Turok: Dinosaur Hunter

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.