Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion Remastered Review: An Adventure Not Worth Forgetting

If there’s one series I can point at to show just how quickly games, and what consumers expected from them, evolved over the 5th generation, it would be the Turok series of games. The premier FPS games on N64 not named Perfect Dark or Goldeneye, Turok went from a very blatant Doom clone with an almost nonexistent excuse plot, to Turok 2 having Goldeneye-style mission objectives in a richly detailed world, to Turok 3 being an entirely linear adventure full of setpiece action moments and a generous bit of inspiration from Half-Life. These three games only came out three years apart, but they’re light-years away in terms of design.

Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion, originally released in 2000 in the twilight years of the Nintendo 64, makes its way to modern consoles for the first time. Night Dive has already treated us well this year, letting us gorge on masterful remasters of Rise of the Triad and Quake II, not to mention their masterful System Shock remake. Do we collectively have room for a whole bunch of crispy fried dino bits, or is Turok 3 unable to compete in a year choked with a sinful glut of retro shooters?

Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion Remastered, is available now for Playstation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and Steam for $29.99.

Story: Giant Robot Heads and Aliens, oh my!

Remember that point about the previous two games not bothering to tell stories? Turok 3 certainly tries to change that, with an absolutely bonkers narrative, showing so much but saying little.

To make a long story short, Joshua Fireseed, the protagonist of Turok 2, gets assassinated by a bunch of minions of Oblivion, an evil force that has existed since the Big Bang. To defeat Oblivion and save the universe, the mantle of Turok must be passed on to one of his two surviving relatives, his sister Danielle or his younger brother Joseph, and they must carry on the family tradition, namely traveling to another dimension and blowing up armies of dinosaurs, robots, and aliens. 

I’m sure Leon S. Kennedy would be willing to help with that.

Turok 3 does very little to orient you into its universe and just acts like the previous two games had actual in-depth stories that naturally led into this one. There’s a whole bunch of talking robot heads plotting a mysterious agenda, romance, plot twists, and tons of terrifying monsters for you to turn into chunky salsa. It is very strange, and yet I still love it.

Two other strange things I’ve found regarding the game’s story. The first is that while it is repeatedly stated that only one of the siblings can become the new Turok, both seem to receive the power, and the two both go on the same adventure. If this game was made nowadays, this would almost certainly be a setup for full campaign co-op, but that was been too big for the N64’s britches, sadly. The game also ends on a massive cliffhanger, one that will never get resolved.

We don’t find out what the giant robot heads want, and we never will.

Gameplay: The Red Man’s Wrath

Even with a big cinematic storyline, Turok 3 still excels where it counts for a shooter. Turok 3 boasts not one but two campaigns, one for both characters. The story is identical across both campaigns, but Joshua and Danielle have exclusive gadgets, level routes, and weapons. There’s a definite incentive to play both, which is good because the game is short. I nearly beat the whole thing in one sitting, even on the hardest difficulty and while taking time to look for secrets. I also find it strange that the Turok game with the shortest campaign by a significant margin is the most expensive, Turok 1 and 2 only cost $20 bucks while this costs $30.

Turok 3 was also, of all games, the one where I learned to love gyro aiming. Playing this game with gyro controls feels like you’re cheating, doubly so when playing as Joshua with his powerful sniping weapons. Even on the hardest difficulty, I had a very comfortable time going through it. The only difficulty I had was due to numerous bugs, namely the game not properly saving my health during checkpoints, periodically respawning me with single-digit health.

Here we see one of the Magmites, having a lava bath, about to have its head blown off by a high powered rifle.

This fantastic shooting would have gone to waste were it not for the Turok series’ penchant for awesome weapons. Both characters have 16 weapons, eight exclusive to them, and they make each character feel unique. The one gripe I have with the arsenal is that much of it is re-used from Turok 2, with only a handful of newcomers. Still, it’s hard to find fault when you have such winners as the Shredder and the insanely gratifying Cerebral Bore.

Dulled Claws

Unlike the prior two games, which were open-ended and encouraged exploration, Turok 3 is almost entirely linear. Levels are full of unique setpieces, like train rides, platforming on mine carts, or running through areas under a time limit. The levels, however few there are, are immediately distinct, from cities and a very Half-Life-esque science facility, to the jungles and industrial zones of The Lost Land, where Oblivion rules. 

Said Military Base also happens to have a great view of Atlantis.

I’m not wild about the linearity in general, but it does that thing I hate from a lot of 7th-gen games. Levels are full of invisible walls that block you from returning to previous areas. This is supremely annoying when searching for hidden stashes of health, ammo, and the collectible Life Force icons. Levels can also be confusing to navigate despite their linearity. The first section of The Lost Land shows Joshua heading to the right in a cutscene, but the actual route forward is a small crack at the bottom of a rock wall to the left that in any other game would be there just for decoration.

Remaster Details

The remaster renders the N64 original obsolete based on the performance alone. The original Turok 3 came out at a time when nobody gave a damn about making sure games ran well. Turok 3 ran at single-digit framerates during intense moments, and people just learned to live with that. The remaster runs at 4K 120 FPS at all times, feeling amazing to play. It also helps that you get to play it with dual analog on a controller that doesn’t suck monkey butts.

The game now runs perfectly, even when multiple raptors are attacking you.

One thing I especially like about Night Dive is they tend to go above and beyond in terms of making their games definitive. From last year’s PowerSlave Exhumed being a perfect combination of the Saturn and Playstation versions to this year’s Quake II and Rise of the Triad remasters including all new levels. Turok 3 is sadly lacking in this regard. The remaster does restore some beta features and cut content, though it is ultimately pretty minor, mainly just environmental details. The original Turok 3 was supposed to have campaign co-op, that would have been an amazing addition. It would have easily put this remaster to Night Dive’s usual standards, but they sadly decided against it.

Not having any new content is bad, but things only get worse from there. This remaster is also missing the Nintendo 64 version’s multiplayer in its entirety. Turok 2 had its multiplayer re-implemented in a patch (albeit years after launch), so it would be fair to assume that Turok 3 will get the same treatment. But it’s still disappointing that a substantial part of the game is missing with nothing to replace it. I’d even have settled for the Game Boy Color version of Turok 3 as an extra. It’s a completely different game, and it’s pretty decent, would have made for a neat bonus feature.

They also don’t let you pilot this mech, which feels like a cop-out.

Graphics and Sound: 4K Dinosaur Stabbing

If there’s one thing Night Dive excels at, it’s making these old games look amazing, and Turok 3 is no different in this regard. The game has seen a facelift, with significantly improved modeling detail and textures. Textures have either been replaced with their original, full-resolution sources or recreated from scratch. Some textures do seem to have gotten more attention than others, but the game as a whole looks great. It’s amazing what removing all that mud and distance fog can do.

Sound has sadly not seen the same attention. The music has been remastered and sounds great, but the voice acting has not. For the intro cutscene only, Night Dive found a promotional tape containing full-quality recordings. The rest of the dialogue uses the incredibly compressed audio straight from the N64 version, which sounds awful. There had to have been a better way to go about this.

Aside from the checkpoint bug I’ve already mentioned, some weapons don’t seem to behave correctly. Joseph’s Cerebral Posessor does not appear to have splash damage, and the third boss dies in one hit from the Storm Bow. The bugs are so annoying that I had to restart a chapter once.

Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion Remastered was reviewed on Playstation 5 using a key provided by ÜberStrategist