From the very beginning, you can see that Turok: Evolution is a game that gets some things down perfectly and botches others up pretty bad. The Acclaim logo intro is, as always, very funny. Then you sit through thirty seconds of loading time (on GameCube, folks!) just to reach the title screen. Hey, there are all sorts of dinos walking back and forth on the title screen, and the music is nice.

Then you start a new game and watch a grainy but fairly impressive FMV that introduces the game’s story. The first level takes about fifteen or twenty seconds to load, still too long, and you see a brief real-time cut-scene. Now here’s what kills me. The frame-rate is just plain butchered during this little fly-by. This is your first glimpse of the new Turok engine, and it’s sputtering like crazy during a cut-scene? Unbelievable.

But this roller coaster ain’t over yet. You start the level and look around...whoa. Dense underbrush is everywhere. The colors are bright, the plants and trees are varied, and everything seems to be swaying in the wind. The art direction is clearly inspired. Then you start to move around, trying to ignore the wildly fluctuating frame-rate (and I’m not the kind of guy who notices such things very often, so you know it’s bad). All of this foliage just begs to be explored...there must be cool secret stuff hidden away in there, right? So you take three steps into the bushes and hit the level boundary. Wow. And just to make sure you can keep an eye on the boundary, it’s colored a bright, ugly shade of teal that shows even through all the underbrush.

While wandering around in this seems-big-at-first-but-really-isn’t starting area, you’ve made a little too much noise, rustling around plants and what-not. So a nearby composaur discovers you and starts attacking. You try to turn around and look down it at for a quick deathblow, and this is when you realize the controls aren’t so smooth. Turning just doesn’t feel fluid, partly due to the frame-rate issue but also from some sluggishness, and the vertical control is even slower. (I found that adjusting the turn speed in options helped somewhat, but it still feels not quite right.)

You kill the Compy easily and decide you don’t care for moving with the Control Stick and looking with the C-Stick; you’d rather have it the other way around. That’s fine, because Turok: Evolution has both setups...but the latter one, which is called “Alternate” even though it most closely mimics the classic Turok controls, is not actually practical. All the other functions remain the same, so your jump button is still A. Turns out that moving forward with the C-stick and jumping with A don’t lend themselves to simultaneous execution. And since this newest Turok contains just as much jumping craziness as past games in the series, you can’t really deal with not being able to jump forward, since it requires two separate and simultaneous functions with just one thumb. Joy. Back to “Standard” control, but thanks for trying!

By this time you realize that the Compy must have heard you and walked over to investigate. There’s another one on up the path that will do the same thing. Hey, that’s not bad AI. Sound matters! Then you meet your first Sleg, which is basically what we used to call a Dinosoid. You know, a reptile with the same general form as a human. They like to carry guns. Well, this guy looks pretty dangerous, so you try to stay in the bushes for a sneak attack with your axe. You get closer, and closer, and closer...until you’re practically in this dude’s face. He still doesn’t move. You sigh at the silly extremes this game’s AI is already exhibiting, and press R to slice the Sleg’s head off.

I could go on and on. The pattern of amazing idea or detail, then baffling flaw continues for the remainder of Turok’s first chapter. The alternating flow is so steady, I’d almost think it was deliberate if I didn’t know better.

The flying parts fare better. I wasn’t impressed with the flying level I played back at E3, but the one I just finished in the final version is actually quite polished (a hell of a lot more than the first FPS chapter) and very fun to play. The levels are mostly very narrow and Star Fox-style, but they’ll often open up into a larger area that you can fly around freely. The shooting mechanics are rather simple, with just a weak infinite machine gun and consumable homing rockets, but the flying controls are smooth and interesting enough that shooting doesn’t get too dry. The environments are well populated and often quite nice to look at, and the framerate is far more smooth and steady than in the traditional FPS portions that I’ve played so far.

So, to summarize my experience thus far with Turok: Evolution...

Normal stages – alluring but incredibly frustrating. Excellent art and level design marred by bizarre AI bugs, imperfect controls that you can barely customize, and an almost humorous frame-rate.

Flying stages – a big fat pleasant surprise. Lots of fun, easy to play, plenty of action. The controls and frame-rate are smooth.

Overall – excellent music, very impressive voice acting (except for your flying partner, ugh), and pitiful load times for the GameCube. The game is fun enough that I want to keep playing and keep hoping that some of the technical issues will iron themselves out in later chapters. Plus, I could go for another one of those flying levels. Haven’t tried multiplayer yet, but I’ve got my fingers crossed.