We all know dinosaurs were the coolest animals ever. We also know acts of thoughtless violence are usually fun. So mix them (dinosaurs, mindless violence) together, and you should have a recipe for awesome, right? Think again.

Despite the undoubted headstart that dinosaurs and brutality should give Turok, it still falls prey to the age old rule of diminishing returns for brutality. And that is: stabbing something through the brain is only fun the first few times.

Come to think of it, repeatedly doing most things isn’t usually a recipe for enduring fun, but the problem is exacerbated in Turok. Why? Because the stabbing animation is the same. Depending on where you’re standing in relation to each dinosaur your animation never changes.

Lucky for Turok, there’s more to it than dinosaurs and violent instant kills. The artificial intelligence powering Turok is actually good to an extent. It sees everyone as part of one of three factions. The dinosaur faction, the bad guy faction and the you faction. This is seriously one of the better ways shooters have evolved over the years – nothing makes you feel like part of a larger world than having two groups ignore you and duke it out.

Unfortunately, the game’s programmers spent more time on three faction AI than combat AI. Fighting human characters in Turok is akin to a boxing match with a punching bag. They don’t see you because you’re “hiding” in waist high grass, or they take so long to recognise you’re shooting at them for the clumsiest of players to take them out. The dinosaurs fare a little better, but they still seem to rely on the element of surprise to get any real hits on you.

The story is another let down in Turok – it’s utterly uninteresting. Which is bad because the cast is phenomenal – we’re looking at Timothy Olyphant and Deadwood co-star Powers Booth as well as Ron Perlman (Hellboy), William Fichtner (Mahone from Prison Break) and Donnie Wahlberg (… uh New Kids on the Block). They weren’t hired to add some familiarity to the game either – ignoring the fact that I wouldn’t recognise Donnie Wahlberg unless he was halfway through “Step by Step” the only voice which leapt out at me was Ron Perlman – because he does the same voice for every role. “Dinosaurs. Dinosaurs never change.”

So considering the mad stacks they must have dropped for the talent, I’m confused as to why they’d use the same old “New-guy-to-the-team- has-to-prove-himself-against-his-old-team-to-win-respect– when-they-land-on-a-planet-full-of-mutant-dinosaurs-and–elite-mercenaries- with-no-concept-of-situational-awareness.” Why not develop an actual plot instead of restricting the cast with boring dialog and worse narrative?

The graphics are pretty good, and the game runs smoothly - when you’re making a generic fps, it helps if you make it look good. The UT3 engine has been used to great effect in this game – it looks nice throughout – though I still think it has a little bit to go in terms of face construction – I don’t know if it’s an uncanny valley thing or just flat out weird, but too many UT3 based games have faces with giant, detached eyes – and Turok is no exception.

When you play, you’re in generic shooter territory. You run and gun. When you need to stay quiet, you do the same knife attack motion you’ve done every other time. If you prefer your shooters to require little thought, Turok is up your alley. If this game had a decent story this kind of gameplay would be forgivable… endearing even. Who wants to learn story details through complex gameplay mechanics when you can have Timothy Olyphant tell you?

Turok is the kind of game you play when maybe all your friends have cancelled on a Friday night, you’re four beers into a six pack of Heinekens and you don’t feel like playing online. You zonk out in your recliner, scream “(Bleep) yeah!” as you destroy enemy after enemy and the game’s merits outweigh its flaws. Play it when your friends are around and they’re itching to do something, and all you’ll see are those flaws. As a backup game Turok is a worthwhile purchase – but really, how worthwhile is a backup game?