Turok (PS4)

Turok’s origins date back to a comic book from the 1950s, but it seems the world at large really took notice of the Native-American hero when a tie-in Nintendo 64 game called Turok: Dinosaur Hunter brought his adventures to the system by way of a first-person shooter. While fighting against aliens, cyborgs, and dinosaurs in a realm outside of time called the Lost Land gave the game a multifaceted world, it also became known for the fog it frequently uses to hide that it can’t show too much on screen at once thanks to the system’s limits. The Nightdive Studios remaster known simply as Turok, released for systems like the PS4, Xbox One, and Switch, was working with much stronger hardware and years of knowledge, and while the game tries to keep the original look for the sake of verisimilitude, it’s also been cleaned up so you feel the intended challenges in the design rather than bumping up against limits like stiff controls or poor visibility.

 

Turok is not the name of one man but a lineage of heroes, Tal’Set being the one assuming the title in this particular adventure. Turok does not spend any time in-game explaining your motivations or what you’re up against and it doesn’t come with a manual like the original Nintendo 64 release, but it’s not like there’s too much to say. Turok finds himself in the Lost Lands thanks to the activities of a man called the Campaigner who seeks to assemble the Chronoscepter, a powerful weapon that could break down the barriers between time and space and rejoin the dangerous Lost Lands with the rest of reality. While you’d think assembling the Chronoscepter yourself might be the main objective, you technically only need to stop the Campaigner to succeed, but doing so will take you across the Lost Lands as you need to locate the keys necessary to open portals to its many realms.

Turok technically only has 8 main levels in total, but these levels can be rather expansive and outright labyrinthine at times, the goal to find those keys to unlock later stages requiring delving deep into complex level designs. Be they ancient ruins, treetop villages, or futuristic forts, you not only need to fight your way past aggressive wildlife and warriors from across time but also search the nooks and crannies as keys are not necessarily on the main path. While the first-person shooting action is the source of most of the exciting action, the emphasis on exploration actually does a lot for making its levels memorable and multifaceted. These areas aren’t just there to host enemies, you’ll need to jump across floating platforms over deadly drops, weave your way through a lava-filled canyon, or in perhaps the best use of the game’s fog, start high atop a mountain and search for areas in the mist below to keep diving down to, the mystery of what lies below making it feel like you’re truly searching these areas for answers. Admittedly, this focus that makes levels deeper and more robust can also sometimes grate if you’re a key short and just can’t find the right path, but pressing Square brings a map up over the action that automatically fills in and can help you navigate. Additionally, before you do the heart-pounding jumps over instant death drops, Turok trains you well with lower stakes platforming that works surprisingly well in first-person, NightDive Studios doing a wonderful job smoothing it out just right so there is still tension when you’re leaping from precarious perches but you should reliably be able to do so when it truly matters.

 

One of the most impressive parts of Turok’s eight main levels though is how willing the game is to hold onto ideas without it feeling like you’re simply retreading dangers and concepts. Large sewer crabs don’t even appear until a short part of the final level, but before then you’ll be up against a good range of dinosaurs, gunmen, and aliens, and even when you feel you’ve gotten used to raptors or dimetrodons, they come back with advanced weaponry strapped on their back to change how you fight them. Most battles will still be fast-paced, Turok taking cues from games like Doom in terms of being a fast-paced shooter where you never need to manually reload so you can fire your guns as quickly as allowed so long as you have the ammo reserves. There are boss battles as well, the large levels and tougher foes leading to the need to keep cycling through the guns you accrue over your adventure to ensure you have the strong stuff for the sturdier enemies but even tiny creatures can be pesky if you don’t take them seriously.

 

Levels do have a good amount of chances to find more ammo meaning you should rarely find yourself leaning back on your basic knife, and additionally you can often earn extra health above your standard 100 on top of armor to increase your survivability. Checkpoints as a result are made rare and save spots even rarer, and while there’s a life system and collectables scattered around that you need to gradually collect to earn more lives, you really shouldn’t get a Game Over since things are spread out enough to preserve a sense of danger but loading a last save feels like a viable option if you do slip-up. The only real punishment for a death besides setbacks are losing boosts like the backpack that allows you to carry more ammo, and even then levels often have that pick-up hidden in their depths so you can get it back eventually.

The weapons themselves are distributed similarly to the enemies, the player still uncovering new tools late into the adventure but still feeling well equipped even early on. Turok starts with a knife and a bow and arrow, but the special Tek Arrows have explosive arrowheads to already give you a stronger killing option and rather quickly you’ll get a shotgun and assault rifle to flesh out your options. The shotgun does work from far away, weapon choice often more about the strength and ease of fire rather than many limits on what a weapon can do. A minigun or pulse rifle can be very strong but deplete ammo rapidly to achieve that strength, but if enemies in the area drop the right ammo you can go on a tear for a while with these stronger tools. The basic weaponry isn’t a slouch either, once you get the auto shotgun it’s still thrilling to blast baddies with it despite the more explosive options, but one price you pay for that strength is some enemies having just as much in turn. A pulse rifle turned on you can very quickly wear away your health if you don’t treat the enemy with respect, and there are foes like a shaman who use completely unique attacks that will require you to be nimble as you weigh whether you think you can justify using a weaker weapon for the longer fight over wrapping it up swiftly with a gun you’re less likely to find frequent refills for.

 

Turok is teeming with secrets and optional side-roads, including occasional purple portals that carry you off into small challenge areas filled with goodies. Avoiding swinging blades, hopping around moving platforms, or otherwise proving your growing skills like in a place filled with enemies firing down from perches can lead to a lot of the tokens needed for extra lives, plentiful health boosts, or ammo refills where you might not otherwise find them. Each stage has its own set of these special portal areas and even if you miss them when they appear, they can show up again later or even in the same spot. However, enemies can also be added back to cleared areas, never to the degree they once were if you clear it out, but some spaces will remain dangerous to traverse although usually the bigger baddies will stay gone at least. It is likely you’ll need to run through a level again to pick up keys or a possible Chronoscepter piece you missed on your first time through, the respawning enemies likely to make this more than bumbling around and there can be shortcuts that open up for these possible return trips. However, sometimes the large areas do work against the key searching and having to keep tussling with the same enemies as you search for a sneakily sequestered side area can make the exploration lose some of its charm. Those expansive levels that are part of the game’s appeal become its main drawback too, something that could have been rectified a touch with a even a few hints that at least let you know if you were on the right path or passed a key up.

THE VERDICT: Turok’s huge levels are great for exploration and hosting fights with a great range of interesting enemy types from all throughout time, the weapons a strong match in giving you power but asking you to know when to use it as well. Alternate paths and hidden areas provide plenty of goodies and Turok isn’t afraid to hold onto new and unique ideas for areas you visit briefly or that exist off the main route, and while this labyrinthine level design can lead to stretches of confused wandering when you need to find the last key, when first pushing through the areas are rich with tense platforming and quick and enjoyable fights.

 

And so, I give Turok for PlayStation 4…

A GOOD rating. NightDive Studios’s remaster of Turok really draws out the strengths of its design, turning the usual testy matter of first-person platforming into something that is nerve-wracking due to the intended amount of peril at times but not obnoxious because of the smooth controls. It even allows you to tinker with how much fog you want in the world although it ultimately works just fine with the N64’s original amount since it was designed around those limits. Some players might wish they could easily set up a save anywhere but that would also drain some of the intended challenge since mixing up weapon use wouldn’t feel so meaningful if you could just reset easily after a costly encounter. Turok aims to be the game it was originally meant to be with most modern additions being to just to make it smooth on newer game consoles, but that does mean the big thing that holds Turok back from deserved greatness is its exploration elements being a little too involved. It is nice to find a side area with unique challenges or even enemies with a good payout in terms of power-ups and resources, but it also makes finding the vital keys required for progress a bit rough. Turok keeps whipping out imaginative areas to navigate as it mixes prehistoric with futuristic to varying degrees and some uncertainty when heading down a path does make the discovery of its purpose interesting. However, there being no good way to really know where keys could be does lead to a few inevitable tromps back through the level after you know what to expect. Even just the occasional marking on a wall or perhaps being able to see the key before you can reach it through something like a window at least could give you a more concrete direction to pursue, and the intricate level design can already loop back on itself so it’s not like such hints necessarily invalidate the mystery of exploring each path you spot.

 

Turok can be difficult at times but the large areas to explore and quick first-person combat lead to a good mix of meaningful discovery and lively action. Fighting dinosaurs with guns is definitely the way you’d want to lead with advertising this game and likely why it helped the old comic book character finally seize the wider public’s attention some, but there is depth behind that act because of a wide range of strong and satisfying weapons. When going up against a large stable of enemies from all across time, a little confusion from time to time is not enough to dull the thrills it offers.