Turok - video and hands-on preview

The arsenal of weapons at your disposal is expansive and varied. In a little nod to the original, there's a bow and arrow in there too, although it seems to be just as powerful as the guns. The sticky bomb gun is rewarding, attaching explosives to your target and then detonating a few seconds later. And of course you get the standard complement of grenades and ammo pick-ups scattered throughout the levels to replenish your pockets. Weapons can overheat too, which sounds like an extra tactical consideration but is instead rather infuriating, especially as the overheat animation obscures your view. Being actually able to see the dinosaur that's about to chew our face off would be a bonus.

We had a brief glimpse of the T-Rex, which looked good, but he seems to be indestructible during this initial encounter (watch the video to see what happened). But it was enough to make us want to play more and meet him again.

Above: He's big, he's mean, he's... completely impervious to your bullets. Run!

Dinosaurs aren't the only enemy you'll be fighting - there's an opposing military group on the planet and your primary objective is to kill them all. At one point they snipe one of your teammates through the head which results in plenty of swearing... but no blood. The same is true of stealth kills with your knife. Dinos will bleed, but humans won't, even though you've just slit their throat, assassin-style. All to make it a mere '15' in the UK? Maybe this kind of censorship does more harm than good.

So, what you're getting here is like Halo with dinosaurs. That would be an awesome quote to put on the game's box, but we should add something to that. What you're getting here is like Halo with dinosaurs, only not as good. And when the game's said to be 12-15 hours long, its multiplayer had better pack one hell of a punch to make sure we'll be coming back for more once it's over. We'll find out soon - the game's out in the UK on February 8.