Retro|Spective 032: Turok

[Neon Ignition]

Back when the Nintendo 64 was new on the market one third party title towered above the others, mostly because of the lack of them, and it was the very expensive:

Turok

Mainline Entry 01 - Turok: Dinosaur Hunter
Formats: Nintendo 64, PC and Xbox One
Born from the same-named comics, the early FPS followed Turok, a native American fighting to save the universe whilst fending off enemies and dinosaurs. The game proved to be a well respected early introduction to the genre on Nintendo's new console with it's main complaints centring on some awkwardness in its single analogue controls and some slowdown... unless you were german in which case you'd be irked by enemies being replaced by robots.



Spin Off Entry 01 - Turok: Battle of the Binosaurs
Formats: Game Boy
Mainline Entry 02 - Turok 2: Seeds of Evil
Formats: Nintendo 64, PC and Xbox One
The sequel continued on from the original game and was notable at the time for its inclusion of support for the Expansion Pak that enabled high-res graphics. It was an entry that would be considered to be the peak of the franchise for many, with both the hub branched single player and the new multiplayer proving key draws.



Spin Off Entry 02 - Turok 2: Seeds of Evil
Formats: Game Boy Color
Spin Off Entry 03 - Turok: Rage Wars
Formats: Nintendo 64
The series stuck close to the N64 once again with this spin-off title that is non-canonical to the series but that didn't really matter as the aim of this title was to focus on the popular multiplayer component of the series. Other than some single player trials, the game zoned in on the usual DM, TDM, CTF and Tag modes and was once again well received for these elements though the lack of single player component hurt the reception.



Spin Off Entry 04 - Turok: Rage Wars
Formats: Game Boy Color
Mainline Entry 03 - Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion
Formats: Nintendo 64
The trilogy closed out with this final N64 entry. The latest release added the option of two playable characters to choose from with support for higher resolution visuals once again making use of the expansion pak. The developers also aimed to make the levels feel more immersive by including scripted events that were triggered by player movement meaning that they wouldn't necessarily occur on each playthrough adding an element of randomness to each experience. The title received some minor complaints about the visuals but much of it was in the shadow of Perfect Dark that had recently released.



Spin Off Entry 05 - Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion
Formats: Game Boy Color
Mainline Entry 04 - Turok: Evolution
Formats: Playstation 2, Xbox, Game Boy Advance, Gamecube and PC
With the change of a generation behind the series it moved multiplatform for this new entry that works as a prequel to the N64 trilogy. Containing the same mix of campaign and 2-4 player multiplayer (barring PS2) the game delivered a pretty conventional attempt at the series and in a much more crowded market space it struggled to make an impact with reviews criticising the genericness of the title.



Mainline Entry 05- Turok
Formats: Xbox 360, PC and Playstation 3
The final entry in the series was an attempt to reboot it. Joseph Turok once again took the lead with the key difference between this entry and others in the series being the inclusion of a stealth mechanic. This mechanic proved a sticking point for many though and once again a weak response was met to the title that led to the franchises cancellation. It's been ten years since this final entry and it seems as though Turok has hunted his last dinosaur.



Share your thoughts and memories of the Turok series

[Team Andromeda]

Loved the 1st 2 games (even though they have aged terribly) and thought the XBox game was ok, never liked the rest. Still, remember getting the 1st game on Import and me and my next door neighbor trust shooting the humans in the neck with the shotgun and loving on the on-screen death animation and sound effects of the human choking on his own blood

Acclaim were amazing on the N64

[vanpeebles]

Aged terribly, but the first one was superb back in the day.

[Dogg Thang]

I only played the first two and only ever owned the second one. I wanted to like it more than I actually did. I have a memory of it getting very hard but never quite being enjoyable enough for me to stick with. It looked pretty great back in the day with the memory expansion but I imagine it would look pretty bad now. A product of its time.

[Asura]

I played the first one after Goldeneye, which means I've never really seen the appeal, even though I can see that it was a decent enough FPS. The short draw-distance irritated me, considering that longer draw-distances were one of the main things which appealed to me about the N64 (as a former Saturn owner).

I actually have very fond memories of Rage Wars. I played it a great deal with three mates one summer after getting it at a reduced price, and it was pretty good. A very strange title though. I've always wanted to know how that ended up being made, as surely they must've known that a multiplayer-only FPS was pretty much suicide on the N64, especially in 1999. Part of me wonders if they had planned to release it on PC with online multiplayer, but ran into problems (most likely just thinking it wasn't worth jumping into the same arena as Unreal Tournament and Quake III, as both were far more competent games).

[_SD_]

The only one I’ve ever played is the second on N64. I’d gone up to visit my mate at Uni and it turns out there was a pretty nifty import game store that was about 20 minutes walk from his student house. It was a hard choice between an American copy of Turok 2 and a Japanese camouflage Neo•Geo Pocket, the original black and white one. I’d recently acquired *ahem* a RAM Pak for the 64 and this seemed like a good opportunity to test it out, and it saved having to mail order the game.

I did ponder over my decision on the train home as I was bored as ****...

[Neon Ignition]

I never gelled too much with the original when it came out, though the N64 and analogue was a new experience it felt a worse experience than the rest of the launch line up so my time went to them instead.

Turok 2 was really the one I put most time into, a title I didn't dislike but I think I tried to like it more than I did.

After that I think the only one I briefly dabbled with was Evolution which left me very cold.

[charlesr]

Share your thoughts and memories of the Halo series



I played the first two I think, but totally don't remember anything about them apart from getting stuck a few times frustratingly.

[Neon Ignition]

My copy/paste skills exposed

[Leon Retro]

I remember the first game being hyped and really grabbing people's attention. When I finally got to play it at a computer show, it seemed good in some ways, but bad( terrible draw distance, thick fog, blurry graphics) in a lot of departments. But there was something about the atmosphere and overall design that made it quite fun to play.

The second game looked really nice in the higher resolution afforded by the Expansion Pak, so the graphics were much clearer and attractive. Despite the dodgy frame rate, it played well enough to be enjoyable. Not a bad game at all.

Rage Wars was a lot of fun in multi-player - and the graphics looked nice and crisp, so I have fond memories of playing it with friends and family.

After that, I remember playing the Xbox version and hating it, so I didn't go near the series again.

[Neon Ignition]

Clue for next weeks entry:

Clue - Following the Marker

[Asura]

Come to think of it, I seem to remember there was some controversy over Turok and bullshots - anyone remember that

[Neon Ignition]

I don't recall that but then... it was Activision...

[DeathAdder]

I bought the first Turok when I saw it on sale for £50, which was £20 lower than its RRP.

I didn't realy get into it, though - usually just loaded up the RBNSMTH cheat and got all the weapons immediately and then just caused havoc to everything I saw - but there wasn't much else to play at the time.