Less than a year after the launch of the Nintendo 64, the now bankrupt Acclaim came forward with Turok: Dinosaur Hunter. Back in 1997 first person shooters were really starting to come into their own. id Software practically had the corner on the market with Doom, Doom II, Hexen, and Quake. And from 1993 to 1997, the best way to experience a mature and fun shooter was on the PC.
While many people will blindly point to Goldeneye 007 and Perfect Dark as the definitive shooters on the console because of their split screen 4 player modes, Turok was the more direct competitor with id Software’s singleplayer lineup. Goldeneye 007 and Perfect Dark were more A to Z shooters, while Turok not only focused on shooting, but platforming, exploration, and big bombastic weaponry as well.
I purchased Turok on launch day in 1997 and instantly fell in love with it. It had huge jumps, walls to climb, a bow with blue explosive arrows, dinosaurs with missile launchers and machineguns, and it was bloody to boot. It was one of the first games to mandate using the save carts that you’d attach to the underside of the N64 controller. I played the game over and over again, messing around with the infinite ammo, the big head cheats, and more. So with that bit of backstory about the game and my previous experience with it, let’s chat about the Turok: Dinosaur Hunter 2015 remastered edition for PC by Night Dive Studios.
At full price, the game is $20 USD on the Steam store. For a remake of an almost 20 year old game, that feels incredibly steep to me. After flipping through the game’s options, there’s a few new odds and ends added in like an FOV selecter. After some light Googling, the only real enhancements I could find to the game is dynamic lighting, bloom, FXAA (all of which were pretty subtle and I didn’t notice much in my time with the game), support for high resolutions and widescreen–as one would expect from any rerelease, Open GL and vsync support. Oh, and Steam achievements. No new levels. No high resolution textures. So…super light on the feature list.
Obviously on a modern PC, the framerate is going to put the old N64 to shame. And using mouse and keyboard made everything easier from platforming to shooting. Framerate wasn’t a huge problem for the original Turok. Seeing a faster framerate on Turok 2: Seeds of Evil might vastly improve the experience because that game ran like junk on the N64 with and without the memory expansion in the console.
I’m pretty disappointed with the almost total lack of graphical improvements.
But, playing devil’s advocate against myself, perhaps they are going for a more authentic experience, which for the sake of posterity, is pretty important.
If you’re in for a nostalgic trip, Turok will deliver. It sounds great, has some good environmental mazes and puzzles, and it has a wonderful sense of verticality that I completely forgot about, and apparently so did all other modern shooters. Getting to the end of a level doesn’t mean you’re done with it. You need to make sure you’ve collected all the keys to open all the portals to every world. And if you’re really going whole hog, you have to collect the chronoscepter pieces too.
It’s almost comical playing a game with keys, secret areas, and hidden walls anymore. I shocked myself with how many hidden areas I re-discovered through muscle memory. But without video walkthroughs, it might take brand new players much longer to find them, if they even care to find them.
The game doesn’t rely on dumping bullets into sponges and finding convenient places to hide while reloading and healing. Instead, health is medpack and armor-based, and you never have to reload. Something about that fact alone felt oddly liberating. Using weapons in Turok is less about landing head shots and the number of times an enemy needs to be hit before falling. Guns are more like tools for specific jobs. For instance, you wouldn’t want to use the grenade or quad rocket launchers on the high priests. They move around too quickly and the minigun kills them in fewer rounds. At the same time, you wouldn’t want to stand and blast away at a heavy trooper with a pulse rifle. You’re better off bouncing grenades around corners and staying safe.
It’s a polar opposite mindset compared to most modern shooters. And for that, I’d say Turok is worth checking out if you missed it in its prime in the late 90s.
If Night Dive Studios IS going for an authentic approach, there is one crucial element that is a little messed up in the game: that’s the infamous N64 fog. Fogging was a way to compensate for lack of computational horsepower in 1990s games. But some games like Silent Hill and Turok, used that fog as part of the environmental design. The jungles in Turok felt mistier and the caves more dangerous. There is still fog in this remastered version, but it’s much much further away and it hurts the game. Players can see enemies long before they can retaliate and it makes the game less suspenseful, and it also unfortunately makes it too easy.
I had an absolute blast replaying Turok. It was nice to take a stroll down Nostalgia Lane and I do think the game would still be fun for newcomers. It’s interesting seeing the game design mentalities that are used here but have been abandoned by the industry. After completing the game, my initial reaction still holds true. $20 is too expensive for such a barebones rerelease. Whether you’re going on a retro kick or you want to rehash some old memories, I’d say wait for a sale or a drop in price before you go hunting dinosaurs.
Tested on: PC
Developer: Iguana Entertainment, Night Dive Studios
Publisher: Night Dive Studios
Platforms: Windows
Launch Date: November 30, 2015
Review copy provided by publisher