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Turok 2: Seeds of Evil

 
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Turok 2: Seeds of Evil
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Game Description

Nintendo 64 gamers resume the role of the mighty dinosaur hunter in this release from Iguana and Acclaim Entertainment. One of the first N64 cartridges to pack a full 32 megs of adventure, this title features six large, detailed levels, presenting a virtual 30 square-mile area to explore and conquer. As Turok, the player will discover and use as many as 20 different weapons and face off against 30 different types enemies, each with its own style of timing and attack. Realistic AI and thoughtful game design allows the player a chance to sneak up behind a monster for an efficient kill, or to use a sniper sight to take it down from a distance.
~ T.J. Deci, All Game Guide

Review: Overall

I have to perfectly honest. I wasn't too keen on the first Turok, even though I enjoy first-person shooters. It certainly wasn't because of the graphics, animation or weapons, all of which were first-rate at the time of its release, but rather the inability to see far into the distance with fog as thick as vanilla pudding. This liberal use of fog made levels more confusing than fun, especially since the environments looked almost exactly the same.

Yet the most frustrating elements were the platform jumping, creatures literally materializing out of nowhere and ambient sounds that had nothing to do with the placement of enemies. The end-result was an above average, but largely inadequate shooter.

This was especially evident upon the release of GoldenEye 007, simply one of the most enjoyable first-person shooters on any system. Now Turok 2 promises to push the envelope with intelligent enemies, high-resolution graphics, four-player support as well as a sniper mode and multiple level objectives, two aspects surely inspired by Rare's James Bond game.

Turok 2 is so improved that calling it a sequel doesn't seem to do it justice. The environments are all distinctly different from one another, enemies seem "smart" by using cover or hit-and-run tactics to wear you down, the weapons are diverse and a joy to behold, and all of the levels are so detailed that it makes those in the first game seem empty in comparison.

While there are still some issues that hold it back from the lofty perch occupied by GoldenEye 007, Turok 2 is in many ways a more technically impressive shooter. From the cathedral-like buildings and statues in the first level to the dynamic lighting that casts weapon fire in a brilliant glow, this title will even give most 3D accelerated games a run for their money! Yes, there's still jumping, some fog and a few confusing environments, but all have been minimized to make them minor nuisances instead of the fun-killing problems of the original.

In fact, only two issues may keep you from hunting down a copy right away: the awkward control and the sheer size of the single player levels, forcing you to spend hours exploring every nook and cranny in order to complete objectives.

Since there are only two control configurations, the arcade style (using the analog stick to move) and expert style (using the C buttons to move), some players may not find the perfect fit. Furthermore, the arcade setting is basically useless in this game because you NEED to quickly target enemies high above or below you! That means you're left with essentially one scheme and you can't customize its different buttons. Frustrating.

Yet the biggest knock on this game is the overemphasis on "switch pulling" to make it through the levels. Since these environments are simply enormous, the game almost seems more like an adventure than a pure shooter. If you want a game that will test your reflexes every step of the way, this isn't it. If you like immersing yourself in an exotic world and exploring every inch of it, then you'll love Turok 2.

Small issues aside, Turok 2 is an extremely entertaining shooter that is a must-have for any fan of the genre -- and that's not even taking into account the multi-player mode! This mode is so fun that it comes close to GoldenEye's due to the characters, weapons and variety of the levels. Like GoldenEye before it, Turok 2 raises the bar for first-person shooters and is among the best titles available on the system.
~ Scott Alan Marriott, All Game Guide

Review: Enjoyment

While I still prefer GoldenEye 007, the quality of graphics, amount of weapons and cool monsters are hard to ignore. You can even ride atop a dinosaur called the Styracosaurus! The reason I feel GoldenEye is a better all-around game is its realistic setting and environments. I'd rather be infiltrating an enemy compound with human guards than exploring desolate or alien environments filled with monsters. The levels are also enormous in Turok 2, which means you need a Controller Pak to save data. Don't even bother with the game until you get one (unless, of course, you just want to play the multi-player mode). A big gripe is that you can't save anywhere you want, which should have been an option with such large levels. The four-player aspect is what elevates this game to must-have status, though it would have been even better if the developers included computer enemies or "bots" to deathmatch against.
~ Scott Alan Marriott, All Game Guide

Review: Graphics

The graphics make you wonder just how much further the Nintendo 64 can go. The Expansion Pak makes everything appear in high-res, which is a must to fully appreciate the detail that went into this game. It also makes four-player deathmatching sharp as a knife. The problems include some fog, although it's pushed back much farther, and some slowdown during the single-player game. This usually happens whenever groups of enemies swarm around you, but the rest of the game runs smoothly in comparison. The positives certainly outweigh any negatives in this area. In addition, I didn't find any slowdown whatsoever while playing the multi-player mode. Warning for parents: this game has buckets of blood and gruesome displays of violence. You can shoot holes through chests, take off a limb or two (as blood squirts out from the opening) or blast heads cleanly off enemies. They'll also twitch and spasm as they go down! Perhaps the best thing about the graphics is seeing arrows sticking out of creatures whenever you shoot them with a bow. Once you kill them, you can then pick the arrows back up!
~ Scott Alan Marriott, All Game Guide

Review: Sound

No more endless tribal beats and imaginary animals roaring in the background! An orchestral soundtrack gives the game a more "mature" feeling and you can use sound to help you track enemies. An impressive amount of voice was used during the cut-scenes to explain your objectives.
~ Scott Alan Marriott, All Game Guide

Review: Replay Value

The single-player game will take a LONG amount of time to finish, although I don't think you'll return to it as much as {*GoldenEye}. The levels are too huge! On the other hand, you can play the multi-player game forever.
~ Scott Alan Marriott, All Game Guide

Review: Documentation

Everything is explained well, although there are few pictures and the text seems forced onto the pages. There isn't much white space!
~ Scott Alan Marriott, All Game Guide
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Wikipedia: Turok 2: Seeds of Evil
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Turok 2: Seeds of Evil
Turok 2: Seeds of Evil box art
Developer(s) Iguana Entertainment
Bit Managers (GBC)[1]
Publisher(s) Acclaim Entertainment
Platform(s) Nintendo 64, Game Boy Color, Microsoft Windows
Release date(s) NA December 10, 1998
PAL December 11, 1998
Genre(s) First-person shooter, side scroller
Mode(s) Single-player, multiplayer
Rating(s) ESRB:

Nintendo 64: Mature (17+)
Windows: Mature (17+)
GBC: Everyone (6+)
BBFC: 15
Media Cartridge, CD-ROM

Turok 2: Seeds of Evil is a first-person shooter video game for the Nintendo 64, Windows OS and the Game Boy Color. It was released in 1998 and is the sequel to Turok: Dinosaur Hunter. It was one of the first Nintendo 64 games to allow use with the RAM Expansion Pak. It was known as Violence Killer: Turok New Generation in Japan.

The game was well received, garnering an 89% from the review collator Game Rankings for the Nintendo 64 version and labeled as a "must-buy" from GameSpot.[2][3] However, the Microsoft Windows and Game Boy Color versions did not score as high when subsequently released.[4]

It was followed by the 2000 entry in the series, Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion.

Contents

Story

The game begins with the new Turok, Joshua Fireseed, appearing through a portal to face a blue-skinned woman named Adon. She explains he has been called by the Elders of the Lost Land, the Lazarus Concordance, to defeat a powerful alien entity called the Primagen.[5]

The Primagen is a creature imprisoned long ago in the wreckage of his spacecraft after attempting to conquer the Lost Land, and sealed in the ruined craft with five devices called Energy Totems. Now he has mobilized several races of creatures in an attempt to destroy these objects.[6] Turok's task is thus clear; he must locate the Energy Totems and destroy all forces mobilized to attack them, and then destroy the Primagen himself to end the threat he poses to the Lost Land once and for all.[7] In the process, he must defeat the Primagen's armies and acquire ancient magical powers from the Talisman chambers. Eventually, Turok faces the Primagen himself. How the Primagen dies and the game's ending depends on what the player did during the game. If not all of the objectives are completed, the Primagen will collapse from his fatal injuries. When talking to Adon, she thanks Joshua for his efforts, but states that although the Primagen's body was fatally injured, traces of his psychic powers seem to remain, causing her to wonder if he's really dead. If all of the objectives are completed, the Primagen will be obliterated by a series of energy blasts from the totems. Adon will give a greater thanks to Joshua and state the Primagen's body is destroyed and no traces of his powers remain. Once the credits have finished rolling, the player will hear the Primagen say "It is inevitable."

Throughout the game, a mysterious entity calling itself "Oblivion" attempts to thwart Turok's quest by creating false copies of the Talisman chamber portals that lead to areas populated by its servants, the Flesh Eaters.[6] This sets up the plot for the sequel, in which two new Turoks must take on Oblivion itself.

Gameplay

The Cerebral Bore is one of the many new weapons introduced in Turok 2, shown here draining a victim's cerebrospinal fluid. After this, it then explodes, decapitating the enemy.

Like its predecessor, in Turok 2 the player is armed with different types of weapons in order to kill enemies. New to the game are mission objectives to perform, such as destroying ammunition dumps or activating beacons. These objectives have to be completed in order to finish the level. After doing so, the player must protect an Energy Totem from enemy onslaught, and then can proceed to the next level. Introduced in Turok 2 are five types of talismans scattered throughout the levels.[6] These give Turok various powers, such as the Leap of Faith, allowing him to jump long distances, and Firewalk, granting him the ability to walk over lava.[6]

New types of enemies appear in Seeds of Evil, such as the humanoid Endtrails, the Blind Ones, large spiders, and the Primagen's semi-robotic Troopers.[6] The enemy artificial intelligence has been significantly enhanced, and some foes will run away if the player is brandishing a particularly powerful weapon. In some other cases, enemies can sporadically get into lethal fights with one another. Seeds of Evil also has a dismemberment system, where arms, legs, heads, and other body parts can be removed by targeting specific points on enemy bodies.

The game features a large arsenal, ranging from Dinosaur Hunter's bow and arrow to the Cerebral Bore, which was inspired by the Tall Man's weapons from the movie Phantasm.[8] The flamethrower is noted as the first of its kind in video game history to include polygonal fire.[9] Included in the sequel are weapons specifically for underwater use, such as the speargun and torpedo launcher.[6] The final weapon, the Nuke, is broken up into pieces that the player can find throughout the game, similar to the Chronosceptor from the previous installment.

Multiplayer

The game features a multiplayer mode for up to four players.[6] There are various characters to pick from; they each had certain strengths and weaknesses, some being able to regenerate health. Most notable is the Raptor, which is limited to close-range attacks, but extremely fast and agile.[6] Also available is Tal 'Set, the protagonist of Dinosaur Hunter, and various enemies from the game.[6]

Turok 2 features the distance fog that was seen in the predecessor.

There are three available multiplayer game modes: a regular free-for-all deathmatch, team deathmatch, and a unique "Frag Tag" mode.[10] The Frag Tag mode starts with a random player transformed into a monkey, with no attacks and very little health. This player's task is to get to a specific point in the level; at this point, they would be returned to their normal character and another player made to become the monkey.[10] If they were killed, they would remain a monkey when they reappeared.

The PC version of the game includes an online muliplayer that differs from the Nintendo 64 version. The weapons of the online multiplayer are almost the same as the single player, except for the Scorpion Missile Launcher not having its lock on, No Razor Wind and Mine weapons. The multiplayer has three versions of online play. Arena, Capture The Flag, and Rok (Deathmatch). Arena lets two teams or players face each other in a small level. The host is allowed to edit what weapons and how much health a player can receive. Capture the flag gives points for Frags, and capturing the opponents flags. A team is unable to score points for a flag capture if a teams own flag is captured. Rok is the same thing as deathmatch; multiple players trying to accomplish the frag/pain (Damage) limit.

Development

In Japan, Turok 2 was marketed as Violence Killer: Turok New Generation.

The game was announced even before Dinosaur Hunter was released, under the title Turok: Dinosaur Hunter 2.[11] The game was completed in 21 months[12] with a team comprising of roughly the same size as that who worked on Dinosaur Hunter, which was composed of 18 people.[13] During development, more staff were brought onboard to assist in completing the game.[12] Reportedly, over 10,000 hours of game testing was conducted during its creation.[12] The game was originally designed with a 12MB cartridge in mind. When cartridges prices fell, the storage was increased to 16MB allowing the team to add a multiplayer mode.[13] Eventually, the cartridge size was increased again, and was finalised at 32MB.

The base idea for the Cerebral Bore weapon was created during a brainstorming session concerning weapon design. The original concept had the weapon "being slow and agonizing".[14] An artist suggested a Leech gun, which was rejected by project manager, David Dienstbier [14]: however, a "Vampire Gun" was eventually added to the sequel, Turok 3. Iguana, having received Nintendo 64DD development kits which included the 4MB Expansion Pak, added a high-resolution mode to the game early on in the development timeline. This was demonstrated to Nintendo at E3 98, running at a resolution of 640 x 480, a technical accomplishment for the Nintendo 64 at the time.[14] Before the official unveiling of the Expansion Pak, IGN asked Dienstbier about the possibility of the game running in the high resolution mode in the leadup to the 1998 E3. He stated that it ran in the same resolution as the first Turok game.[13]

Acclaim missed the original cartridge production slot for the game, forcing a delay from November to December 98. This delay was due to problems in fitting the game on a 32MB cartridge.[15]

Reception

Response to Turok 2 immediately after release was largely positive,[16] with 9.0 out of 10 from both IGN[10], GameSpot[3], and Game Informer awarded a 90%. Retaillers worldwide ordered 1.75 million before launch.[8] with the game going on to sell over 1 million copies in the United States.[17]

In Next Generation Magazine, the game was awarded a perfect five out of five stars.[18] The magazine noted that "the artistic range is remarkable" and that "GoldenEye now seems simple" when comparing the enemy AI.[18] The game's framerate was a consistent complaint, as Peer Schneider of IGN wrote "While Turok 1 was an exercise in smoothness, T2 forgoes framerate for detail so often, some gamers will definitely be put off by the choppiness."[10] The game's large arsenal was highly praised, as GameSpot said that the Cerebral Bore is "possibly the most grossest weapon ever conceived".[3] The Game Boy Color version was given a 5.0 out of 10 from IGN. This version was also reviewed by Peer Schneider, who said that the game is "an E-rated cookie-cutter sidescroller with decent controls and unimpressive visuals."[19] Edge magazine infamously gave the game a 9/10 score, in a review which was essentially redacted in a retrospective some years later ("The 100 most significant reviews from the first 100 issues").

Game Boy Color

Developed by Bit Managers, the game is a hybrid Game Boy/Color software featuring a separate storyline than the console version involving the Amaranthine Accordance trying to bring a massive Dinosoid army to Earth from the Lost World with Joshua Fireseed trying to stop them .[20] The gameplay spread over 8 levels and four boss encounters[20] which involves platform levels very similar to the first Game Boy title utilising familiar weaponry such as the bow and arrow, shotgun and grenade.[20] Other levels have Turok on the back of a Pterodactyl with horizontal shooter gameplay[20] while another has him riding downriver in a canoe avoiding enemies.[20] The standard platform levels of the game were first created on graph paper, then replicated on a PC level editor before becoming a playable level on the Game Boy hardware.[21] The distinctive music was produced by Alberto Gonzalez, who produced music for the other Gameboy based Turok games.

References

  1. ^ "Turok 2: Seeds of Evil". IGN. http://gameboy.ign.com/objects/010/010734.html. Retrieved 2007-01-19. 
  2. ^ "Turok 2: Seeds of Evil Reviews". Game Rankings. http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/199127.asp. Retrieved 2007-01-19. 
  3. ^ a b c Mielke, James. "Turok 2: Seeds of Evil Review". GameSpot. http://www.gamespot.com/n64/action/turok2seedsofevil/review.html. Retrieved 2007-02-14. 
  4. ^ "Turok 2: Seeds of Evil Reviews". Game Rankings. http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/63968.asp?q=turok%202. Retrieved 2007-02-13. 
  5. ^ Adon: The Elders of the Lost Land, known as the Lazarus Concordance, have charged me with the task of guiding you on your quest to stop the Primagen. (Turok 2: Seeds of Evil)
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Iguana Entertainment, ed (1998). Turok 2: Seeds of Evil Instruction Booklet. pp. 3, 20, 22, 23, 17, 25, 24. 
  7. ^ Adon: If he succeeds in destroying all five energy totems, he will be free, and the blast wave of temporal energy will destroy your universe. (Turok 2: Seeds of Evil)
  8. ^ a b IGN staff. "Eye to Eye with Dienstbier Part II". IGN. http://ign64.ign.com/articles/066/066121p1.html. Retrieved 2007-01-17. 
  9. ^ IGN staff. "Turok 2: Fire Away". IGN. http://ign64.ign.com/articles/060/060136p1.html. Retrieved 2007-03-28. 
  10. ^ a b c d Schneider, Peer. "Turok 2: Seeds of Evil Review". IGN. http://ign64.ign.com/articles/151/151969p1.html. Retrieved 2007-02-13. 
  11. ^ IGN staff. "Turok 2 Confirmed for 1997". IGN. http://ign64.ign.com/articles/060/060454p1.html. Retrieved 2007-02-13. 
  12. ^ a b c N64 Magazine: issue 27,April 1999 page 141 - David Dienstbier Interview
  13. ^ a b c IGN staff. "Turok 2's David Dienstbier". IGN. http://ign64.ign.com/articles/060/060238p1.html. Retrieved 2007-02-14. 
  14. ^ a b c N64 Magazine: issue 27,April 1999 page 142 - David Dienstbier Interview
  15. ^ N64 Magazine: issue 22,December 1998 page 15 - news article
  16. ^ "Turok 2: Seeds of Evil Reviews". Game Rankings. http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages4/199127.asp. Retrieved 2007-02-13. 
  17. ^ "US Platinum Videogame Chart". magicbox.com. http://www.the-magicbox.com/Chart-USPlatinum.shtml. Retrieved 2007-02-14. 
  18. ^ a b Next Generation Magazine, ed (November 1998). Turok 2: Seeds of Evil. Imagine Media. pp. 140–141. 
  19. ^ Schneider, Peer. "Turok 2: Seeds of Evil Review". IGN. http://gameboy.ign.com/articles/160/160734p1.html. Retrieved 2007-02-18. 
  20. ^ a b c d e Turok 2: Seeds of Evil Instruction Booklet gameboy. 1998. pp. 3, 6, 8 publisher=. 
  21. ^ Nintendo Magazine System: issue 67,August 1998. page 13

External links

v • d • e
Turok series
Turok comics
Turok video games

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