Turok: Dinosaur Hunter

aka: Jikū Senshi Turok, Turok: Cazador de Dinosaurios, Turok: Łowca Dinozaurów
Moby ID: 2203
Windows Specs
Buy on Nintendo 64
$17.40 used on Amazon
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Description official descriptions

The Earth is separated by an invisible barrier from the Lost Land, a realm in which time has no meaning, and which is inhabited by ferocious dinosaurs and aliens. For many generations, the mantle of Turok has been bestowed upon those who saw the protection of the barrier as their sacred duty. But an evil lord named Campaigner is seeking for an artifact that is capable of destroying the barrier, striving to dominate the entire universe. This artifact, known as the Chronoscepter, was broken into pieces which were then hidden away. Tal'Set, a Native American and the last Turok, must find the scattered pieces of the Chronoscepter, and stop the Campaigner from obtaining them.

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter is a first-person shooter with platforming and light puzzle-solving elements. Much of the game is set in outdoor environments, and requires the player to explore them by finding various paths, jumping, swimming, and climbing. The game's most notable enemies are dinosaurs of various sizes, though the levels also include human and demonic enemies, as well as wildlife. The player gradually gains access to thirteen weapons (plus the Chronoscepter, assembling which is the game's main objective); these include a knife, a bow, as well as high-tech firearms such as a rocket launcher and an atomic fusion cannon.

Spellings

  • 恐龙猎人 - Simplified Chinese spelling
  • 時空戦士テュロック - Japanese spelling

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Credits (Nintendo 64 version)

93 People (77 developers, 16 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 82% (based on 50 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.7 out of 5 (based on 86 ratings with 7 reviews)

This game is a lot of fun!

The Good
Lots of weapons, 6 huge worlds, and the funny sound guys make when you blow them up! This game has little to do about "Dinosaur Hunting" and has more to do with slaughtering various dinos and tribals.

The Bad
WAYYYYY too much fog. Is the engine really that bad that they need this much fog to make it perform???

The Bottom Line
A classic- this one came out around launch of the N64. If you're scraping the bottom of the barrel for N64 action games you'll probably find this. Nothing really amazing, but not all that bad either!

Nintendo 64 · by Ben Fahy (92) · 2001

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter is just plain fun!

The Good
- Turok is filled with pure unadulterated, Doom-like fun. Shooting dinosaurs and bad guys is just a blast, and keeps you pumped up.

  • For 1997, the graphics in this game are excellent. At the time, most first-person shooters were Doom clones. There was Quake, but that was only on the PC when Turok was released.

  • The atmosphere in this game is excellent, and so is the music. You really do get the "jungle" feeling.

  • You are a magical Native American who yells "I AM TUROK!" Can we just appreciate that?

    The Bad
    - The platforming segments in this game are often tedious to play. This is because, in my opinion, controls for first-person shooters on the N64 are dated and a little difficult to work easily, and makes it hard to platform freely.

  • Fog effects everywhere!

  • Boss battles, or just battles against bigger enemies, are a little underwhelming.

  • Not a complaint from me, but the game is very repetitive. This is fine by me, and actually adds to the fun in my opinion, but I can definitely see why others would find this to be a problem.

    The Bottom Line
    Turok is just a fun game. It delivers fast action, and more importantly, dinosaurs. No, it's not perfect, but it's still a pretty enjoyable game.

Nintendo 64 · by Ian Dawson (7) · 2013

A Basic N64 Action Game

The Good
This game was one of the first action games to come out on N64. It was pretty basic none the less. Set in a different world, you are Turok who must defeat the bad guy at the end, with the minions trying to stop you. Set in a jungle setting, stages usually depict either some part of a jungle or a temple. Thrown into the seen are some modern aspects, such as present day weapons (and a hummer boss), as well as futuristic weapons like things they make you explode! This gives us the hint that Turok does not take place in our own world..

One thing to say for sure in this game: There were plenty of weapons. I mean dozens. Anything ranging from a pistol to a huge plasma cannon. It was pretty cool just watching the guys explode all over the place.

The sound was done extremely well. Guys made extremely funny sounds when dying, the weapons sound real, you can hear yourself swimming underwater, and you can hear footsteps and breathing when you, or the enemy, is running. Better than most of the games in its day. The music is composed pretty well, too. Tranquil music underwater, fast paced in the jungle, and creepy when inside the catacombs. This added to the atmosphere of the game.

The graphics are done nicely, with little details such as pigs and monkeys to add detail. However the graphics are brought down terribly by fogging that you may hardly notice this.

The AI is nothing to brag about. Basic "if they see you, charge you with a spear or club, or shoot you from afar." Bosses are basically the same thing too.

The Bad
The most major issue in this game is the lack of varying gameplay from start to finish. The main concept is to get keys from the prior world to unlock the next world. Now, sometimes you could choose between worlds from a nexus, but inevitably you would have to collect them all. Each world pretty much consisted of killing hordes and hordes of seemingly endless bad guys to find three well-hidden keys in each level. And then after about an hour of searching your completely tired of the game. There's 8 worlds of this, too. Not much of a game. There's just one word to describe this game: Basic. Run, shoot, run, shoot. That's really all there is to it. There's not much in puzzles except figuring out where to go and the occasional jumping puzzle. There's bosses, but the AI just makes them tougher enemies.

The other big problem with this game is that the graphics are brought down so, so much by the FOGGING that comes with most FPS games from the N64. The machine didn't have much power back then, and so the fogging was needed to be put in to preserve frames. This is a shame, because truly, up close the graphics are astounding for their time. No fogging could have redeemed this game so much.

Another problem this game had was its camera angles. It was in First Person view, but it felt like the camera was two feet in front of your face! Every time (I mean every time) you had to jump from cliff to cliff it seemed like you could walk on air for two or three paces on thin air before you actually needed to jump. Also, the camera leaned left and right and seemed to skew a lot from the game.



The Bottom Line
A game with nice sound, music, and graphics brought down by fogging, lack of story, and mediocre gameplay. This is THE basic shooter for the N64 with lack of story and typical run, shoot, run, shoot concept. Unless your a game collector, or this was your childhood favorite, it is probably not worth it to buy. There are better N64 shooters out there such as Goldeneye which makes this game seem...well...basic.

Nintendo 64 · by Matt Neuteboom (976) · 2005

[ View all 7 player reviews ]

Discussion

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Neat! GAMEBOY COLOR! (1990) Sep 5, 2010

Trivia

Console Firsts

Was the first 1st-person shooter on the console. It was also the first third-party release for the Nintendo 64.

Was released well above the price of other games for the N64. $80 in the US, £70 in the UK, and $130 in Australia. Higher than any other game for the platform at that time.

German Censorship

The German version of the game was censored. All human opponents were replaced by robots - some of them were exclusively modeled for this release, others were just taken from the last level of the game and used throughout all the other levels as well.

Japanese Title

The Japanese title translates to Space-time Soldier Turok in English.

Memory Card Goof

In the United Kingdom, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter was the first N64 game released there to require an expansion memory-card in order to save your in-game progress. The only problem was, Nintendo had not yet made their official memory-cards available for retail sale in the UK. Scrambling to meet market immediate market demand, third-party accessory manufacturers were able to swoop in and fill the gap. A notable misstep by Nintendo which could have tanked the release of Turok for the UK.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack has only five original tracks from the game. There are also four official remixes included as a bonus. The soundtrack was released in 1997. 1. Technosaur Radio Edit 2. Deep Jungle Mix 3. Tyranosaur Club Edit 4. Rokozor 5. The Jungle 6. Boss Encounter 7. The Treetops 8. Lava Land 9. Campanier Boss Encounter

Songs from 1-4 are official remixes, and songs from 5-9 are general tracks from the in the game. The whole soundtrack runs just under 40 minutes.

Turok Origins

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter is based on a comic book series of the same name, and not the other way around as most people seem to think. The series is published by Acclaim Comics and written by the great Fabian Nicieza.

Iguana, who were owned by Acclaim at the time, developed the original Turok. A year or so later, Acclaim merged Iguana and Probe, one of the other developers owned by Acclaim, into one single developers' house, Acclaim Inc.

Awards

  • Electronic Gaming Monthly
    • March 1998 (Issue 104) - First-Person Shooter Game of the Year Runner-Up (Readers' Choice)

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Kartanym.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, Exodia85, Alaka, DreinIX, marley0001, Mok, Talos, WONDERなパン.

Game added August 22, 2000. Last modified March 13, 2024.