The Nintendo 64 was the home console that popularized first person shooters outside of the PC landscape. It defined how they would be played on controllers instead of the old keyboard and mouse. I really have to hand it to the developers that took a chance on the hardware with the genre. Turok: Dinosaur Hunter was one of the early FPS released for the platform. It was also one of the most popular ones. Turok also released for PC, but the Nintendo 64 version is the one that most people remember. In the age of Quake and Doom it tried something different, and for the most part succeeded. As one of the first FPS titles I played I enjoyed it back at release. I decided to dust off my copy of the game and take it for a spin to see how it holds up. Unfortunately Turok has aged badly.
It wasn’t common for video games to have native American protagonists back then (it still isn’t, actually) so Turok felt unique out of the gate. Here you play as the titular hero who travels back in time to a primitive world called the Lost Land. This place is inhabited by humanoid creatures, dinosaurs, and even aliens. From here things get a bit foggy with some antagonist trying to merge the worlds, and Turok setting out to stop him. It’s certainly a unique scenario even if a bit outrageous. I kind of like just how over the top it is to be honest. Anyway, let’s dive right in to gameplay because that’s really what matters.
As Turok you explore a variety of different levels (eight in all). Your goal is basically to find keys to progress in each stage with a boss character awaiting you at the end of these areas. You can walk, jump, climb, and swim to get past a variety of different obstacles. It must be said that the main difference between Turok and traditional first person shooters of this era is just how agile our protagonist is. It really hits home the jungle setting of this universe when you have to scale vine walls, jump from rock to rock, and even navigate underwater cavers with limited oxygen. At times Turok feels like somewhat of an acrobat because of just how fluidly he moves. This also allows for some really varied design elements when it comes to each stage.
The only complaint I have with this is that Turok shows you it’s hand pretty early on. You’ll be performing all of these fancy moves in the first few stages, and what follows becomes a bit repetitious because of it. It feels like you’re doing the same things throughout the game, and quite often at that. There are very few different gameplay scenarios that you haven’t already seen in the first few stages. It’s nice that Turok is so agile, especially in an age where first person shooters felt stale, but the level designs surely could have used more new ideas to take advantage of this. With that said I did appreciate some of the later underwater caverns. This is one of the few games I actually enjoy the swimming sections in but that’s because the physics are so well done.
Besides all this Turok: Dinosaur Hunter is a pretty traditional first person shooter. You view the weapon you have equipped on-screen as you view the action from your character’s eyes. The levels largely consist of various interconnected corridors with a few more open areas. You’ll find branching paths but most of these are blocked off until you find the proper key to unlock the way forward. While looking for them you’ll be accosted by a variety of different enemies. In the beginning the foes consist largely of human opponents with the occasional dinosaur sprinkled in. Later on it’s mostly reptilian foes and hulking alien monsters. Some enemies shoot projectiles at you, but generally you’ll be more worried about the ones that want to bite your head off.
Unfortunately there are several gameplay issues here. First of all the level designs are boring with a capital B. The small confined areas hardly feel different from something like Doom or Quake. Your abilities do make some level of difference, but not much. These too cause some issues in the level design department. There’s a weird emphasis on platforming that just doesn’t work that well here. I found myself instantly frustrated whenever I had to make intricate jumps. The problem is you can’t always see where you’re going to land, and the controls are a little slippery to boot. It’s a constant issue and it’s clear the developers were really fond of platforming games.
Enemy patterns certainly don’t help make the game more interesting. Generally foes run toward you out of the fog (trust me, I’ll get to that mess later) and go stationary as they attack. Unless you’re stuck with just your knife you can simply back up and fire away to take most of them out. To be honest this just isn’t a very fun way to play. You begin with just your bow and knife, but each stage introduces new weapons to the mix. There aren’t a lot of unique weapons unfortunately. They’re pretty much all the same style of projectile attack. You have mainstays like a handgun, shotgun, grenade launcher etc. Later on Turok gets his hands on more inventive firearms like the fusion cannon or chronosceptre. They’re okay, but bring nothing new to the table.
The most unusual thing about Turok: Dinosaur Hunter is it’s controls. I’m happy to report that this was one of the first FPS titles to offer analog aiming. Unfortunately this comes with some trade-offs. The Nintendo 64 controller has only one analog stick after all. While you aim and look using it you actually move with the C-buttons. C-up moves forward, back goes backwards, and the left/right are for strafing. It takes some serious getting used to but it makes sense given how agile Turok himself is. Even now this scheme takes some serious getting used to, but the developers deserve a lot of credit for trying something a little different.
Turok: Dinosaur Hunter was one of the very best looking video games at the time of release. The character models are chock full of detail, and animate with surprising fluidity. Even the terrain looks great despite the blurry textures. You’ll easily be able to ignore these considering how amazing the dinosaurs look. Unfortunately Turok: Dinosaur Hunter suffers from one of the biggest drawbacks of the Nintendo 64 hardware. Fog. This weather effect grabs hold of each and every area of this game. It’s surprising just how short of view you have at any given moment. Enemies approach from the fog when they’re attacking, and because it’s such a problem you often don’t have enough time to react. It only further hits home the need to back up while attacking. The soundtrack is okay but nothing special overall. The jungle noises are pretty impressive given the hardware.
