The fossil record shows that millions of years ago huge beasts roamed the Earth. The reign of the dinosaurs lasted for thousands of years before a mysterious event wiped them out. For many years scientists theorised that they were killed by a volcanic eruption, or a meteor, or an ice age. As it turns out they were all wrong; the catastrophe that befell the dinosaurs was a Native American bloke with a bow and arrow set. They made a game out of it, I think. Yes, that's right - they called it Turok (which in the old Apache means 'big-muscled bloke who shoots lizards'). Six years have passed since his last excursion to prehistory and now there's a shiny new adventure to undertake.

While the original Turok was a time-travelling affair, this new edition changes that somewhat. The titular man-mountain has recently joined a squad of futuristic army types (with voice acting from William Fitchner, Ron Perlman and a whole host of other pseudo-famous names) as they travel to a distant planet to track down and eliminate Joseph Turok's former squadron leader, Kane. The proverbial dino-droppings hit the fan, however, and their ship takes a less than graceful nosedive into the planet's vast rainforest. Leaving the wreckage - and armed initially with only his wits - Turok's objective is to establish contact with the other survivors, kill Kane and find a way off the planet. And all that means trekking through the jungle. Unfortunately, this jungle happens to be the home base of a violent army of mercenaries led by Kane, who are understandably miffed that Turok and his gang want to take out their leader. Soon they track down the crash survivors and become quite tenacious in their attempts to put paid to the plans of killing Kane. Bad guys pop up at every turn to shoot wildly in your direction and for a while it's all you can do to stay alive under the onslaught.

Pretty soon though, the reptiles that Turok is so famous for make an appearance - and then the action really hots up! Velociraptors hunt in packs to ambush you, often in long grass (Jurassic Park anyone?), so there's a certain survival element, requiring you to listen as well as look to spot incoming dinos. There's a fair amount of variety as well - not only does Turok feature the typical flesh eaters, such as the miniscule Compsognathus and the fearsome Tyrannosaurus Rex, but there are plenty of herbivorous lizards too (whose names elude my basic grasp of dinosaur species). These particular dinos only attack you if provoked, so there's good scope for leading enemy troops at them and using them as diversions; it's hilarious to see a squad of heavily armed men being trampled by a ten-foot lizard as they attempt to dodge your bullets and shoot back!

The T-Rex itself is introduced early on, a behemoth that rampages through a clearing filled with troops and flattens the lot underfoot; a particularly grisly section when the T-Rex begins chowing down on the soldiers. Although it's a set piece, it's just one of many that are beautifully orchestrated throughout the game and this introduction to the fearsome beast means that from then on you'll be jumping at any sound louder than five decibels, fearing that it could be big ol' Rex returning for dessert. The seemingly-obligatory quick-time events make an appearance here, too; when attacked by a dino, a hectic flapping of the L2 and R2 buttons will perform a grisly death move: snapping a neck, stabbing a dino in the jaw or even breaking its back across your knee. It seems a shame that there are so few of these moves, meaning that they quickly become repetitive, and the fact that the sequence kicks you out facing in a different direction to when it began only serves to confuse.

All the dinosaurs look excellent, the animations making them appear all the more vicious and the sound effects really putting a chill down your spine! Turok definitely has the monopoly on dinosaurs (although there's little in the way of competition.) The blood-curdling screams you hear from distant humans are evidence that the reptiles don't just attack you either - every now and again you'll see enemy troops in pitched battles against them. The jungle areas you traverse are pretty enough - they have all the usual plant life and giant tree roots to cross ravines - but there doesn't seem to be a vast amount of variation. The textures consist of a lot of greens and browns, making Turok's scenery a little bland, and really, once you've seen one giant tree, you've seen them all. The graphics aren't exactly groundbreaking; jagged edges and misaligned textures abound, but the major saving grace is the animation, which is realistic-looking and fluid.

The level design makes up for the visual flaws a bit, with twists and turns to help keep you on your toes, but the lack of distinction between the many tunnels and caves often leads to confusion and frustrating detours. Occasionally the battle moves indoors to the type of buildings that litter every FPS since Doom; technologically advanced mega-structures built for no other reason than the fact that it's easy to get planning permission on distant planets. Seriously, what point do these buildings serve? They don't seem to produce anything (save from wave after wave of cunningly hidden soldiers). I guess you have to be an evil villain to appreciate why constructing them is necessary - there's even a gigantic robot spider boss at one point, which I'll excuse because it looks cool!

But the thing that matters most - the gameplay - is sadly a chore: Turok moves at a pace somewhere between slow motion and dead, while the controls feel unresponsive at times. First person shooters on consoles always suffer from the lack of sensitivity found in mouse-based games, but aiming in Turok feels like dragging a bucket through treacle. Trying to hit the often well-hidden enemies is nothing short of hard work and barely feels worth it. This is compounded by the checkpoint save system, which the designers apparently decided didn't actually need any checkpoints. There's nothing fun about having to navigate difficult sections of a game using less-than-perfect controls, only to be killed instantly and have to start from some arbitrary location half an hour back.

On top of this, the entire game feels like it has been ripped from 'Generic FPS Monthly'. Everything here has been done before - big stompy T-Rex? King Kong. Armoured spider boss? Crysis. And not one particular event in Turok is memorable beyond the initial 'oooh look, big teeth' factor. Battles against enemy troops are formulaic; stand behind box, shoot wildly down corridor, then repeat - and there's very little response from the AI. The dinosaurs do make up for this quite a bit, providing interesting encounters when they try to ambush you; they'll knock you off your feet too, which leads to a panicky few seconds trying to regain composure! But all in all, Turok doesn't offer anything which we haven't seen before a thousand times and it doesn't even offer that much of it - about eight hours is enough to complete the game.

There's a pretty good selection of weaponry on offer, ranging from shotguns, machine-guns and pistols, to more exotic fare like an explosive-lobbing pistol; the explosive attaches itself to enemies and can be detonated at will - often with hilarious results as bad guys are flung from ledges! Turok's bow makes an appearance early on, allowing for sniper-like kills from afar and brutal pin-you-to-the-wall action at close quarters. The bow is probably the coolest weapon, though by no means the best.

There are a range of multiplayer options to back up the single player mode; Turok features the traditional Deathmatch modes - with a decent selection of maps set in jungle and space-age buildings - Team Deathmatch (in many of the same maps), Capture the flag and Co-op modes. Co-op allows up to four people to play through some extra side missions not featured in single player, with increased enemy counts and tougher challenges, which adds a fair amount of replayability. The other multiplayer modes offer a unique twist on the classic idea; midway through a round, players can unleash a herd of dinos onto the map, which attack all players, regardless of their allegiance. This at least is something that Turok offers that no other game (to my knowledge) can claim. The deathmatches are pretty cool - knife fights are commonplace and you can even pull off the special killing moves to slaughter your opponents. It's the multiplayer aspect of Turok that gives it something more than ordinary status. The maps are interesting and well designed, the balance is spot on and battles are fast and furious. If you can find a match (which might prove difficult) then this is where most of your gameplay will come from.

All the elements that make a decent console shooter are present in Turok: the sound, the gameplay, the weird and wonderful weaponry. They're all polished, but none of them are shining and the result is a shooter that should have been classic but is missing that vital spark that transforms a shooter from a bit of fun to a compelling and addictive experience. Those looking for a stopgap between shooters will find a good ten hours of entertainment here, but Turok doesn't really have anything to make it stand out from Resistance, Call of Duty 4 or any other FPS on the PS3 at the moment.

Reviewed by John Barnes for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).