok, is a large scale revamp of the premise of the series and is finally a contender to bring some of that lost glory back to the tarnished franchise.

With the reboot of the series you fill the combat boots of Joseph Turok, a military man attached to a squad on a mission to apprehend the leader of a group of mercenaries called Wolfpack. Joseph used to be a member of Wolfpack and served under their leader Kane until a mission with them made him question their dubious morality, a fact that causes no end of friction with members of the squad he now serves with.

The game is set in the distant future, and at the onset of the game Joseph and his squad are onboard a spaceship bound for the planet that is Kane’s known position. Just as the ship gets anywhere near the planet a missile streaks up from the atmosphere, blasting the ship in two and causing it to violently crash into the planet’s surface. Surviving the uncontrolled reentry proves only the first in a series of life threatening situations for Joseph, as no sooner than the ship slams down does he realize that the planet is teeming with creatures closely resembling prehistoric dinosaurs. Not only must Turok and the surviving members of his squad fight through Wolfpack soldiers to get a chance to bag Kane but they must also do so while dealing with the teeming wildlife that would love nothing more than to take a bloody chunk out of any human foolhardy enough to cross their jungle.

There are a variety of weapons both futuristic and otherwise that you can use to fend off any threats that come your way. Straightforward weapons such as SMGs, shotguns, and pistols are the standard lead flingers that players expect of them, while more exotic weaponry such as pulse rifles with under slung grenade launchers and sticky bomb launchers bring some diversity to the game’s weapon rack. Every weapon has a primary fire as well as some sort of secondary fire or function, such as how the SMGs can mount a silencer or the use of the grenade launcher on the pulse rifle. More often than not this secondary function is just a more powerful attack that uses a more limited ammo type, but with some weapons it has a more interesting use such as the shotgun’s flare launcher that can be used to draw the attention of dinosaurs into a squad of Wolfpack soldiers or confuse dinosaurs into attacking each other.

The franchise trademark knife and bow weapons make an appearance that is hard to understate, even when paired up with so much futuristic firepower. The bow is a weapon that all Wolfpack soldiers are trained to use, and Joseph uses those skills against his enemies to great effect. The bow is a silent and yet lethal weapon to nearly any human target and most dinosaurs, and depending how much pressure players put on the drawstring it is capable of pinning enemies to any solid surface in the path of the shot. The knife is similar in that it is silent and lethal to many targets, but is unique in that when it is used to kill an enemy it is always accompanied by a stylish cutscene showing Joseph completely wrecking the day of whatever man or creature he is in close combat with.

The game boasts an impressively Hollywood-styled level production value, making the game at times play and look just like a blockbusting action movie. The involvement and pull of Touchstone Pictures is apparent in this regard with prominent voice actors such as Ron Perlman, Donnie Wahlberg, and Chris Judge lending their voices to many of the game’s characters. The game features many set piece battles, quite a few of which let the player choose between methodically eliminating the enemy silently one by one or by wasting them all in the rush of open combat. Also like an action movie the game’s plot is quite predictable in where it twists and turns, but in that sense it works as well as any plot that involves a futuristic soldier fighting dinosaurs on an alien planet.

The single player experience is surprisingly strong, with the time spent fighting dinosaurs and fighting enemy soldiers is roughly split down the middle. Players will not only fight through many different parts of the jungle but also through structures, outposts, and underground caves. The cave environments are often incredibly tedious however, and transform the game into a corridor shooter fighting one or two types of enemies over and over. Those sections of the game are numerous, but otherwise the combat and gameplay remains interesting and unpredictable with a few boss battles thrown into the mix for good measure.