GH Review: Turok (Xbox 360 and Playstation 3)

Zardon

Read The Review Here
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With 2007 now over and a raft of high quality first person shooters in our wake (Halo 3, Bioshock, Crysis, Call Of Duty 4), it is going to take something special to grab our attention in 2008. With this in mind I was pleased to receive a copy of Turok for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. So do we start off 2008 with a bang, or merely a whimper?

Zardon

mike2h

to bad about the game sounds like it could have been lots of fun if somebody had their act together.
for what should have been a major release it appparently had a small budget.
thx for the work!
& your dug

Customgamer1

I just played this game on the 360 last night.

VERY UNIMPRESSED!!!!!!! I was expecting great graphics and sounds and was let down big time by both. Also the game play is just so so.

I would give it a 70 just based on the demo.

Dark Lord

some how i figured this would happen when i saw all the over the top advertising its getting. the 4+ part making of thats on gametrailers right now was a very good indication of this.


at least theres no aliens and odd crap like the last few turoks had.


maybe some day well see another game like the first one.

ET3D

I have a general problems with the reviews here, that they take several minutes to load. The problem is that the background for some reason loads last, and until then the text is black on black. (I'm using Firefox 2.) Also, I'd prefer not having the video start immediately.

Zardon

all the reviews or just the game reviews? I can set the videos to pause mode, but they still need to buffer.

We are using high quality flash .264 encoding and the general consensus I have received in email, is that they look great, but I understand they might cause some issues for people on slower lines.

Ill look into a better way of doing it. just for you

BlueMak

It would be nice to have the videos, if not not buffer, at least not auto play. I usualy wait for a video to buffer and when I am ready (after finishing doing something else) click play. (all sites that I can do that)


As for Turok, I never expected a great game...

ET3D

It's more of an issue with gaming reviews, because hardware reviews are broken into many pages. Since the background is the same for all pages, there's only need to wait for it once, and since there's less on the first page, it shows up quicker anyway. Possibly it's also smaller (see below).

The problem is that the background loads last, after all other images (quite a bit of time after them). My guess is that it's because it's large. To test that theory, I saved it just now, and it took 435K (BTW, nice image; pity it's hidden by the video). If nothing else was loading, and assuming a perfect connection that would take 2-3 seconds for me. Given that other images and a video are downloading, and that downloads rarely reach the maximum connection speed, it takes a lot longer.

Further testing: IE6 doesn't display the page until it's completely loaded, which takes 15-20 seconds, without the video (doesn't have the right plugin installed). Seamonkey loads the page in 20-25 seconds, with the video still buffering.

I can see two ways to alleviate the problem: first, to have a lighter background initially, so that the text can be read before the background loads; second, to make the background image smaller. I saved it with Irfanview with 80% quality, and it took 185K and looked the same to me. It's still not small, but it's a significant saving.

As for the videos, yes, they do look good, and I think they add to the reviews, but like BlueMak I tend to do something else while the page loads, and then I have to rewind the video when I come back to the review page.

Zardon

ok feedback taken, will put the videos on a seperate page from now on. Hopefully this improves matters. As for the backgrounds yes they can be smaller however I always notice IQ loss on the 52 inch 1080p screen I use. ill compromise a little more (with a new tool I received last week -ifranview isn't wonderful for jpeg algoritms) if it helps you guys.

BlueMak

Zardon you rule.

Zardon

Well its your guys site, ill keep fine tuning things until you are happy. Sorry for any hassles.

ET3D

Thank you. I envy that 52" 1080p. I guess you also notice the IQ loss because you're a graphics guy, and I must say the review pages do look good because of the attention you give them. There's always a balance to strike between looks and functionality, and finding the balance that's good for everyone may not be possible.

Cannyone

I was hoping this title might be more polished. It has a co-op mode. And a friend and I have been having fun with various co-op games. I'm just glad I waited to read a review! Thanks