Turok (Switch eShop) Review

The 1990s was an amazing time for first person shooters, both on the PC and for consoles. Quake, Duke Nukem 3, Wolfenstein 3D, Half-Life, Doom II, Unreal Tournament, Rise of the Triad, Dark Forces, System Shock 2 and of course Goldeneye 007. I played all of them, but there’s one series that I never really got into, despite being on my beloved Nintendo 64 and that’s Turok: Dinosaur Hunter.

So with the absence of nostalgia for the series, and only for that era of shooters, let’s find out how Turok stacks up now.

Turok was the first, first-person shooter to arrive on the Nintendo 64 and despite being best remembered for the amount of fog in the game to hide the draw distance this game actually did quite a lot to help move the genre along. The game has motion captured animation, aggressive AI and its surprisingly “open world”. Despite there being really only one way to finish a level, it’s not a corridor shooter, the world with the fog all but removed is surprisingly open. There’s also about as much exploring here as there is shooting, switches and portals are all around, progressing you through to the next area. There’s a map but it’s the old-style wireframe overlay which is basically useless, overwise you’re on your own.

The game is unforgiving in that special 90s way as well. Checkpoints in levels are sparse, and make sure you save the game when you find the points because it doesn’t save at all unless you do. Enemies respawn if you leave the area as well making the somewhat limited ammunition on the map dry up quickly.

The real fun thing about a lot of 90s shooters was that they had a ton of fun with their gun design. Turok has a huge range of guns and while none of them come close to being as good as the Cerebral Bore from Turok 2, the run and gun gameplay along with the guns make for some good times. Turok moves around the big levels very spritely and getting surrounded by enemies, dinosaurs and zipping around taking them out is quite the joy.

While the main areas of the game are fun there’s two big bit of Turok which aren’t as great and that’s the boss fights and the platforming. First, the platforming, it’s something shooters in the 90s loved to do (looking at you Half-Life). Turok has super fast acceleration and can jump quite far, but the second you take your finger off the analog stick he drops dead. There’s no momentum what so ever. You will fall often and have to go around and try again, in some places you’ll fall to your death as well and have to go back to the last checkpoint. The gyroscope controls help with the platforming somewhat because you can flick the controller or console up and down quickly to make sure you’re landing where you need to. Meanwhile, the boss fights are just stupid, they’re just bullet sponges and take way too long and become a slug instead of fun.

Despite Turok looking very 90s, and not being much done on the surface there are some things that have been brought up to modern standards. First up, gyroscope controls are in and that makes the gunplay even more fun and quick it also makes up for the poor aim assist.

Nightdive Studios have been very deliberate in keeping this as authentic to the original as possible but some things have been improved. You can completely customise the controls, remove the fog entirely (it’s still there a little), change the blood, change movement settings and there’s even achievements. Cheats are also there, you still have to enter super-longwinded codes to enable them, but you only have to do it once. Turning on cheats disables the achievements. Despite being on the Nintendo 64, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter is a completely singleplayer game, and if I remember correctly it’s why I never bought it back then, only rented. Hang out for Turok 2: Seeds of Evil for that.

If you’ve never played Turok: Dinosaur Hunter before and wondered what all the fuss is about then this is one of the best ways to enjoy it. The gyroscope controls make the frustrating parts of the games almost go away and you’re left with an unapologetically 90s first-person shooter that’s still a lot of fun, despite still being very awkward. Not just one for fans of the era.

Rating: 3.5/5