Another day, another remaster. It’s no exaggeration to say that the game industry obsessed with revisiting the past, much more so than other entertainment. Partly, that’s for good – bringing back older titles, spuffing them up with new visuals and mechanics, and making what was old new again, giving them a fresh chance to exploit their potential with far more powerful tools and experience.
On the other hand, we get titles like Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion; a higher resolution and reworked controls are pretty much the order of the day here. This in itself is no bad thing – see the 360 era for plenty of examples of HD-ifying goodness – but, well, something like Turok 3 needs more than a spit polish to bring it up to modern standards.
Players who remember the original release fondly won’t find much to gripe about though. The game is presented as is (sans multiplayer mode), with us taking on the role of one of two protagonists; Danielle or Joseph. Each one has their own perks, from the formers abilities to hold more powerful weaponry and jump higher, to the latters preference for night vision goggles and sniper rifles and option to use small crawl spaces. Outside of these fairly minor differences, the game plays through the same five chapters, seeing them fend off a new threat that aims to destroy the world.
Anyone who has played any shooter from the late 90’s/early 00’s will be familiar with the feel of Turok 3, itself being released in September of 2000. It’s all fast paced movement, strafing, guns that don’t need reloading, and AI who pretty much exist to storm straight at you and soak up bullets. It’s fun enough in a nostalgic kind of way, and the guns we gain across the campaign’s 5 or so hours all have a decent feel to them. Shotguns blow chunks off of enemies, while the trusty bow and arrow allows us some early kills and the ability to pick up the ammo again for further use. Later, rocket launchers, miniguns and the classic Cerebral Bore show up, and there’s rarely a time where ammo isn’t plentiful for all but the latter.
Belying it’s N64 roots, levels are segmented into small chunks, with often just a handful of rooms to move through before a quick load cuts us into the next area. It was undoubtedly quick on Nintendo’s console thanks to the cartridge, but here it almost feels pointless; it’s literally half a second (if that) of black screen before popping back in. This is one of the hold overs from just up-spuffing it and not performing a ground-up remake, joined by some decidedly dodgy aiming (the auto-aim assistance is a must here) and some awkward level design, where combat areas don’t feel like much more than kill rooms that have enemies just spawn in relentlessly until an arbitrary point.
And while the visuals are at least nicely crisp now, the textures and models are still very basic, and what was once ground breaking lip-syncing now looks laughably bad, especially when combined with the ultra low bit-rate audio samples.
I can forgive basic up-spuffery though if the game is still fun to play, and, well, I can’t say I had all that much fun with Turok 3. Again, as this is just the old game up-rezzed, combat feels bland and oversimplified, which was no doubt needed on the N64’s beast of a controller, but using a competent modern pad just exposes how basic the gunplay is. Enemies range from insta-kill to bullet spongy, with the final stretch filled with big beasts who don’t flinch until they die but are capable of soaking up a hell of a beating.
Boss battles fare even less well, with the few on offer ranging from infuriating to hit without getting massive damage on ourselves to the final two stage boss who I took out without even meaning to. I can’t see how this was even a challenge to start with, but again with a decent controller it had no chance.
My main experience with Turok was the multiplayer back with the original release, and that’s not even included in this remaster. As it stands, unless you’re a real hardcore Turok fan, there’s just not enough here to really make it stand out not only among the plethora of other remasters out there, but in spiritual successors such as Forgive Me Father and Iron Fury.
Conclusion
Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion‘s remaster here is really only going to serve fans of the original release, being as it is a bare bones up-spuff of a game that isn’t all that memorable or worth rushing out to pick up. It’s not a bad shooter as such, just one that has since been outclassed at every turn in the years since.
This game was reviewed based on Xbox S|X review code, using an Xbox S|X console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.
