Turok: Dinosaur Hunter

The Nintendo 64 was something of an outcast back in its time, considered childish for a new generation of gamers. Bah, these people never knew how wrong they were. Classics such as Golden Eye, Killer Instinct and Turok: Dinosaur Hunter made sure the N64 was anything but childish. Turok has been brought into the HD generation by the talented Nightdive studios, but does it stand the test of time?

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter brings players into the role of time travelling warrior who’s been tasked to protect the barrier between our world and the Lost World. However trouble is brewing when a menacing fiend known as the Campaigner becomes determined to destroy the barrier, causing unspeakable chaos and doom. Well that’s what I read on Wikipedia, as you’ll never get a clear understanding of what’s happening as there no tedious cut scenes of needless exposition. This was back in the day when the plot was usually written in manual that came with the little cardboard box. Strangely enough it’s kind of refreshing in some way as setting the story aside brings players straight into the action for greater impact.

It’s simplistic in nature but Turok is a strong experience with solid mechanics and gameplay. Turok engages players to traverse multiple landscapes while collecting awesome weaponry to defeat a multitude of foes. Players will get to use weapons ranging from a bow and arrow to some more extreme firearms such as a plasma rifle, chain gun and even more spectacular firearms. All of them are very entertaining to use on the gathering of strange and imposing enemy forces.

Turok does have a surrealistic charm to it, creating a game with a concept that’s pretty much Jurassic Park meets Time Cop. It’s bizarrely entertaining compared to the vast number of military shooters we get now days. I mean, where else can you see a Native American warrior killing gun wielding dinosaurs and explore vastly strange worlds that resemble at times something from Dune? I highly appreciate the imagination put behind this game and what impact it still has. This was a staple back in its heyday renowned for its high end graphics (believe it or not), particle effects and overall design. You may laugh at this but Turok was a big deal 20 years ago and in some respects still has some good properties to it.

Much of the game does show it's age, feeling sluggish and outdated in some respects. The inclusion of a life counter for the amount of retries you can have in a single play-through is kind of silly considering you can save your game and start again if you lose too many lives in one go. This only becomes relevant at stupidly difficult boss battles, which actually are pretty fun none the less. Puzzles are extremely simple, often resorting to stand on button, find door that has opened and go through door. The plat-forming elements for the most part are enjoyable and for the technology used to build the game, a great deal of variation was crafted. Bringing in different aspects of traversing combined with engaging combat. You’ll uncover secrets items, solve puzzles and venture into challenges for more loot.

Nightdive Studios have done an amazing job at tweaking the most crucial mechanics, bringing you a smoother and more fluent gaming experience. They've also addressed one of my major problems with the original game, the jumping. If you remember the original release then you’ll know what I mean, with the jumping of Turok feeling very sluggish and incredibly restricted making certain plat-forming section a complete nightmare. There are still plenty of sections which require an immense amounts of jumping to traverse across. but these are now more enjoyable and manageable with the tweaks implemented. So in many respects Nightdive have saved a lot of people from breaking down into tears. Yet the game itself still harbours some rather prolonged and irritating jumping section.

I enjoyed the idea of exploring different worlds, taking on brutal enemies and be presented with a variation of challenges in each world. But the concept of collecting keys was silly then and made me think more along the lines of something like Mario. What does cause a problem is that it’s easy to lose track of what or how your objective is going. You can easily miss a key or two and tracing your steps back or back tracking in general is a little tedious. As for the game worlds themselves, though have divisive characteristics, some feel very similar to each-other in presentation. Worst off, the worlds are too complex and long winded for when you’re back tracking. This makes it easy to get lost or become bored when looking a key you've missed and never knowing where it is. But cheat mode helps out so much when this problem arises and to be honest, is the most fun addition of the game.

This is certainly a title that has shown its age but still an enjoyable experience for older gamers. With its fast paced action, bizarrely wacky nature and the revamping done by Nightdive Studios you can relish the nostalgic nonsense and engaging gameplay. Though some dated design choices, lack of variation in mission objectives and overwhelmingly confusion navigation along with some tiresome platforming sections make it slightly less desirable. So of course this won’t be the greatest experience you would remember but the game is 20 years old so I can really blame it for its flaws. It was important back in 1997 and is worth a play. I hope Nightdive work on something more engaging for their next project, even Turok 2 would be a superior title to improve and release for a new generation.

+ Creative concept
+ Awesome amount of mindless fun
+ Cheat mode!

- Worlds aren't too diverse
- Simple puzzle design
- Some platforming sections are still a very tedious

A PC copy of Turok: Dinosaur Hunter was provided by Nightdive Studios for the purpose of this review.