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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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