Turok [PC]

Adding more options to your four weapons slots -- you'll always have the bow and knife but be able to swap out your other two gun slots -- is the fact that you can dual-wield just about every combination of guns. SMG/shotgun, dual pistols, sticky bomb/shotgun -- the world's your oyster.

Believe me, there's nothing quite like packing two shoguns and working your way through a hoard of enemies. Add in the fact that you have stealth knife attacks -- forget about guards, you can sneak up on dinosaurs with your knife drawn, follow a button prompt and watch as Turok buries his blade into the beast's head or jumps on its back before slitting its throat -- and parts of this game are sure to get your blood pumping.

In a lot of ways, this is first-person Contra -- lots of weapons, jungle, etc. -- but that isn't always a good thing.

Yes, here's the inevitable part of the review where I drop the "But …" and tell you all the reasons that Turok didn't get a 10, but my complaints really aren't all that severe. There isn't a portion of Turok that's horribly broken or annoying -- this isn't a bad game, but in the same respect, it's just not all that impressive.

To begin with, the weapons I've spent so many words lauding are cool on the options side but disappointing on the firepower front. If I didn't get a headshot on an enemy, it took a seemingly endless stream of bullets to bring them down no matter what gun I seemed to be packing. When you're in one-on-one combat, that's not too big of a problem, but when enemies are swarming on you -- one instance where Slade and Turok were trying to make it over a tree bridge springs to mind -- the remedial damage your weapons give off is pretty annoying.

What makes the annoyance worse is the fact that getting killed by these soldiers is pretty embarrassing seeing as how they're idiots. If we ever know the IGN offices have an intruder in them and I come across Game Scoop's Daemon Hatfield pinned to the wall by an arrow, I'm not going to stand in the exact same spot he was two seconds ago and scan the area -- nor if I see a guy with a machine gun am I going to organize the team to run in a straight line at him.

Kane's men don't share this common sense.

Next up in my drawbacks section is the fact that Turok starts off like it's going to have a strong story -- there are flashbacks to Turok's induction into Wolfpack and the mission that made him drop out as well as a building, present-day tension between him and Whiskey Company -- but it eventually falls by the wayside. Once the group realizes they're in over their heads, the mission for Kane is abandoned and they focus on getting home. That's fine, but Kane and his bald-headed crony pop up a few times to say hi to Turok but never to advance the story. This all leads to a boss fight at the end that has no emotional impact because I don't care about catching Kane or even know who he is -- why's he on this planet, why's he so wanted, and why's he screwing with this planet's ecosystem in a way that creates dinosaurs?

Turok isn't exempt from my wrath either. I know I talked about the weapon options being cool, but the lack of a run button (à la Call of Duty 4) is pretty upsetting. Our main character is trained to survive in the jungle, kill people with his bare hands and leap from sniper towers, but he can't hoof-it from enemies? There are plenty of times when the dinos swarm, your screen begins to turn red and escaping to take a breath is your only option.

There's nothing more frustrating than only being able to speed walk away from certain death.