It was great to finally get to play this game 2 dabbled with a little bit since my early childhood, however, I never actually gotten the chance to play through it. I truly believe this was the pioneer and definitely ahead of its time for first person shooters. The replay-ability is definitely there with all the secrets to find and collecting all pieces for the ultimate weapon. The campaigner never stood a chance. I definitely need to and plan to play more old school shooters like this since I missed many of them back in the day. I have a newfound love for the genre and glad my best friend helped me finally dive into it!

A childhood classic, revamped and replayed. Revisiting this over 20 years after I first played it was just so pleasant. It's the rare game that stands up to the awe, grit, and challenge I remember. The controls feel better than ever on modern hardware, no longer having to fidget with the N64 controller. Honestly it's a miracle I could figure it out at such a young age. I'm not sure if I ever actually finished it then, the first few levels are so familiar and burned in my mind, but not so much the last half.

It's a singular esoteric experience, just inhabiting it feels dreamlike. The score bumps as you traverse impossible landscapes and architecture as soldiers, dinosaurs, and robots (sometimes combined) rush you from all directions. All of this with an array of satisfying and creative weaponry from your trusty bow all the way to the legendary Chronocepter of which you find a single piece of in each level that is combined just before the end.

All of this to say Turok: Dinosaur Hunter is a pure gem, no ugly blemishes or fluff. Nothing on its mind but collecting keys and killing dinos, and I think that's fucking beautiful.

basically takes Quake and makes it a N64 collectathon. Great weapons, massive sprawling levels with lots of verticality, a large emphasis on exploration (get used to seeing the automap on screen!), actually really solid first person platforming, and the kind of premise that could only be born from old comic books where you play a time hopping Native American who kills cyborg dinosaurs with everything from bows to futuristic laser guns. Hugely recommend playing with a controller and with the crosshair off, being tuned for the N64 with generous hitboxes and relatively slow enemies makes it a bit too easy with the pinpoint precision of a mouse. The remaster shows its age a bit compared to more fully featured Nightdive releases but it's a great time. One of the first games I remember playing back on the N64 and it's a blast to go back to it

~fps retrospective 13~
Turok is a Frankenstein's monster sort of game in both gameplay and presentation. Akklaim one day decided to combine 2 of the most popular genres of the 90's; a 3d platformer collectathon and a fast-paced first-person shooter, which gave us..... Turok!!!!! It blends surprisingly well and I had a lot of fun I enjoyed the open-ended map design that they had a fair bit, it's very vertical. The weapons you get are pretty cool I think. In the presentation, they decided to combine the pre-historic dinosaur age with alien stuff; it looks cool and gets us some cool enemy designs. The final level was sooooo draining though it took so long to beat i felt drained after I beat the boss they did not have to make it that long.

A great master of a flawed but good FPS from the late 90's.

Things to note:
+ It's super fast and it feels great to move around and shoot, it feels like you are in a complete frenzy half the time, very satisfying
+ The original version shrouded everything in fog to be able to run it without lagging, in this remaster there is a lot less fog
+ The concept of playing as Turok fighting dinosaurs in open environments in a Quake-inspired shooter is a great idea, was refreshing back then when most shooters featured castle/industry/hell environments

- Half of the levels are very confusing and result in a lot of backtracking
- Respawning enemies
- You need to collect tokens to open up new levels, which really sucks the life outta the game when the levels become confusing to explore and you can't find them, it's really annoying and the game would be considerably better without it
- Some of the platforming later on can be annoying (there is quite a bit of platforming in Turok)

Very of its time but also always to the point, almost arcade-y.

Something to point out about this game is the level and enemy design; the levels are not only good at making you go forward but posess a level of verticality you don't see often in retro fps' almost reminds me of Spyro on the PS1 with how open it remains. To this helps the enemies, that have a chance of respawning after you kill them, something like this could ruin the pacing but the way its done manage to always keep you moving and search for the next path, making it very dynamic, again, unless many other fps.

The first time I picked this up, I gave up cuz it was very annoying to find the key that you needed for the next level, if something takes me like an hour to find then I am done dude. Second playthrough however, things clicked better, I was able to use the map more efficiently than previously... there were still some annoying parts of the game, but it's nothing a guide can solve!

I guess the thing that puts this game down is how damn ambicious it is, seriously, how the hell are you supposed to play this with N64 controllers!?

Overall, movement is fantastic, a lot of fun weapons to use and platforming on a fps.

I never played this on the N64 era but this was an enjoyable experience. Movement it's satisfying and the enemy death animation make the lack of big number of enemies less noticeable. I do like most of the weapons thought the explosive weapons/minigun kinda break the game for the most part.
On the downside I didn't care for the lives systems, I know it's a 1994 game and lives was part of the console games of the time but in PC the game most challenging part it's the platforming. Although jumping it's not as good as I would like it for this part you have a lot of air control to maneuver through the platforms and you can also "donkey kong country" jump for the most longer jumps.
I've read that the levels are kinda bad and boring but they are not that many levels (8 levels in total) and they lack a lot of landmarking but if you're used to using the automap while playing most of the game it's manageable.
I didn't get the secret weapon. I didn't knew it was one until I got a part in level 6 and the secrets are mostly faith jumps and pass-through walls.
For the most part a really good shooter for the PC and the Nightdive port it's really good with the options of using the N64 OST which in my opinion it's the best option.

not very good but I kind of liked it

There's two big things about this game that I don't think worked and they're the arena and enemy design. Arenas are weirdly massive and open, while enemies are mostly melee and hitscanners (with occassional projectile based ones). The huge size of arenas make melee enemies completely trivial to fight as you have plenty of room to manouver around them and fights with the hitscanners have you just scanning to find them before you pick them off. It never really feels like a fight, it's just busywork which is really bad for an FPS game.

It's a shame too because everything else is alright. There's a ton of weapons and most of them feel pretty good and I love the overall vibe of the game with its jungle theme and really cool soundtrack. It just has this nice Nintendo 64-ish tone to it all that I can't quite put into words. I think it's the comic book influences put onto the slightly jank N64 hardware? Gave it this cool 90's tone that meant I glided through the whole thing knowing it wasn't very good but having a nice time none the less.

I think the collectable aspect saves it a bit for me as well as the slight exploration focus kept my brain distracted from the FPS stuff. But it is at its core an FPS game and not a very good one. Still had a nice enough time though! Might try the sequel and if it's even slightly better I'll be happy.

'A Classic Romp Through A "Pre-Historic" Setting'

Prior to discovering this title, I had only played the demo of the reboot released in 2008. Unlike that disappointing entry to the series, this hidden gem from 1997 contains varied environments, multiple forms of movement throughout each level, and a great arsenal filled with many interesting and powerful weapons.

This game has many diverse locations, ranging from dusty catacombs to high-rise treetop villages, from ancient ruins to a land "lost in time". Each level brings something new to the table, and provides many different types of enemies for Turok to fight - killer wasps, gun-toting Triceratops, and...bipedal cyborg death machines! All of these enemies are fun to encounter, and bring a different flavor to each of the eight levels throughout the game.

The way Turok can traverse his environment is awesome! He can swim quickly through underwater caverns and lakes, climb up many trees and vine covered cliffs, and somehow manages to hop through some of the most difficult platforming sections I have ever seen in an Old-School FPS. This made the levels so much more than expanded play zones - it actually gave a bit of character to these locations. While the catacombs would have broken sections of land everywhere, the treetop village was mostly functional, save for the fact that you are what seems to be 300 miles in the air above a never-ending blanket of fog. The level design was tremendous for an older title like this one, and definitely made the playthrough easier to get through.

Despite providing some verticality to the maps, I didn't particularly enjoy all of the parkour this FPS had, since it isn't the best gameplay function to include in the genre. I found myself dying a couple of times in these sections, forcing me to run through sections of the game over and over again. Some of these sections could have definitely been taken out, but they don't completely ruin the experience (although its something to keep in mind if you already hate platforming in FPS games).

Lastly, the arsenal that Turok can wield is wicked. There's your classic Pistol, Pump Shotgun, and Rifle that you would expect games from this generation to have, but later on you'll be wielding a Particle Accelerator, a Quad Rocket Launcher, and my personal favorite, the Fusion Cannon. The ability to become a technologically advance death-dealing defender of the ancient realms in awesome, in large part to the massively interesting arsenal Turok can wield!

A few flaws like platforming sections and a lack of cohesive story knock a bit off of this title, but overall it was a pleasantly surprising experience that I would Recommend to any fan of FPS games. I am excited to continue to the next title Turok 2: Seeds of Evil , as that game is known to have cranked every aspect of Turok: Dinosaur Hunter up to eleven while also containing an interesting plot. Pick this title up on a slight sale, but honestly the work done by Nightdive is worth its admission price alone for any first-time player!

Final Verdict: 7/10 (Good)

Outside of its context, there isn't too much to say about Turok. It's a fairly standard shooter with a collecta-thon bend that doesn't really work out for it. Most other games that base progression on collectable items add more than you need to each level, but in Turok you need to find every single one of the keys to progress the game and with how massive the maps are, it's really a nightmare to find everything in some of the more open-ended levels. Luckily the more linear ones fare better. As a shooter it's not mind-blowing but pretty fun, Turok is fast as hell which I appreciate, but I have to question the choice of making most enemies respawn- ammunition is finite and some of the time you'll just find yourself running past them to save on it. These aren't massive issues and I had a decent time, but it's not a must-play.