When Turok first launched on Nintendo 64 in 1997 the game was hailed for its graphical mastery. I remember the amount of money you had to shell out for a decent 3D accelerator on PC just so you could get it going — it required quite the hefty rig. But once you got going, good God did it look good.
Night Dive, the studio that owns the rights to the System Shock series and has remastered or re-released a string of classics, is currently putting a fresh coat of paint on Turok: Dinosaur Hunter. And, well, it looks like a game from the 1990’s.
The studio posted three screenshots on their Facebook wall earlier this morning. “Here’s a sneak peek at our upcoming Turok remaster,” they said, less than a day after they publicly asked fans what updates they wanted to see.
One of the three screenshots is featured above, while you can enjoy the other two below.
Nothing says 90’s FPS like a shotgun
Or a chaingun
The original Turok borrowed a little from Hexen by having players return to a hub world in their search for the Chronoscepter, and it’ll be interesting to see if Night Dive makes any tweaks to the actual structure of the game.
What immediately stands out to me from the screenshots, however, is how ancient the game still looks. It almost resembles a bullshot from the 1990’s — there’s nothing particularly sharp about the textures, the environments look a little muddy and the models flat. Completely serviceable, but nothing special either.
I’m one of the few people who still thinks Turok is remembered with far more angst than it deserves, but that’s largely because people remember the dreary 360 and PS3 title from 2008. It’s not though the original PC/N64 title was anything particularly magical — it certainly didn’t hold a candle to Quake or Quake 2 — but it was at least fun.
What do you remember about the original Turok — and what were your memories like of the PS3/360 game?
Comments
19 responses to “Night Dive’s Remaster Of Turok Looks Completely Serviceable”
there’s no going back.
I remember that Turok 2 was one of my favourite games on the N64. I enjoyed the original but the sequel blew it out of the water.
It always troubled me that you couldn’t jump as high in the sequel. That cerebral bore though.
Turok: Rage Wars was my friends and I favourite game for so long.
Hey there! Long time reader, first time poster. My father, who is 55, managed to beat this game, and to my eternal shame, I never managed without cheating. He crept through it, hoarding all the ammo, sneaking (as much as you could) through every nook and cranny, found every gun as early as one could. The only other game he ever played before after was San Andreas. It was his shadow of the colossus. What a legend.
I loved the original Turok. I have great memories. Wasn’t it one of the first new releases on the N64 after the original batch of games? Sure it was muddy and foggy, but it looked and played great for the time.
I AM TUROK!
I’m not reallyI remember the terrible draw distance, but a much smoother framerate than other N64 Doom Games – yes Doom Games, that’s what they were called back then!
It looks a lot less blurry than the original while still looking quite muddy.
I was initially wondering if they’d redo the graphics, I’m glad they haven’t. It wouldn’t be Turok without that fog.
Weird to say it, but I’m super pumped for this. Never actually played through it all – as a kid, was too scared – but used to love pumping in the cheats and going wild in 2. Will never forget it either – beware oblivion is at hand.
You know, I thought I didn’t use any cheats in this. Then you said beware oblivion is at hand. I most certainly did use cheats, haha.
On the eight day God created Turok
I remember the cerebral bore thing that drilled into the enemies head, game was pretty gorey for that era
It is the first game I ever saw running on a 3d accelerator at someone’s house. I was set to get a 3d accelerator from then on, haha.
I think you’ll find that was the auto shotgun, not a chain gun! I remember buying this at a second hand games store in a small town near where I grew up for $30 back in 99/2000. It wasn’t amazing, but I certainly had fun with it. Turok 2 on the other hand was much more memorable!
I remember shooting dino-soldiers with poisoned crossbow darts and watching through the scope as they puked their guts up and died.
Classic!
Turok 2 remains one of the most daunting games I’ve ever played. The game threw you into a bewildering, cruel, primal pseudo-open world labyrinth, of almost unprecedented scale at the time, and expected you to fend for yourself with very little guidance against an army of ruthless lizard-men, the local wild-life, and a variety of more esoteric threats. Being 10 years old at the time I mostly picked at the game via cheats (bewareoblivionisathand), but eventually beating it legitimately was super fulfilling, and was probably what taught me the value in the challenge of play over the mere gratification of success.
I remember Evolution sounding like exactly the Turok of my dreams before it was released: survival in a vast and harrowing lost land where both the environment and brutal dinosoids sought to rout you, a deeply anachronistic world spanning primitive to futuristic, etc. The end product was glaringly unpolished, and much more linear and limited than the pitch sounded: you couldn’t walk more than 5 metres off the beaten path before you hit an arbitrary wall, the game narrowly shepherded you from checkpoint to checkpoint through largely scripted events, etc. There was still an aesthetic primitiveness and harrowing sense of scale to it, and the combat was badass, but I admit that I like Evolution more for the game in my head than the game it turned out to be. The dream would be for a developer to pick up the rights (or kick off a spiritual successor) and build that harsh, complex, anachronistic, larger-than-life lost land, rife with primitive and arcane and futuristic dangers, cursed to cyclically forget its history and relive the same tragically doomed politics in perpetuity…but I’m not going to get my hopes up. 🙁
Oh, but I’m glad someone is remastering the original game(s?).
I can remember when the ’64 came out there were very few games to start with, and Turok was one of those “wow, we’re really in the next gen now” kind of games. (It looks like knob now, but remember, this was coming off of the Super NES era…)
I can remember really liking the fact that I could aim with the analogue stick & walk with the C buttons. Ironically, default FPS controls are now the complete opposite of that! >_
Ahh Turok, how I remember the good times with you.
I used to use the knife as often as possible. I still remember having aewsome fights with the raptors – knife vs claw. Also every now and then a Black Skull icon would drop from a knife kill which increased the damage your knife did.
Oh and that Auto Shotgun with explosive rounds.
Turok was also the game that came with the vertical look inverted as standard. I still use inverted look today.
As do I but more so from my first games being flight sims. F16 and Su27 Flanker on the old 486.
When I first got quake going with mouse it took me a while to work out I needed to invert my mouse so I could play properly.
Turok 1 on n64 was such a hard game. The controls with the dpad movement just felt clunky. The best part of a remake will being able to makd usr of a better control scheme.
The thing I liked most was the chronoconsceptre thingamebob. To get the weapon, you had to collect a piece from each of the 7 levels to complete the weapon as a whole. And when you did, you only got 3 “bullets” for it, with no chance of getting more. But my goodness, when you fired a shot, it was one of the most satisfying effects ever, somewhat akin to being in the middle of a cold fusion nuclear bomb. The slow moving ball explodes and casts an eerie aura throughout the surrounding area, before unleashing a massive flash of light then a slow moving explosion that instakills anything within a few hundred meters. The whole animation takes atleast 30 seconds to complete. So so satisfying and empowering.
Fun fact: nearly 20 years later, I can still remember the big cheat code from memory
NTHGTHDGDCRTDTRK
Atleast, I think that’s what it was…