Turok was a game that landed in my best of list long ago. I still remember plugging Turok: Dinosaur Hunter into my newly unwrapped N64 console and watching the blood shoot from necks and flying bodies like it was raining red christmas.

What went wrong? where?

Taking a look back....



The grabbing box art was enough to capture any kid's imagination, even though we would later see that the character on the box was somehow the main character from Turok 2 and not the game included in the box...



The graphics, while not great, with its terrible resolution and mediocre model/level design, was not the catch point of the game. The overall fun was in the vast (at the time) arsenal of weaponry at your disposal verses the waves of less than challenging minions of doom.




Then of course there was Turok 2: Seeds of Evil. This one we all remember. Off the shelf eye-catchers were its swanky textured box to simulate 'dino skin' and it's (probably the first) black colored cart. Famous for the cheat most remember 'bewareoblivionisathand' and 2 player co-op campaign (though not originally intended in the design) and was removed in the grey cart editions that followed.



Controls were slightly wanky and took a lot of getting used to compared to the first Turok, gameplay was a large improvement with better design, many more weapons, more gore, most of which was enhanced due to the N64 Expansion Pak (a whopping 4mb of ram).

If one thing stands out in my mind, it was the first time I used the shotgun to blast a hole directly through the stomach of a gorilla-dino. Honorable mentions include the self-destructing enemies, and the mines blasting off legs.




Then there was Turok 3: Shadows of Oblivion...



The box looked less than promising after Turok 2. The game was even less interesting with a storyline even more dense and boring than the second. (It was almost better to have no story at all from the first). Graphics were somewhat enhanced as the designers became more familiar with the restrictions of the console at hand.

It featured multiplayer, but my lack of screenshots supply it's lack of gameplay...

Then, a glimpse of hope. Turok: Rage Wars.



This game was split by people who hated it and people who loved it. There was no in-between. I thought it captured the turok universe perfectly while incorporating a sort of unreal tournament feel.



With many familiar playable characters to unlock, including the insanely fun and insulting Raptor player, who only had a claw attack but was extremely agile and evasive. How could anyone hate this game? New weapons were added with similar style turok gore and imagination. While this wasn't the hit that Turok 2 was, it was definitely a look in the right direction from the Turok crew.



Then... It happened.

Turok: Evolution.



This game... I think they were trying to go for the original look. Back from Dinosaur Hunter. It starts out promising, but by the time you start the flying missions/levels. You realize Turok is long gone...

Finally, there is the newest. Turok. I haven't personally played this one yet, but with all the talk surrounding it, I doubt that I ever will.


Sorry if this post seems like a tribute or review or whatever.. I spent the weekend on my N64 and learned how much I miss the classics.

edit: removed some images, too many

Wow, I used to think Turok looked epic on my N64. What rose-colored glasses have I been wearing?

It WAS epic back then! It's still fun to play, except Turok 2 is probably the worst control scheme I have ever claimed to be good with. I dunno how I ever managed headshots on that game. Let alone Goldeneye (also hard to control these days).

Turok 1 WAS amazing in graphics at the time it was released. I actually own one of the few copies for the PC.

Turok 2 was even moreso, it just had ridiculously bad lag issues and crashing problems (Especially with the hi-res mode enabled).

Turok 3 was terrible. As was Rage Wars. Turok 2 had full multiplayer, there was nothing really offered by Rage Wars that Turok 2 didn't already offer, including said raptor.

Also, you forgot the latest terrible release, Turok for the PS3/360. Doesn't even fall in line with the previous games, and was just plain repetitive and boring.

Edit: Speaking of headshots, did you know you could get headshots with the raptor by jumping and slashing peoples' heads? I did it a LOT.

Haha yeah, didn't it claw them right off? You didn't like Rage Wars at all? I mean you have to admit it was better than Turok 3, which was the turd of turds. I even rank Evolution over Shadow of Oblivion.

I remember having a lot of fun with the original Turok on the N64, even with the platform jumping sections. I also remember it being ridiculously expensive when it came out, so I just borrowed it from a friend.

Don't have many memories of the later games, though, apart from brief rentals of 3 and Rage Wars. Never got into either.

Not sure which weapon I loved more, either. But I think I'd have to go with the Fusion Cannon over the Cerebral Bore.

No, I didn't like it at all. I rented it once and regretted it fully. The full focus on multiplayer, with a dismal "single player" bot system, just ruined it for me. It was like I was buying Turok 2 again just for the multiplayer.

Cerebral Bore was genius, as was the flying disc with blades on it, forgot its name.

One of my friends said they paid $75 for Turok 1 when it came out, I remember getting it for $50 from Toys'R'Us

I think it was around £60 here. Something extortionate, anyway.

Fusion Cannon still wins for me, just for the first time you fired it off into the distance and had the shockwave roll back towards you.

Turok Evolution was the best out of all of them, it has the MOST action out of them all, and had enough gore to satisfy my bloodlust. (poison arrows making the sleg vomit and die, blowing limbs and heads off with a nice amount of bloodspray) VERY DISAPPOINTING MULTIPLAYER, as in no xbox live.



Turok for the 360 was alright, but the aiming was hard, definitely not enough guns, which was my #1 disappointment, the 2nd being: The human enemies don't spray blood when stabbed, instead, they shoot out sparks. BIG WTF. I liked the fact there are plenty of dinosaurs in this game, the problem is the lack of variety. Mostly just raptors, they get boring. (though the blood that leaks out from stabbing them)

Turok 3, I must've played through about half a dozen times. Guess where I got my username from? I liked the soundtrack in Turok 3, other than that.....it was kind of boring. the end boss was easy to kill..

The Fusion Cannon to me was too cheap. Don't get me wrong, the first time you blast it at a boss and half his/its health is gone you can only say WooooooooooooW. But it's really not fun to shoot after that. I remember after collecting all the pieces to the Chronocepter how mad I was that you only get three shots with it for the entire game. Granted, by the time all of the pieces are accessable, you only have one level left I think.

Razorwind.

I remember just about everything about that game, sadly. Let's see if I can remember the guns:

1. Talons / War Blade?
2. Bow/Tek Bow
3. Pistol / 3-shot ... Magnum?
4. Double Barrel Shotgun / Shredder
5. Pulse Rifle
6. Tranquilizer Gun / Charge Bolt Gun
7. Razorwind
8. Cerebral Bore
9. Firestorm Cannon
10. Mine Layer
11. Sunfire Pod
12. Scorpion Launcher (The quad rocket launcher in Turok 1 was so much better)
13. Grenade Launcher
14. Flamethrower!!! (Was the first game to feature "polygonal flames"!)
15. Harpoon Gun / Torpedo launcher (water only)
16. Nuke

Oh, and the crossbow I guess, from multiplayer. I think that's all of them, and I know they're not in any sort of order.

The fact that Evolution was a multiplatformer (as well as the new turok) is probably what held them back. (the others were too blah blah, handheld isnt a port)

Evolution started out great, showing off the kills and gore and fancy gimmicks, but in the end, it lacks replay. I played the game one time, beat it, and it has been unopened on my shelf since the release. I also atttribute that to the reason Acclaim Entertainment/Iguana Studios went under. Now Acclaim spends its days making crummy quick cash games.

Make sure to watch in HQ or its not watchable. Mmmm, those were great kills. That game is really fun without cheats, because it makes saving the bore for hard to kill enemies very satisfying.

Dude yea, like 4 years ago I played GoldenEye with my young cousins who we gave our 64 to. They kicked my ***! I was thinking "Oh I'll go easy on them...." haha.

I find all N64 games (with the exception of those that glitch) are graphicially much more enjoyable on Project 64. They even make hi res packs for some of the more popular games (like Zelda). Just grab a n64 to usb controller port and your good to go. Only problem is no force feedback =( I'm not sure if the adaptiod supports that or not, but those are extremely rare and expensive.

link or screenshot to said 'hi res' zelda?

http://www.lanpartyguide.com/zelda/zelda64textures.html

Its pretty sweet. Takes a little bit to load, but its worth it. Some of the temples look absolutely fantastic.

God yes the cerebal bore, that thing was mental.

Didnt the arrows stick in people, so if they lived you could have people full of them?.

I also vaguely remember enemies throwing up...

i have some screenshots of OoT with the hi-res texture packs but i'm not digging around my HD for them right now

especially when onimusha's link does a good enough job

back on topic....

never played Turok 3 or Rage Wars... Turok 2 was the first game i bought when i finally got an N64...

Evolution would have been better if they left out the horrible flying missions... it had decent weapons and solid controls... never felt the turok series really had a compelling story to begin with and it was just fun with cool weapons and lots of blood which is what evolution had with the exception of the frustrating flying missions

only ever played the demo of the new one and felt the controls were a bit too twitchy

I have the OoT with hi-res texture packs.

But I never got into Turok, the gameplay never appealed to me I guess

I'd just like to clarify: The N64 always had 4mb of ram. The expansion pak, gave you an additional 4mb of ram, giving you a total of 8mb.

Just thought I'd clarify that.

PS: I always disliked Turok.PS:

Wow the hi res shots are nice. I wish they had added new textures to the models as well.

Anyway, back to the subject. I AM TUROKKK!!!

I think Turok would make a much better PC game, joysticks just don't do a game that good justice.

Also, yes the arrows stuck in bodies, and you could pull them out for ammo after the kill

Didn't a good handful of Turok and Turok 2's team moved onto Retro Studios (the people behind Metriod Prime) if I recall? I can't help feel that was when things started to go downhill.

Hmm, possible. Might be something to look into. Thinking about it, there are references to Texas in Turok Evolution (manhole covers are Austin Texas manholes), and if I remember correctly, Retro Studios is also in Austin.

Not it wasn't.

if you're referring to OoT they did... the new textures on some of the models (specifically link) aren't as big a difference as the textures for everything else

Then what was, because I sure as heck don't remember any.

Quake used meshes for explosions. When did Turok come out?

Because they couldn't re-map the textures. So all they could really do (and did) was redraw the elements like the mouth and eyes, which were all their own textures.

They actually aren't that hi-res. Certainly bigger than the tiny n64 textures, but still only 128*128.

1998, 2 years after quake. But explosions aren't really flames.