In my quest to briefly review and grade everything I play – I present to you the 2002 adventure, Turok: Evolution.

Year Released: 2002

Developer: Acclaim Studios Austin

Publisher: Acclaim Entertainment

System(s): PlayStation 2 / Xbox / GameCube / Game Boy Advance / Windows

Type of First Person Shooter: Adventure

Problem protagonist is preventing: Well.. this is sort of confusing so let’s try to keep it as basic as possible. The main character you play as, a Native American warrior named, Tal’Set faces off against his fierce rival, an assumed US military commander named, Tobias Bruckner (whom is basically like a spoof of Colonel Custer, I believe). The two men battle to the death on a cliff side somewhere in the western frontier. Tal’Set successfully pushes Bruckner off a ledge but they are both sucked into a wormhole that transports both to the Lost Land where reptiles are enslaving men and for whatever reason Bruckner is in charge of the lizard peeps. So basically kill him again and prevent the world from being over run by Komodo Dragon humanoids.

Other notes:

Evolution is actually a prequel to Turok: Dinosaur Hunter for the N64.

The game performed poorly and essentially killed the Turok canon in its tracks. Due to poor sales it got its next sequel Turok: Resurrection cancelled.

**Soap Box Warning**

I don’t like to get all “PC-ish” on this site but I will note something that sort of bothers me. Growing up where I lived you couldn’t throw a stone in any direction without it landing on Reservation land. So I had the unique experience of growing up and making some lifelong friendships and relationships with Native Americans. Which has had a profound impact on my way of seeing the world. So it’s small and stupid but I think it’s worth pointing out that throughout the game, Tal’Set is referred to as a proud Indian warrior. I think at one point he even refers to himself as Indian.

Maybe I’m projecting a little here or out of my lane but that just doesn’t happen. Not in my experience at least. In fact, as a kid I learned very quickly that Natives are not Indians and they certainly don’t like being referred to as Indians. It’s derogatory, wrong and rude. I learned this the hard way once from a friend of mine’s mother. I deserved it and it’s stuck with me since.

So props for Acclaim for using a Native American as it’s protagonist but they also just missed the mark. But 2002 was a lot different then whatever shit we’re living in now. So.. what can you do?

Starts off in: I guess, technically even if for only the first few minutes the American frontier

Ends up in: The Lost Land

Protagonist: Tal’Set

Tal’Set is a Saquin warrior who participated in the American Frontier wars in the late nineteenth century. He is pretty badass. He is very effective with a range of automatic weapons (which makes no sense but whatever) but consistently carries both a bow and tomahawk.

RATINGS:

Badass-ness: 16/20

Story: 10/20

Controls: 12/20

Sound: 12/20

Graphics: 13/d20

Overall: (63%)

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