Disney shows off its first M rated game, Turok

San Diego (CA) – Blood and guts aren’t something you usually associate with Disney, but the company best known for Mickey Mouse is developing a fairly bloody first person shooter called Turok for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles. Gamers take the role of a special forces commando who must fly to another planet and capture an escaped war criminal. Most of the game is your typical shoot-em-up, but there are several extra twists like very ill-tempered dinosaurs and an in your face “DinoMaul” combat mode.

The game is based on a 1950s comic book series and is being developed by Disney’s Touchstone studios. The player’s ship has been shot down enroute to the planet and he now must find other survivors while avoiding and killing enemy soldiers. The planet is littered with dinosaurs that can actually help you – provided you know what you are doing.

The dinosaurs are attracted to bright shiny objects and you conveniently have flares that you can fire into the air and ground. Firing a flare towards a group of enemy soldiers will attract the dinosaur in their direction and then its lunch time ! Disney reps showed off the game to us at the Comic Con convention in San Diego and it was very satisfying to see dinosaurs rip into an enemy tactical team. Of course the flare doesn’t always work and the dinosaur may decide that you are a bit tastier.

The game’s “Dino Maul” mode is an up close and personal view of hand to hand combat with dinosaurs. It usually happens after an angry dinosaur jumps on you, trying to bite your head off, but can also occur if you manage to sneak up on the dinosaur while wielding a knife. In Dino Maul, the camera zooms in to the dinosaur’s face (sharp teeth, bad breath and all) and you then have to hit several buttons quickly to defend yourself and do a finishing move which often consists of slashing throats and thrusting a knife through skulls.

Yes, there is quite a bit of blood in this game, but it is confined to dinosaur blood. Disney reps added that very little blood comes from enemy soldiers.

The ESRB recently gave the upcoming game an “M” for Mature rating. While this is the first mature Disney game, company reps stressed that it is being released under the Touchstone label and that the Disney name won’t be mentioned too much. Turok will be available in February for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.