Turok 2: Seeds of Evil
Turok 2: Seeds of Evil (Violence Killer: Turok New Generation in Japan) is a first-person shooter video game for Windows, the Nintendo 64, and the Game Boy Color. It was originally released in 1998, and is based on the Valiant Comics comic book series, Turok. It was a highly anticipated game at its time, delivering impressive graphics and a vast array of creative weaponry. It was one of the first Nintendo 64 games to allow use with the RAM Expansion Pak.
The game was well received, garnering an 89% from the review collator Game Rankings for the Nintendo 64 version.[2] The Microsoft Windows and Game Boy Color versions did not score as high when subsequently released.
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.[3]
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.[4] 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.[5] In the process, he must defeat the Primagen's armies and acquire ancient magical powers from the Talisman Chambers; portals to these are found in each level.
In the course of 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.[4] This sets up the plot for the sequel, in which two new Turoks must take on Oblivion itself.
Development
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Gameplay
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.[4] 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.[4] However, some of these can only be used at specifically marked points within the levels.
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.[4] The enemy artificial intelligence has been significantly enhanced, and some foes will run away if the player is brandishing a particularly powerful weapon. 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.[6] Included in the sequel are weapons specifically for underwater use, such as the speargun and torpedo launcher.[4] 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.[4] 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.[4] Also available is Tal 'Set, the protagonist of Dinosaur Hunter, and various enemies from the game.[4]
There are three available multiplayer game modes: a regular free-for-all deathmatch, team deathmatch, and a unique "Frag Tag" mode. The Frag Tag mode started with a random player transformed into a monkey, with no attacks and very little health. The monkey'd player's task was 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. If they were killed, they would remain a monkey when they reappeared.
Reception
Response to Turok 2 immediately after release was largely positive, with N64 Magazine rating the game higher than GoldenEye 007 in an early review of a pre-release version. The Australian edition of Nintendo Magazine System awarded the game with a perfect score, However, this was followed by increasing amounts of criticism. The slow framerate was criticised extensively, with some levels, particularly the final Oblivion warp, so noticeably choppy they were barely playable. The Turok series' distance fog was present in every level, less close than in the first game but still often distracting.
Further criticism was directed at the level structure; especially in The Lair of the Blind Ones and The Hive of the Mantids, it was very easy to become turned around or lost due to many very similar areas, a shortage of enemies and the close draw distance. The shortage of enemies was another sticking point; each level after the first few had four or five unique enemy types, but there were large areas containing no enemies whatsoever. Further, the game required the player to complete objectives which would be secrets in most other games, and the player could therefore not progress until they had scoured the whole level for the objectives, instead being warped back to the beginning of a level with fewer enemies than before.
A final criticism was the game featured areas where health and ammo would respawn indefinitely until the player's stocks were replenished; because of the tiny maximum ammo counts the player could carry [such as just 50 pistol rounds], success in many battles was a matter of using these places to the fullest, something which, when the player's arsenal grew large, could take over twenty minutes during which the player did nothing but walk back and forward.
Also, this game frustrated many players because, as with a lot of Acclaim's N64 titles, it had no ability to save games on-board requiring 90 of the 123 pages of a standard memory card per save and would often wipe the player's memory card.
References
- ^ "Turok 2: Seeds of Evil". IGN. Retrieved 2007-01-19.
- ^ "Turok 2: Seeds of Evil Reviews". Game Rankings. Retrieved 2007-01-19.
- ^ 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)
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Iguana Entertainment, ed. (1998). Turok 2: Seeds of Evil Instruction Booklet.
- ^ Adon: If he succeeds in destroying all five energy totems, he will be free, and the blast wave of temple energy will destroy your universe. (Turok 2: Seeds of Evil)
- ^ "Eye to Eye with Dienstbier Part II". IGN. Retrieved 2007-01-17.