Can a console costing less than a Game Boy give hardened GoldenEye players a run for their money in the solo botmatch stakes? You bet it can!
Martin Kitts

PC gamers have been enjoying the delights of single-player deathmatches for years now, thanks to advanced artificial intelligence routines in the likes of Unreal and Quake 2, but the limitations of current consoles has always meant that nobody could create worthy computer-controlled opponents on a relatively basic, sub-£70 machine. Or so we thought.

Acclaim's ambitious Turok: Rage Wars shows that N64 can indeed punch outside its weight division. It's effectively a multiplayer first-person shooter you can play with just a single controller and no friends, the first of its kind on any console. The three computer bots can be friend or foe, in a wide range of different game variations. You start as Turok himself, working through a predefined set of missions before meeting up with a boss, Tal Set, for a bit of one-on-one action. Along the way you'll have experienced team battles, free-for-all slaughter-fests, flag tag and the hilarious monkey tag, and you'll be quietly impressed with what your little grey box of tricks can do when someone asks it nicely enough.

The further you get with Turok, the more characters become available. Each one has a different set of weapons to work with, and you actually start each level with a full complement of guns - you just have to find the ammo to go with them. The preset weapon lists make playing with different characters a more varied experience, even though many of the levels are repeated each time you play with a new warrior. If you excel at a certain task you can earn medals, which don't appear to anything other than look pretty on your trophy screen.