Pre-E3 2006: Turok Premiere Screenshots and Interview

[Evi]

May 3, 2006 - Remember Turok the Dinosaur Hunter? Buena Vista and Propaganda Games sure does, and the development and publishing duo has teamed up to bring it back to next-generation consoles. But this isn\'t your brother\'s jungle seeker, the new Turok has a brand new production team, a bleeding-edge focus, and the desire to create a first-person shooter closer to the memory of the Nintendo 64 classic rather than the PlayStation 2 disappointment. To tell us all about it, Propaganda Games Vice President and General Manager Josh Holmes sat down with IGN and ended up leaving us with high hopes. Here\'s how it all went down...


IGN: Can you give us a little background info on the Propaganda team and tell us what kind of experience they bring to the team?

Josh Holmes: Sure. The studio was formed back in January 2005. The four founders are all formerly of Electronic Arts. Prior to Turok, Myself, Daryl, and George -- we all worked on the Def Jam series (Fight for NY and Vendetta). Before those games, Daryl and I were co-creators of NBA Street.

Anyhow, after we formed Propaganda we just started building up an incredible team. We\'ve got people here that worked on Metroid Prime: Echoes, Prince of Persia, Need for Speed Underground, SSX, Quake IV... we have a group of people here with a ton of industry experience on really good games. But that was our goal in building the team -- using veteran talent to pull off a "Triple-A" level title.

IGN: Despite your team\'s background, the Turok franchise has a bit of stigma to it. The last game released with the name by Acclaim didn\'t leave on a good note, how do you combat that?



Holmes: The only thing we can really do is to put out an absolutely amazing game. That\'s our goal. But look at Turok as a series of games and it does fair a bit better. The original Nintendo 64 version was a great game. It was one of the first titles on a console to get the shooting experience right. Since then, the franchise has fallen. But we want to get back to the quality originally associated with the franchise and take it in a completely new direction.

We\'ve got a really talented team and we\'re going to deliver something that absolutely kicks ass on next-generation consoles. It\'ll be next-gen in every respect too -- in graphics and gameplay. So yeah, if we make it awesome people will come around.

IGN: Since you\'ve mentioned that it\'s going to be different, how is it going to be? It\'s still a first-person shooter right?

Holmes It\'s still a first-person shooter for sure. That\'s the genre that defined Turok as a property and that\'s what we decided to stick with. We kicked around the idea of making it third-person, but FPS was the way to go. That said, we have incorporated a number of third-person elements into the game to take advantage of some of our new mechanics. I don\'t want to reveal too much about that at this point, though, that\'s for later. Suffice to say, we do have some innovation that stretches the limits of what\'s perceived as a first-person shooter.

IGN: Is the game open-ended and mission-based or is it more structure and divided into levels or chapters?

Holmes: The story of the game is really what drives things forward. We\'ve tried to put together a really good engaging plot and that\'s reflected in the gameplay. We have a huge world with seamless transitions from place to place, but within that we\'ve incorporated multiple paths as to how you might want to approach an obstacle or objective. So yeah, it isn\'t mission-based. There will be two or three different ways to approach a situation and no right or wrong answer to default to.

IGN: Can you give us an example of a typical scenario?

Holmes: In the demo that we\'ll be showing at E3, there\'s a section where you\'re sneaking through the jungle and you can hear enemies up ahead. From there you have the decision to open fire and go "guns blazing?" or do you use stealth and sneak up on them to keep enemies up ahead from knowing you\'re around?

We\'ve also incorporated creatures into the game in an interesting way. The bulk of Turok is "human vs. human," but we use the environments and dinosaurs as wild cards for any given situation. You enemy can become a weapon, as an example. In our demo, we\'ll show off how you can take a tremendous foe like a T-Rex and use it against your enemies. This is the way it is in the whole game -- finding ways to manipulate creatures strategically to gain the upper hand.

IGN: That\'s good to know that they aren\'t scripted and aren\'t background noise, but what exactly will they do in general? Do they have specialized behaviors? Do you ever go dinosaur hunting?

Holmes: Well the game is about the conflict between you and your enemies on this genetically-altered planet where you\'ve crash-landed, so the dinosaurs are just neutral players. They\'re something that complicates situations. In a fire fight, for instance, you could be blasting it out with an enemy force and all of a sudden a dinosaur shows up and throws chaos into the situation.

As far as dinosaur behavior goes, we have modeled each of them with their own instinctual behavior. They may go after some enemies for food, and others may go after other dinosaurs for food, so there some things that will be going on there. They\'ll attack humans, each other, you name it.

IGN: Is the story based on any particular arc from the comics? Is it an all-new one?

Holmes: Our story was written specifically for this game. The narrative is set a couple hundred years in the future and it centers on Joseph Turok - an ex-Black Ops commando that has been added to an elite team of Special Forces soldiers that are going after Turok\'s former mentor who has turned evil. Because of his relationship with the bad guy, however, he\'s a bit of an outsider. To make things worse, the team\'s ship is shot down as they fly over this genetically-mutated planet that\'s filled with dinosaurs and a hostile enemy force that\'s hunting them down. It all unfolds in a semi-chapter-like structure.

IGN: How big of a game is it in terms of size and playing time?



Holmes: At this point, I\'ll just say that it\'s pretty long with a lot of content. But I don\'t want to get into details just yet.

IGN: What advantages does the Unreal 3 engine give you that you might otherwise not have been able to do?

Holmes: The engine gives us a firm foundation to build from. We had our game up and running quickly so that we could focus on the details. That said, this is a heavily, heavily modified version of the Unreal 3 engine. We have a lot of talent as it relates to handling technology and we\'re moving it beyond what you\'ve seen so far. In fact, in a number of areas we\'ve replaced key elements to fit our game. But yeah, it\'s given us a great foundation and we\'re really happy with its performance.

IGN: Unreal 3 is also known for being multiplayer friendly among developers. Are you being aggressive with that feature?

Holmes: We think it\'s really important to have as deep a multiplayer experience as possible. But that\'s all we can say for now.

IGN: How about the weapons? What are we going to see Turok wield this time?

Holmes: We have created weapons that run the gamut from stuff grounded in reality to more forward-thinking futuristic weaponry. There\'s a good mix and we\'ve pulled inspiration from the previous games, because let\'s face it, the Turok games are known for their unusual and outlandish arsenal. You\'ll see everything from the knife and the bow (which can be used in new ways) to automatic rail guns, the shredder, and a bunch of other weapons that we\'ll reveal over time.

IGN: This is more of a philosophical question, but with this game being next-gen only and a lot of first-person shooters headed to those platforms, where do you see the genre going that it hasn\'t been before?

Holmes: The graphics help, obviously, but it\'s all about the behavior or characters and creatures and delivering the next step in artificial intelligence. Now that you have so much visual detail, any miniscule flaws in behavior become that much more obvious. So from our standpoint, in addition to making the game look and sound amazing, we\'re also looking for very diverse and unique behaviors for our creatures and characters.

IGN: Is that your biggest challenge?

Holmes: I wouldn\'t call it a challenge, it\'s just a focus. We\'ve really invested heavily in it.

IGN: When can we expect to see it?

Holmes: It\'s slated for next year and it\'s first look will be at E3 at a behind-closed-doors demo,

IGN: Thanks for your time, we really appreciate it.

Holmes: No problem, thank you too.

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/704/704557p2.html








Looks pretty good, mang.

When I think of Turok I think ; crossbow + arrows + classic shotgon.

Not sci fi plasma guns.....

[Evi]

Weren\'t there some crazy guns in the original Turok? I don\'t remember. I hope they don\'t make every weapon high-tech. They should really keep to the original...as it was the best in the series.

Yeah, i think in Turok 2 hightech/magic weapons premiered.

A bit of a shame imho... ah well, it\'ll be good for the ppl who
like more sci fi frantic shooting

[Evi]

I miss the original Turok.

[Titan]

I played it way back when but don\'t remember it too well. I do have a Gameboy Color version which doens\'t even match. That was good though. I\'ll have to keep this one in mind.

[Jumpman]

Turok is such a bad franchise lol. Turok 2 is the only N64 I regret buying.

[Kurt Angle]

I wonder if that guy will camp out for this game like last time.

[Viper_Fujax]

When I think of Turok I think ; crossbow + arrows + classic shotgon.

Not sci fi plasma guns.....

exactly what i thought when i saw the screenshots,lol. too \'quake in the woods\'

[Jumpman]

I wouldn\'t mind Quake in the woods though.

And Turok has always been a mediocre franchise. Everyone should want it to change.

I liked the first Turok. And it did have funny guns. Like the one that froze small enemies and they blew up. And some super charged weapon if I remember right.
 
But it was mostly shotguns, tek arrows and the minigun. And I liked it.
 
Second one? Meh.
 
-Dan

[Evi]

I liked the first Turok. And it did have funny guns. Like the one that froze small enemies and they blew up. And some super charged weapon if I remember right.
 
But it was mostly shotguns, tek arrows and the minigun. And I liked it.
 
Second one? Meh.
 
-Dan

Yeah...none of the games have really measured up to the original. :/

It doesnt remind of Turok at all from these pics. It looks more like a combination between Far Cry and Unreal to me.

But perhaps it will proove worthy of the original Turok\'s crown at the end.

The concepts and planned features sound very very interesting though.

The first Turok kicked ASS.  I loved it so much, it was so far ahead of its time for a console FPS in 1997.

I even made a video of it when I had my old school equipment.

http://www.bluesurfdesigns.com/vg/Turok.avi

When I think of Turok I think ; crossbow + arrows + classic shotgon.

Not sci fi plasma guns.....

The first Turok started out with all that crazy sh1t.  That\'s what made it so fun!  How the hell can you take out a T-rex with a shotgun?  No, you need a big effing minigun, nuclear blaster, chronoscepter...