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review: turok - dinosaur hunter (switch)

3/4/2019

28 Comments

 
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It's weird how your memory plays tricks. A couple of years ago my dad and I drove past what I'd always believed had been my aunt and uncle's old home.

I mentioned this to my dad, asking him when it was that they'd moved out, and he didn't know what I was talking about. I was taken aback; I'd had the most vivid memory of being in that house - it has a very distinct red front door (actually a side-door)... but... no. Apparently my aunt and uncle had never lived there, nobody we knew ever lived there, yet somehow I remember walking through that red front door... I remember the layout inside... but - according to both my parents - I've never been inside. 

Reincarnation? Uh.... Based upon experience elsewhere, it's more likely my mind had basically done its own thing, irrespective of reality. 

I mean, take the Nintendo 64. I've got two sort of conflicting, incompatible, memories - actually, more like feelings - about it.

The first of these is that I enjoyed a lot of games on the N64; Super Mario 64, Goldeneye, Ocarina of Time, Waverace 64... The other memory is that I didn't like the N64, that it's my least-favourite Nintendo console, that the joypad was horrible, and the graphics blurry and indistinct. I had this belief challenged recently when I went back to have a crack Mario Kart 64 on the original hardware, and was rendered aghast by how well it played.

It gets weirder still; I never played Turok: Dinosaur Hunter. And also... I definitely did play Turok: Dinosaur Hunter.

The former is a conviction that I've held onto for the past 22 years. I remember the reviews generally praising it, while criticising the fog/limited draw distance which shrouded its levels... but was pretty certain I never had any first-hand memory of all that.

And yet... I must've done, because I've been playing this re-release of Turok: Dinosaur Hunter on the Switch, and I'm having all these Manchurian candidate-style flashbacks to the first time I must've played it. So... I dunno.

​Conclusion: brains are idiots, and you should never trust the veracity of anything anybody ever says.
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NEW-ISH
Turok is a first-person shooter from an era where first-person shooters were still a pretty new-ish idea, and where the notion of them appearing on a console was relatively unheard of. It just about managed to beat Goldeneye to release, and - perhaps because of the omnipresent overshadowing of Rare's classic - I sort of remember it as not being that good.

But just like that time I entered the 100m Clone Race... I'm getting ahead of myself.

Turok is a Native American fellow, who lives in a Lost World, inhabited by dinosaurs, blokes with guns, and assorted other monstrous weirdos. Kill them all, using your bow-and-arrow and whatever other weapons you find laying around; that's the extent of the plot.

That is literally it.

Oh, and unlike most first-person games... there's a curious amount of first-person platforming. It's frequently frustrating, as you leap from one lofty spire to the next, but much of it here reminded me of the recent Doom reboot. 

To my 2019 eyes, all of this was jarring. Where were the lengthy cut-scenes? Where was the story? Why does this game appear to have been designed with the player's enjoyment in mind, rather than the designer's narrative pretentions? 

There's none of that; this is just a pure arcade-style shoot 'em up, like they haven't really made in decades. The aforementioned Doom came close, but even that often seemed to flirt with the notion of atmosphere over gameplay. 

Obviously, Turok's remastering gives it nice, crisp graphics - none of your N64's blurred lines - and you can choose to play it with the original limited draw distance, or... not. What surprised me is that playing it N64 style was beyond horrible. With the scenery popping into and out of focus as I moved around, I actually felt a bit anxious. And not the good sort of of anxious where it adds to the tension. 

With a more reasonable 2019 draw distance in place, Turok is revealed as a far more playable and enjoyable experience than my unreliable memory had it pegged as.

Turns out there was a great game hidden in Turok's mists after all. 
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DEBATE ETERNAL
Fog of war lifted, the other thing that this remaster of Turok has in its favour is that you no longer have to play it with the N64 controller. I know this is a debate that will rage eternal, but I hate the N64 pad.

What Turok demonstrates is how many N64 games must've been let down by Nintendo's design choices. The option is here, by default, to aim with the Switch's gyroscope, but turning that off, and just relying on the sticks, was my preference. There are more modern-style options to choose from - lighting, frame-rates, and the like - but I played as close to the original as possible.

And you know what? I really enjoyed it. Shorn of all the modern trappings, this is the sort of first-person shooter nobody would dare release today. I like games having a story, but sometimes I just want to wander around, shooting dinosaurs. 

It's unlikely that many modern gamers will be willing to give this a try, given its mid-90s visuals, archaic lives, weird cheat modes (yes: big heads!), and large, bewildering, levels, but it's a pure experience, the likes of which we seem to have lost.

​I'm as surprised as anybody.

SCORE: 64 out of 84.
28 Comments
HdE
3/4/2019 08:53:49 am

Top stuff! I also hated the N64's controller. It's a royal pain in the glutes to use, the c buttons never felt intuitive to me, and I could never suppress the urge to hold it up to people's faces and go 'LOOK! IT LOOKS LIKE A SPACESHIP!'

Fun fact: that controller actually made an appearance in the TV show 'Lexx,' where it was passed off as a weird controller. Basically one fo those instances where the guest star could be credited as playing themselves, I guess.

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Reversible Sedgewick
3/4/2019 10:25:32 am

I liked Lexx. More science fiction shows should be honest that sticking a load of people on a spaceship together will just end up with them acting terribly in an effort to cop off with each other.

Also the baddie in series 3 was great. He should be in every TV show ever and I don't know why he isn't.

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Wapojif
3/4/2019 02:59:49 pm

Zomg, Lexx! Yeah I used to watch that. Mainly because I fancied the Zev character, the lady in the red wig. Surreal show, though.

Stanley Tweedle
3/4/2019 10:42:22 pm

At last someone remembers me........

pezholio
3/4/2019 08:56:21 am

Now all we need is a Goldeneye remaster (though I know that a combination of Rare’s ownership and 007 licensing means this will more than likely never happen)

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Mr Jonny T
3/4/2019 09:14:46 am

I liked the N64 pad... I remember saving all my paper round money for weeks and weeks to buy Turok for an eye watering £70.

Good times.

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Grembot
3/4/2019 09:34:19 am

You are correct, the N64 pad is excellent. I’m not sure why so many people are wrong about it (other than people are idiots).

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Spiney O'Sullivan
3/4/2019 12:40:34 pm

Agreed on the N64 pad, which was basically perfect to hold, but there are people out there who like the original Xbox controller, so there's really no accounting for taste.

George Du Maurier
3/4/2019 10:14:23 am

The N64 Controller is very much a Curate's Egg.

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Wapojif
3/4/2019 12:46:29 pm

I remember the reputable N64 Magazine at the time hailing it as perfect. I really don't get this modern internet obsession with saying it's bad. Left hand on middle prong, right hand on right prong. Simples. Very comfy and lots of precision control.

It's the PlayStation controller I've always despised. It's horrible.

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Dan Whitehead
3/4/2019 06:28:17 pm

The fact you've just called it perfect, while accidentally admitting there was an entirely superfluous prong that served no purpose, kind of makes the point though, doesn't it?

mrak
3/4/2019 08:08:14 pm

At the time I guess you'd have to be pretty partial to argue against its "perfect" badge, though I'd admit time has been less kind to its analogue stick.

Regarding the left prong I'd assume that, given their superfluity on the SNES, mid-90s Nintendo thought there would be loads of N64 conversions of one-on-one fighting games given the decent-sized d-pad and six face buttons in a perfect Street Fighter configuration so the design makes perfect sense to me. I like options!

Spiney O'Sullivan
3/4/2019 11:07:28 pm

mrak nails it here. That prong was strictly speaking no more unnecessary than the D-pad on the Dual Shock was and is to this day.

Jam
4/4/2019 08:47:00 pm

And with two controllers and a copy of GoldenEye, you could dual wield and feel like a total boss.

Robobob
3/4/2019 12:02:23 pm

Did anyone actually use the D-pad bit of the N64 controller? That sort of felt...redundant.

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Darth Tinder
3/4/2019 12:09:03 pm

Mischief Makers did. And so did Bangai-oh. And Sin & Punishment.

So basically anything by Treasure, the sort of wacky developer the N64 was practically made for.

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Spiney O'Sullivan
3/4/2019 12:19:12 pm

I think I remember using it in Jet Force Gemini for weapon select?

But beyond that, not really. I seem to recall Goldeneye having at least one control scheme that used it instead of the C-buttons, though that wasn't my preferred control style (Solitaire, obviously).

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Spiney O'Sullivan
3/4/2019 12:37:00 pm

I thought that Doom 2016 did its story pretty much perfectly given what it was aiming for. Almost entirely ignorable bar a few vital scenes to give it a bit of direction and pacing for those adrenaline-craving types who -like the Doom Slayer- just wanted to wreck things, but with a ton of lore tucked away in menus, audio logs and a bit of environmental storytelling for people like me who want to know more about the world and characters. I wouldn't want it for every game, but its slightly more streamlined version of the Half-Life/Bioshock school of storytelling worked well for a focused action game like Doom.

Meanwhile on the other end of the spectrum, I'm currently playing Assassin's Creed Odyssey and finding that its cut-scenes -even when you have a choice in them- can be a real drag since there's just so many of them that boil down to "Misthios, please go do this thing" followed by "Thank you for doing that thing, Misthios!" after half an hour of questing that I've found myself checking my phone during them. It feels like a lot of wasted effort on the developers' part. Worse still, I also find that this attitude leeches into the main quest cutscenes, meaning that I occasionally zone out during actual important plot stuff.

I'm all for better stories in games, but like so many stories or jokes, it's all in the telling, and games just haven't figured that out for the most part.

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Kelvin Green link
3/4/2019 01:38:40 pm

I've just played through Metal Gear Solid 4 for the first time and my gosh the cut scenes are ridiculous; it's like one of those dodgy early 2000's action movies that crop up on Channel 5 on Saturday nights, except where there would be advert breaks, there are instead brief bursts of gameplay.

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Wapojif
3/4/2019 12:44:33 pm

Before high school one morning in 1997, I picked up the All Guns cheat off Digitiser and quickly had a blast with the full range of weapons.

Turok was a decent romp, but I found it difficult as a kid. All the best weapons were beyond me. But there was way too much pixel perfect jumping. Plus fog.

Turok 2 was much better. I had a mammoth playthrough that in 2006 at uni, listening to Led Zeppelin.

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Sean
4/4/2019 09:07:27 am

The N64 is both a design classic and an evolutionary dead. Most N64 games feel wrong without it to me, particularly FPSes. They tend to map C-button camera controls to the second stick, and that is way too twitchy compared to the button presses it was designed for.

I assume fixed in the remaster, but usually awful under emulation.

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Spiney O'Sullivan
4/4/2019 12:34:52 pm

A lot of N64 FPSes have alternate control styles that map movement to the C-buttons (or D-pad) and looking and turning to the stick. Turok actually might have been the first to do it as a primary control style, but it was also an option in Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, South Park 64, and Duke Nukem 64.

Learning about the Solitaire control style is the first step to not getting constantly obliterated in Goldeneye multiplayer.

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Lummox60N
6/4/2019 09:13:17 pm

Indeed, movement on the c-buttons, aiming/looking on the stick.
It was the only sensible method.
And a damned fine method indeed.

Smilin' Peter
4/4/2019 02:05:40 pm

Yup, hating the N64 controller seems to be a recent phenomenon. Funny, I dont remember people complaining loudly about it at the time.

The Gamecube controller perfected many of its concepts, like having different sized buttons, and also had a more robust thumbtack.

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Smilin' Peter
4/4/2019 02:07:54 pm

Bah, I meant to say thumbstick. ThumbSTICK.

Also, Turok was released a good six months before Goldeneye. The £70 price tag put me right off.

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Phil Young
4/4/2019 03:35:38 pm

Genuine question - are they Switch screenshots? It looks terrible.

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Carlos Nightman
4/4/2019 08:45:31 pm

The N64 controller is easily my favourite, but I remember a lot of harumphing about it at the time. Also - Turok 2 is an absolute beast.

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Piers Canadas
7/5/2019 02:15:30 pm

Naaah, the controller took a lot of grief at the time, it's just us N64 obdurates essentially developed Stockholm syndrome regarding it.

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