In Play

Turok

Touchstone, $59.99

The last time we saw Turok was in 2002, when he debuted on the Nintendo GameCube, Play-Station2, and the original Xbox. Now Touchstone has reincarnated Turok for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation3, so what does the new dinosaur slayer have to offer?

First of all, the plot. The 2008 Turok has changed storylines again, which he has done since the day video games grabbed this old comic-book character and threw him into a digital realm. Joseph Turok is no longer a uni-dimensional dinosaur hunter/time traveler; he's now part of a military commando squad, with his mission being to capture his former mentor, Roland Kane, on a planet full of bloodthirsty dinosaurs that look and act as if they're overdosing on adrenochrome. Turok's crew, which could do without him, spends the days and nights weeding through Kane's forces and mowing down dinos along the way like Rambo in Jurassic Park.

Make no mistake; Turok is a manly man's game. His old crew was the Wolf Pack; his new club is the Whiskey Company, and his comrades' one-liners are cheesy enough to make James Bond jealous. Not for the animal-rights activists, Turok's gang tears through the jungle mercilessly killing any reptile, carnivore and herbivore. If Touchstone made this a movie, a 1970s-era Burt Reynolds would be cast perfectly.

Turok's niftiest aspect is its ability to use the dinosaurs' feeding habits to Turok's benefit. If an enemy is near a pack of dinos, Turok can pop a flare at the human target, in effect inviting his scaly pets to a face-eating party. The controls are fluid, and the missions are easily accomplished; it's like a Schwarzenegger flick that's uncannily predictable, but the senseless violence and pure-cheese factor make it worth watching, if there's nothing else on cable.