Turok: Dinosaur Hunter is a first-person shooter than originally came out in 1997 on the Nintendo 64. I remember playing it with my friend and was absolutely blown away by the graphics and atmosphere. It’s one of the few shooters that I was genuinely interested in exploring. Sure, Quake and Doom were popular at that time, but Turok wanted gamers to explore the gorgeous and mysterious world. Instead of just making my way across the levels, I searched for secrets around every corner. I climbed to the tallest structure for that hidden firearm.
Night Dive Studios are the ones responsible for this remaster. They’re the ones who remastered System Shock and its sequel. They also enhanced the classic Terra Nova. You know that this game is in good hands. The remaster has improved controls and many new graphical options.
I don’t remember what frame rate and resolution the game ran at back then, but this remastered edition runs even smoother and looks even better. The developers maintained the original graphics but now they upscale nicely to modern displays. It takes a while to get used to the blurry textures but once you overcome that, the game becomes a lot of fun. The system requirements are so low that this title should run at 60 frames per second on almost all machines. Even my Surface Pro 3 was able maintain a steady frame rate.
I don’t know if many of you remember Turok: Evolution on GameCube. The game was pretty much the same as the Nintendo 64 version but it had a lot of great graphical touches. There was foliage, the dinosaurs looked better, and the guns looked better. Everything was just gorgeous. This is definitely a step down from that but I understand the choices the developers made. They wanted to stick close to the original game but I’m left here wondering what a proper remake would have been like. And no, we aren’t talking about the odd remake that came to Xbox 360 a few years ago. I want a remake with modern graphics that sticks to the original game. No commandos are welcome here.
For those of you that don’t know the story, it’s rather complicated. You play as Tal’Set, better known as Turok, a Native American time-traveling warrior. Yes, you heard that right. The designation of Turok is passed down every generation to the eldest male of the family. The Turok protects the barrier between Earth and the Lost Land where prehistoric creatures run amok and time has no meaning. Not only does the Lost Land have dinosaurs, it also has aliens.
Going back to the story, the villainous Campaigner wants an ancient weapon known as the Chronoscepter. I believe he wants to use it to destroy the barrier between Earth and the Lost Land so that he can rule it all. So, Turok has to find the Chronoscepter’s eight pieces to prevent the Campaigner from taking over the universe. The game can be completed in a couple of hours.
While I loved the original game, I have to admit that it really hasn’t aged well. The level design is odd at times and platforming requires way more precision than modern titles. The 60 frames per second boost really helps the controls so with a little bit of practice you get good at it. It’s the same as jumping back into a game like Doom after playing Halo 5. There’s a great difference between the controls but you get the hang of it after a short time.
My only real complaint would have to be the outdated save system. I would’ve preferred automatic checkpoints because those dinosaurs are vicious and you end up dying quite a lot. Either that, or I’m just terrible at playing this game. However, just like some modern titles such as Divinity: Original Sin, you have to get used to it.
Summary
The Turok: Dinosaur Hunter remaster isn’t for everyone. It will mostly appeal to fans of the original. I can’t say this remaster will help introduce the younger generation of gamers to one of gaming’s classics. Had it been a proper remake with modern graphics, it would’ve been more popular. I absolutely loved it but recognize that there are issues with the overall game.
Playing it again brought back found memories of my childhood but that’s all it is. Fond memories. To make Turok relevant again you need to capture the essence of what made it so special and update it for the modern era. I honestly don’t know if that’s possible because there have been a lot of remakes but they just haven’t lived up the original. One can hope, right?
Asher is a games journalist, former News Writer (Gaming) at Windows Central. They contributed 1110 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: wrote over 1,100 ICXM pieces on Xbox news, hardware reviews, and platform commentary before joining Future plc’s Windows Central in 2017.