Rambo Fights Raptors

By the end of 1996 the FPS genre was expanding rapidly. Playing through this games has really struck home how incredible this time must have been as a gamer then. The genre had for years been known as "DOOM Clones"  and after playing these landmark titles from 94 to now March 97 I can understand why there was this stigma for so long. But games like Duke Nukem 3D and Quake proved even id's formula could drastically change and still be a first person shooter. Themes, enemies, weapons, interactivity drastically changing how each title played. Duke and Quake where the explosions that would set off a dozen other beautiful packages of chaos. Turok exist because the genre had now expanded to accommodate it. Iguana Entertainment would create a project as unique as any shooter before it, applying their own technological strategy all while trying to be fresh on every level and often succeeding. Turok is also special for the platform it launched on. This is the first console game I've played for this blog. A landmark bridge for a genre that largely had been PC exclusive to now the console market. N64 would prove its grit at making experiences technologically on par with PC FPS games and deliver a classic exclusive. I played Nightdive Studios' excellent PC remaster with settings designed to replicate N64.
                     Having never played Turok or anything from Iguana Entertainment I found this game an extremely pleasant surprise. A theme of this blog discovering gems I missed due to being too young at the time. N64 however was my first video game experience and piece of gaming hardware I owned. Seeing Turok really brought a lot of nostalgia and memories of being in awe of what that little box could do. I can imagine any mature gamer of 97' would have been floored by Turok's visuals. After all this is just roughly 4 months after Quake blew the world away with tis 3D visuals. Its apparent to me playing games for this blog. I quickly became accustomed to the retro look and jank of sprites and super limited game play but playing Quake felt like I wasn't even working on this blog anymore and had skipped a decade. Turok evokes this feeling just as much. Its a beautiful for the time 3D game that heavily uses the tech to create massive layered levels. Full of secrets, required items, pick ups, platforming, Turok's level design and layouts are possibly the most complex in the genre for 97'. The sense of discovery and exploration while constantly engaging in fast paced FPS game play is a truly special and wondrous thing Turok brings to the genre.
               

The shooting in Turok is a blast though weaker than Duke Nukem 3D or the divine feeling of running and gunning in Quake. I do love the speed and weapons. The bow is a fantastic one and just so much fun to shoot especially with Tek arrows that explode. An automatic shotgun with exploding ammo also another favorite. At this point it feel like awhile since I've played a game that solely copied DOOM's arsenal. Sure the influence is there to varying degrees but while there are many basic items Turok's arsenal is fun and unique as much as Quake or Duke's. The torrent of 3D blood when knifing enemies or occasional explosion throwing them is pretty satisfying. It's actually a very violent game as much as any other mature shooter of the day. Running around at that speed in 3D space is something Iguana nailed, its fun and for the most part I even enjoyed the platforming. It's not Romero designed meat grinders but movement does feel really good and second only to Quake .
                  Turok's environments and enemy's are pretty unique for the games I've played on this list. You start as a Native American man who has to collect keys to unlock portals to levels. Its straight ripped from id's design philosophy and the portals right after Quake's similar use of 3D level selection. However once you load the first level things change. A vibrant jungle filled with water, trees and bushes. Sure its nothing compared now but its a lot more than I saw in Quake. The color pallet is fun and refreshing along with the hazy look of the air around you. It fits the fact raptors run around here with tribal looking people. Also armed guards some with guns and lasers? I mentioned how disjointed Quake felt thematically and Turok honestly is a far worse offender in this regard. While temples and jungles fit, it has plenty of industrial elements. The game hits this hard with the first real boss fight having him trying to run you over with a Hummer. Its cool. I like it though not as much as Quake's Lovecraftian atmosphere.
                    Its the levels and sense of discovery that make Turok special though in a way its peers are not. These levels are massive. By far the biggest I've played in a shooter for this blog. While Duke experimented a lot in this direction Iguana Entertainment armed with a true 3D engine take this to another level that would inspire games like Farcry and Halo. The game keeps fast pace with respawning enemies. A design decision I soon started to loose love and ammo for. Turok shoots his way through vertically stacked levels webbed with horizontal caves and lagoons to dive into. The game has incredibly complex map design its no surprise some of Iguana Entertainment would go on to make Metroid Prime some years later. They can be confusing though and frustrating to explore with enemy respawn placement. I at one time found myself with nothing but my knife trying to get collectables. The games platforming and completion time requirements to not run into spawning enemies is very harsh. Towards the end of the third level I for instance found myself loosing more lives than I got trying to get collectables that add up to more lives. Boss battles drain these extra lives as well. The checkpoint system would pioneer modern gaming's approach with visible placed save markers once you walked through them. They are few and far between however and don't make up properly for a lack of quicksave. Hard save stations akin to platformers of the era are found but spread thin. I have to give Iguana Entertainment credit for this ambition though and pulling off so well what no one had done to this degree. The sense of curious exploration and accomplishment is bar none in a shooter of this time. Having that curiosity and furious combat driving you around a 3D level is really awesome and still fun today in 97' this must have been a blast. Levels are severely limited by some of the games technical shortcomings though. Particularly the awful fog that worked as a early LOD of sorts. Focusing the rendering on what was close meant you could only see for a very short distance in front of you. Much of these massive levels where invisible to the player having enemies appear out of thin air and activate rather close. This also meant they didn't really chase you far. Its terrible and I wonder if id ever considered it with Quake.
     

  Turok continues the late 90's break neck pace of real time rendering advancements all the same. While Quake gave us a fully 3D realized world on PC ending 1996, by March of the next year we saw a substantial quality jump of 3D graphics with new hardware like the N64.  Iguana Entertainment's engine has the ability to blend various animations together and give characters the sense they have a skeletal frame. It's absolutely crazy to see after fighting the stiff and jerky animated enemies of Quake. Turok's raptors leap and snap at you realistically, enemies legs and feet shift weight according to how they are running at you. While enemies rarely blow up they do have the best death animations of any shooter on this blog yet! Moving and crawling on the ground as 3D blood sprays and splatters across the environment. Its very violent in its own right even without being reduced to small giblets. Again even the blood we see Iguana Entertainment experimenting with the uses of a 3D game engine. Having the blood squirt and splatter on the environment in 3D is something to see. Water in Turok has a 3D surface with saves in it alternating. By 1997 standards this would have been one of a kind and outstanding. Quake's swirling lagoons looked great for the day but this was , like the blood, an interesting and visually awesome way of using 3D rendering. Speaking of 3D objects Turok's has much denser models than Quake overall. The guns are more rounded and significantly more detailed. The games vicious dinosaurs look incredible compared to the things I've seen in games on this list before now. All the small extra details ID Tech 2 just doesn't display as of yet. The game looks better in most ways except for the fact it only renders a very short distance. As I mentioned earlier while the game atmospherically lays swirling textures of haze in the game it has the signature N64 fog effect hiding things in the mid to far distance. This makes it disorienting at times due to the inability to see very much of your surroundings. Even smaller stages can't be seen from start to finish and this gives the game a very artificial limit on flow as enemy encounters have to wait for the fog to lift before being activated.  It severely limits the game's visuals and ability to use its level design and enemy encounters to the fullest. This fog helps reduce the load of what the N64 has to render. Turok's impressive visuals suddenly become a little more understandable once playing around this fog. I did however have a moment of awe as a tree blew apart and fell down due to my explosive shot gun. Its not real physics but it looks incredible for 1997 , ten years before Crysis would make its mark cutting down trees. Despite the fog all these factors I mentioned go into creating the games unique visual identity. It easily stands alongside Quake as one of the best looking games on this blog as of 1997.
         Iguana Entertainment's Turok represents a growth milestone for the FPS genre. Like Duke and Quake before it here you have a wild spin on the FPS formula laying to rest the term DOOM Clone. Turok is a bunch of game design problems solved differently than before along with various technological priorities. It doesn't always make for a better game but it makes for a fun and exciting game. This was my first time playing Turok and it stands as one of my favorite games on this list. It shows the genre was getting quality at various levels and takes on design. 3D gaming had such a profound impact on how these games played. Turok and Quake are special. Rough around the edges and primitive but fantastic to see experience.Turok is also important as it proved badass FPS games could exist on a new powerful console like the N64.