Monday Gamewatch

I know, that you know, that everyone else knows no one cares much what's coming out this week with Grand Theft Auto IV sold out at a store near you just eight days away, but here's the week's PC games lineup just in case.

Tuesday

Turok. Stop me if you've heard this one: Bunch of military hoo-hahs land on a planet that just happens to be swarming with dinosaurs, then somehow manage to dial down the locker room bravado long enough to wrestle with the local fauna and get picked off one at a time while you more or less hang on for the by-the-book ride. Instead of a time-traveling warrior chasing pieces of a mystical chrono-scepter (ala Acclaim's original 1997 Nintendo 64 sensation) Propaganda's re-imagined version has you as a black ops hard case fighting raptors, bugs, and the occasional compulsory T-Rex. Only problem? Two, actually. First, this game is to Acclaim's hit original as The Lost World to Jurassic Park. To paraphrase a line from my SCIFI review of the PS3 version, witnessing reptiles pounce, growl, and slither in games anymore has all the force of watching 1980s action stars in aviator's shades with shoulder-length hair waving uzis in front of giant fans, i.e. in this version of Turok, you don't hunt next-gen dinosaurs so much as 1990s-gen cliches. Second, the shooter mechanics with the hallmark knives, guns, and rocket launchers couldn't be blander. Run through outdoor "areas" less like jungles than tunnels with trees, popping enemies that fight like signposts with guns. Creep through indoor caves knifing dinosaurs that spill from fissures like packing peanuts. Defend yourself from lunging dinos by obeying timed button pop-ups that make your guy arbitrarily tattoo reptile jugulars. Etcetera. Unless you're hot for a totally average shooter, nothing to see here, move along. (Note: Play magazine gave it a 9 out of 10, so here's an alternative opinion if you like.)

Wednesday

Lineage II: The 4th Anniversary Edition. I've never played Lineage II so I can't say much about this five-year-old MMORPG, but it's still around and that's a feat in and of itself given the audience-gobbling phenomenon known as World of Warcraft. Like most MMORPGs, you control a single avatar, fight in a medieval-themed world with traditional human-elf-orc fantasy races and wizard-warrior classes, run quests, raise pets, and mostly fight a lot. The hook appears to be PvP (player versus player), which purportedly vamps off a sophisticated socioeconomic matrix. $15 a month seems a little steep for a game that only clocked 611k users in March 2007, but for $40 one-time retail, you can give the "premium service" a whirl for 30 days totally free.