We were discussing our personal choices for E3 2007's game of the show at breakfast last week when I started in on some diatribe about how the current glut of first-person shooters—this fall being especially saturated—gave me pause about namechecking an FPS as a "best of" standout. All these games are simply following a too-similar formula, deviating from tired gameplay within a 10% variance. Later that day, I played Turok for the Xbox 360 and started to reevaluate my opinion.

Yes, it's another first person shooter. Yes, there are large jungle environments. Yes, it takes place in the future. And yes, it's Turok. While all that should ultimately and logically result in a real snoozer, Turok—also coming to the PLAYSTATION 3 and coming along just swell, I hear—somehow manages to feel refreshing. Maybe it's the fact that one can play the game in a variety of ways, sneaking up on glowing-eyed soldiers (enough already with this) to perform stealthy kills. Maybe it's the varying tactics one can employ, pitting dinosaurs against human enemies to avoid unnecessary confrontation.

I'm thinking it's the tight-as-Crecente's-abs control and the slick-as-Crecente's-hair graphics that somehow managed to hook me. Although Propaganda Games list this as their first game, it's clear this is not the work of a fresh-faced studio. The game oozes polish, despite being a 2008 release. The execution kills with the knife add moments of action breaking goodness. The AI, whether we're talking soldiers working in teams or the savage all-offense attacks of the game's dinos, excels.

The team has made some smart decisions about the interface, making minor but noticeable improvements to the standard console FPS controls scheme. Everything in Turok just seems to work.

After the release of Haze, Halo 3, Blacksite: Area 51, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, BioShock, Medal of Honor: Airborn and Timeshift, you may have a hard time looking forward to Turok, but since the game doesn't ship until February of 2008, hopefully you'll find a brief FPS respite and an opportunity to give the game a shot.

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