Turok

Turok is a fun piece of late 1990’s gaming. Its gunplay is perfectly competent: it’s fast and brutal, the guns are varied and satisfying although some feel a bit underpowered, the bad guys are numerous and fun to kill. The movement feels good, and it has some of the best first-person platforming I’ve seen, which is not a high bar to clear but still. One issue is that the combat is surprisingly easy on normal difficulty (to be fair, the game was probably much harder when played with an N64 controller), but anything above is frustrating. Ammo is also often hard to come by. The game is very light on storytelling but delivers on atmosphere: it’s set in a fearsome jungle full of mercs, dinosaurs and monsters, a cool setting that exudes the type of 90’s pulp energy that we don’t see in games anymore. Interestingly, while its game design is consistent with its era, it is more reminiscent of platform games than of typical “Doom clones”: it has sprawling, labyrinthine levels straight out of Tomb Raider, a hub zone seemingly inspired by Crash Bandicoot, and the way items are collected to unlock levels is similar to something like Mario 64. It’s not a FPS you can play like a mindless gunfest: paying attention to your surroundings is vital to avoid getting lost, and you will need to thoroughly explore levels to find each of their hidden artifacts. As with all Nightdive remasters this version does a very good job of keeping the game how it’s meant to be played, while adding stuff like an increased draw distance and a smoother framerate for a more comfortable experience. Manual saves would have have been a welcome addition, as there is a lot a distance between savepoints. In the end, not every aspect of Turok has aged well, and it’s not as satisfying as other retro shooters...but it’s a fun and well-made relic from a bygone age, wrapped in a solid (if admittedly too pricey) remaster. It’s worth a shot if you like shooting game and can tolerate some outdated game design.

I still have the original Nintendo 64 cart and thought the game was pretty good until I got to the 3rd level where the difficulty really ramps up in this game. Until playing this version I had no idea how badly hampered the Nintendo 64 original was with its massively limited sight distance due to the infamous wall of fog and the extremely closed in field of view. It's much easier navigating around the terrain and being able to recognize where you are and where you've been since you don't have the wall of fog making it difficult to identify areas. While the frame rate on the Nintendo 64 was actually not that bad, the game is much faster paced and easier to control screaming at 60 frames per second. Platforming sections don't feel like a gamble every time with the sluggish controls on the Nintendo 64. A very welcomed added bonus are the extra graphical features that have been added to just touch the game up a bit like bloom, light scatter, water reflections and refraction, and 16x AF which all help this early 3D game age a little better. What I also thought was cool is that you have the ability to select the original PC soundtrack or the N64 soundtrack which is set to N64 by default. I'm glad they chose to keep the N64 soundtrack because I still like it better than the PC mix, and the N64 music sounds clearer than ever since it's no longer compressed to fit on a cartridge. Sorry to have made such a big comparison between the PC and the N64 version, but I believe most of us who played Turok back in the day played in on the Nintendo 64. If you are on the fence like I was on getting this release because you already own the N64 version or you've been emulating the N64 version on PC, or even own the original PC version of this game; DO IT! This is a first class remaster of a great game. Is it worth $20? Not for me so much, but I got it on sale for $5, and at that price it's a complete no brainer.

This series was my childhood. As a remaster, this makes all the necessary improvements and will run on any configuration and resolution although the engine doesn't go above 60 FPS. You get to choose the console soundtrack or the higher quality but different PC one, OpenAL was kept as the sound API so you get nice 3D HRTF which is very nice in surround sound. All the cheats were kept the same. You can of course aim properly now in this remaster which is such a relief. There are a few controversial changes to level design though, but they're pretty minor. The first instance is on the very first level regarding the second key: it is hidden in the original game, but here it resides in an entirely newly designed area out in the open, and only the auto shotgun remains similarly hidden. The other level design layout change is on level 4; the room containing the frozen creatures is no longer hidden, instead sitting out in the open. Both changes were clearly designed to make the game easier, no doubt because in their playtesting too many players failed to find these crucial elements which would lead to them being stuck. To me, someone whose favorite games growing up were Turok 1 and 2 back when they were new, this is not a big deal since it's exclusive to these two instances. All Chronoscepter pieces are in the same place. Ultimately, this is the only way to play Turok. As for Turok itself as a game? It is a distinct mix of FPS and platforming, solid in both regards thanks to a diverse selection of weapons with some really cool sci-fi ones, and tricky platforming in your early playthroughs. The AI is outdated compared to great PC FPS games but it makes up for it in difficulty on higher modes.

This game has a lot of nostalgia for me. I have it on Steam and would, but it on GOG if it were remastered or if there were any tweaks or special goodies. Even $7 on sale (which it is now) is not enough to warrant a second purchase if it's identical to the Steam release.

I'm almost done with this game -only 2 levels to go- and while I've been taking my time to play this game, every time I played it left me hooked and wanting more -more speed, more high caliber combat, more exploration- This game is a delight, with its heavy downsides, like the horrid backtracking. However, it's tons of fun.