How about this for a can't-miss game idea: one man armed with a high-powered bow vs. a jungle full of hungry dinosaurs.

And yet, ever since "Turok: Dinosaur Hunter" and "Turok: Seeds of Evil" appeared in 1997 and '98, respectively, on the Nintendo 64 and the PC -- both pretty good games by the day's standards -- the "Turok" name has had a curse on it. It makes all subsequent "Turok" games terrible.

I was pulling for the new "Turok," as I do all underdogs, hoping at best that it would be a long-overdue reinvention of the series and character. Or, at worst, that it would be a B-grade romp.

The game stars Joseph Turok, a man who's fond of his Mr. T mohawk and sleeveless outerwear. A former member of an evil organization named Wolf Pack, he's now on a mission to destroy Wolf Pack. As he and his team approach its home base, their spaceship is shot down. Turok discovers that Wolf Pack's scientists have been playing god and trying to get the once-barren planet to evolve. Translation: There are dinosaurs.

I spent much of the game splitting time between battling dinosaurs and nameless/faceless human guards. The game's best moments were when I'd stumble upon a pack of guards who were enduring their own velociraptor attack, and I could stand at a safe distance and watch them battle it out. It's in these moments that the game -- very, very briefly -- has a pulse. And not only did dinosaurs attack my enemies, they attacked one another. The T-Rex occasionally makes an appearance, and when he does, stand back and let him hoover up anything and everything in your path.

But each time "Turok" -- which is based on a 1950s-era comic book of the same name -- showed promise, the lousy gameplay mechanics and poor level design killed whatever fun I was sure I was about to have. The look-sensitivity is tweaked far too high, which makes aiming at enemies go something like this: swing to the left of enemy, fire into space; swing to right of enemy, fire into space; swing back to left, etc. Only after I cranked the look-sensitivity all the way down did I have any chance of hitting anything.

When enemies attack, they often swarm from all sides. Here's a recap of a typical "Turok" battle: Velociraptors swarm, I get knocked down (Look! There are my boots!), screen goes red at the fringes; I get to my feet, try to aim, am knocked down again, even more of the screen turns red; get back up, get knocked down again, screen goes completely red; game over, try again. The game's developers should have included a message here that says, "Thanks for the $60, idiot."

Worse still, I actually felt a twinge of remorse when shooting some mild-mannered species of dinosaur. Some of them seemed vaguely afraid of me and, in retrospect, were only trying to get away.

Multiplayer is a semi-entertaining novelty -- dinos do roam the Deathmatches, preoccupying your opponents, making them easy pickings -- but still can't compete with the likes of "Call of Duty 4" or "Halo 3." With its unremarkable story line, unlikable characters and subpar gameplay mechanics, this latest version of "Turok" is fit for one thing: extinction.