Turok 3: Shadows of Oblivion Remastered Review (PS5)

Once a mythical hero and one of the poster boys of the legendary Voodoo graphics accelerator developed by the defunct 3DFX, Turok sled not so slowly, but surely into oblivion. While the names Quake and Doom ring a bell in modern generations that did not catch the glory days of the early 2000’s FPS scene, the dinosaur hunter’s name is familiar only to the more adult players. So, what is the point of unearthing an old Nintendo 64 release?

Well, the hunger for money and the bet on player’s nostalgia as a wallet opener. Still, unlike Half-Life or Unreal, Turok varied quite a lot in consistency and quality. The first episode was very well received, while the second turned out to be a flop, banishing the third installment to be released only on the popular console built by Nintendo. Now thanks to Nightdive players that did not have a Nintendo 64 can see what became of the dinosaur hunting dynasty.   

First and foremost, we have to mention that Turok 3: Shadows of Oblivion Remastered is an archaic and anachronic game. The visuals, although remastered, are light years behind any current expectation, the level size and design are ridiculously small, and the gameplay mechanics are stuck in an era that does not exist anymore. It is a remaster and not a remake, but the entire experience feels as dated as the furniture is your grandparents’ home.

Back in its day though Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion tried to be kind of a compromise solution, trying to leap away from its arcade roots, but not fully embracing the more varied structure of Half-Life. It is a boomer shooter that is now held back by the same handicap that tripped it over so many years ago: its identity crisis.

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In many points it feels like a patchwork of elements that the original developers felt will attract the attention of the public. Very small levels grouped into long and linear chapters, a huge number of weapons, the possibility to choose from two slightly different heroes and a greater variety of settings to explore from urban to jungle.

While in theory all this sounds good, the max 5 hours long campaign does not leave enough room for the gameplay elements to be fully deployed. Also, it lacks many of the signature elements of the first Turok game, like the very fast paced action. The developers failed to reproduce the secret sauce of Quake or Half-Life, sacrificing in vain the unique and distinctive elements of their franchise.

The one thing that remained unchanged was the appetite for gore: headshots make the skulls of enemies fly off their necks, the bodies can be maimed and quartered, and in general there is a lot of blood squiring all over the place. Now these effects, just as the animations of the characters or the VFX look ridiculous, and almost parody like, but back in the day this was one of the most visually violent titles available on N64.

The missions themselves tried to offer plenty of variety, from fighting giant monsters to dodging lasers in a museum using night vision goggles, and even trying to navigate subway tracks with the cars being in constant motion. They all add up to an archaic mosaic, that is combined with a ridiculously cheap story, hilarious voice acting and poor sound mixing.     

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Nightdive delivered the remaster experience expected from them, the KEX engine improving greatly the texture quality and being able to reach 120fps. They also added plenty of VFX and illumination effects to make the game feel more anchored in present days. Unfortunately, the milk box like buildings, almost primitive character design and clumsy animations on which the original game was built undermines their efforts.

Even as a fan of boomer shooters, Turok 3: Shadows of Oblivion Remastered feels like a parody of the era and cannot be taken seriously despite the dramatic story. It is much like a B category movie on VHS: you know it is going to be bad, but you only realize how bad it is when you start watching it. But this is the fault of the source material, and not the developers making the remaster, who even included a CRT mode to make the immersion complete.    

One component of the game that is totally missing is the multiplayer mode. The developers correctly predicted that this would cause some stir among the community at the end of credits clearly stating that there is no plan to remake the Rage Wars. And as such, Turok 3: Shadows of Oblivion Remastered loses one more perk compared to other remasters, but this can be attributed to Nightdive.

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The Good

The Bad

Conclusion