Turok 2 is one of my weak points, one of my favourite games in general. I cannot avoid feeling excited when I talk about it: How many good times I have spent with this great cartridge! I really love it, the graphics, that soundtrack which not even films offer, those weapons, enemies and levels... I seem to be drooling for a stunning babe, don't I? Let's be serious and focus on Turok 2...

Turok 2 is one of those jewels which unexpectedly alterates the situation of the range of games available for a console and a game which makes the owner's game remember forever that big game enjoyed once upon a time. Anyway, I continue: this game is relatively famous and it obtained a very high grade on magazines belonging to this sector. The game was released in the same month as Link reappeared on Nintendo 64, in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. In my opinion, this points out that the expectations created by this game may have been good but not comparable to the reappearance of Link. Nevertheless, the Turok saga was already known because the first episode had been one of the first games for Nintendo 64 along with Killer Instinct Gold or Super Mario 64. And the second cartridge seemed to be the continuation of a very good game. I had the chance to buy the game and I would not sell it under any circumstances now. As soon as the game was released it obtained very good comments and some people praised the result of a very good work. After it, its successors did not reach the level of this cartridge and Turok turned into a repetitive and dry saga. Turok 3 tried to maintain the model present in the second episode of the saga, but neither the levels were as long, the difficulty as high -this added fun and duration to Turok 2-, nor the graphics seemed to be the same present in the first Turok. The game was still pretty good but some serious mistakes in the code -Turok 3 can suffer from a redundant crash in the 6th level, something that should be unusual in a videogame already out- and maybe a lack of original ideas aroused Turok 3 got levelled to other games of the genre and it did not shine so much itself.

Turok Rage Wars was released after Turok 3: a special multiplayer version which tried to fix the flaws present in other Turok games: Turok 64 did not have a Multiplayer mode and the multiplayer options present in Turok 2 or 3 were deficient. But Turok Rage Wars did not fix that leak in any way and the lack of a proper single mode made this cartridge be poor. And Turok Evolution, for Gamecube, seemed to be experimental and it meant the unofficial death of the saga which only could be ressurected by something as terrific as Turok 2. However, talking about Turok 64 now, it was a very attractive and a rather good game, but fairly more repetitive than the game that we are talking about and that is on the spot now.

Let's proceed little by little. Graphics. They deserve a 10 over 10. If we compare them to any other good game for Nintendo 64, as Donkey Kong 64 for example, we can say the graphics of Turok 2 are more defined, sharp and of better quality in every aspect. And Donkey Kong 64 requires the Expansion Pak. It was released months after the game of Acclaim... Besides, we have

been talking about the graphics of Turok 2 without the Expansion Pak connected to the N64, because Turok 2 accepts this device and playing it makes us see the best N64 game talking about graphics, only worse in theory than Perfect Dark.

The soundtrack. The best one ever made for a videogame? It may be. Music causes subjective feelings. And it cannot at all be felt on a website... However, we may consider several objective factors: there is a melody created for each level (there are six massive level maps in the game). They are huge. So the melodies are not short, they last around 5 minutes as minimum and more than 10 as maximum before they loop. Therefore, the soundtrack does not result repetitive. The used instruments present a very high quality: strings mixed with percussion or winds: they all very realistic, contribute to give the player a true feeling of adventure. Violins, harps, piano, trumpets... a symphony adorned by sound effects like the yells of the attacking creatures, the sound of shots, the water above our body when we dive or the voices of our friendly guide, Adon. The soundtrack creates in general a tense or a frantic ambience, a scary atmosphere or a background of pure action. For example,when there is a fight against a final boss, each battle disposes of its musical background which creates a suitable climate and that customizes each battle against each final boss.

As we cannot offer here any evidence of the musical quality of this product, so let's say that the coders of Iguana took this aspect into account in such a way that they even recorded growls from pigs or the sound of squashing tomatos to try to emulate the yells or the burst of the enemies. The results of the soundtrack are excellent and it would worth listening to the soundtrack on a CD that has not been released, unfortunately -this would be a personal desire-. Some tracks could even be extrapolated to thriller or horror films. Death Marshes, the soundtrack assigned to the third level of the game, is in my opinion the best piece of music ever created for a videogame in its context.

Controls are great and original. Apart from the movement of the main character and the total control of cameras, used with the analogl stick and with the C buttons of the Nintendo 64 pad (by the way, controls can be swapped in case we want to use controls in an alternative configuration), other controls as jumping, switching the ammo or the level of upgrade available for a weapon are easy and intuitive. The original stuff here is the choice of weapon. If we press the button 'A', a wheel opens and all the weapons are shown around it; they can be chosen by simply pressing the analog stick pointing at the direction of the weapon. If we release the button 'A', the wheel disappears and the change of weapon takes place. This works out problems as pausing the game or pressing a button 800 times to pick out a weapon after being shot by enemies.

Apart from this, it is useful to underline the fact that weapons can be upgraded: you must simply open the wheel and push the stick once to get the upgraded weapon, twice to get the older one. And there are 16

basic weapons: there is a wheel opened by pressing the A button and another one that is shown by pressing the B button. After testing this, one realizes that the idea is simple and great.

As regards the gameplay , it must be said that Turok consts of a main world where we can choose to access to the 6 different levels that are in the game. These levels are protected by doors only opened by keys which are obtained when we play the different areas. Very long ones; finding a save point is hard and trying to advance without exploration means that we will access the main hub (the name of the main area where we can gain access to the different levels from) after completing a level, with the final shoot-out and the final boss finished but without the necessary objects to progress adequately. Because there is a final boss in the last three levels, apart from the one at the very end of the game. Keys, power-ups to explorate more areas, and pieces of the weapon to defeat the last boss, Primagen, are all well hidden. And the level of difficulty is high, although we can choose among 3 modes of difficulty at the beginning of the game.

The game is frantic, it combines spectacular scenarios and open places with other indoor ones; areas to explorate and others to run along, and every place is full of criatures with a very good artificial intelligence. Perfect Dark shows a better one even, but Perfect Dark is not a bad game after all... About the map, it is laberynthic, distributed into several floors, infested of halls and dark aisles which complete this artwork which nobody should obviate.

Another special point are the final bosses. The most spectacular of the genre without any doubt. Hard to kill, impressive, full of resources, each battle against them can last many minutes and they change their behaviour every now and then before dying when the difficulty gets tougher and tougher, all in an ambience of horror, disgust, tension and a mad and exciting soundtrack; it all makes Turok 2 present epic battles to survive against a final boss, and defeat it.

Nothing elseto say about this game. Very difficult but near impossible, long, technically superb. The multiplayer mode tries to give it a bit of more life. However, this is the weakest point of Turok 2: areas in multiplayer are not well outlined, the characters are not well designed enough... and it is not very variated as a whole. It results being a mediocre tryout.

The best of Turok 2: The experience of playing this cartridge in single mode is unique. Everything brights, everything vibrates, everything is fun.

The worst: The multiplayer mode.