Turok

Turok from 2008 is a restart of the series that abandons the pulpy feel of the original entries and builds on a rawer, darker take on survival on a hostile jungle planet. The player takes on the role of soldier Joseph Turok, whose unit is shot down and trapped on a world inhabited by dinosaurs and by people who have lost the last remnants of civilization. Instead of the sci-fi portals and interdimensional monsters of the nineties games, the reboot bets on military realism combined with horror tension from being hunted by giant predators that stalk the player just as purposefully as the human enemies do.

The Xbox 360 version was the lead development platform for studio Propaganda Games, and the game runs on a modified Unreal Engine 3, which enabled dense vegetation, dynamic jungle lighting, and large dinosaur models with their own AI reacting to the player's sounds and scent. The cover system, silent knife kills straight to an enemy's skull, and the ability to lure or set dinosaurs on soldiers were among the mechanics that played smoothly on the console thanks to power that set the game apart from handhelds and older consoles of the time. Fights against the Tyrannosaurus in particular, where the player has to combine cover, decoy bait, and precisely aimed hits to weak points, were among the things reviewers and players alike singled out on this version as a showcase of that generation of consoles' power. The game was released at the same time on PlayStation 3 and PC, but the Xbox version was the one the studio was most closely tied to during performance tuning and testing, and a number of marketing demos and review copies were based on it. The campaign takes the player through progressively more open jungle, where human mercenaries serving a mysterious corporation appear alongside the dinosaurs, and the level design alternates linear corridors with more open passages where you can choose between direct attack and sneaking past patrols.

Why play it: For players who want a rawer, darker take on dinosaur hunting than the old trilogy offered, who appreciate the cover system and silent kills, and who are looking for a shooter where even the Tyrannosaurus is just another enemy to take down.