Welcome to EXPlay, (Explain & Play) the review series where we care not for scores but tell it how it is when it comes to every game we get our hands on, whilst also taking the time to include some lengthy gameplay, to give you the reader, the chance to shape your own impressions and views whilst watching and reading.
In this explanatory review, we’re covering Turok 3: Shadow Of Oblivion Remastered by developer Nightdive Studios:
Turok 3: Shadow Of Oblivion Remastered (The Explanation)
Turok 3: Shadow Of Oblivion was first released back in 2000 for the Nintendo 64. The game was developed and published by Acclaim, and was the third main installment in the TUROK video game series. It was generally well received by critics and scored favorable reviews. Unlike the previous Turok titles on Nintendo 64, which also received ports on PC, Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion was only available on the N64, until now.
Nightdive Studios have made a name for themselves for taking classic First Person Shooters from yesteryear and giving them faithful remasters. Their blend of retro and modern development techniques gives these games a new lick of paint, performance fixes, reintroducing long forgotten assets, and a whole load of game dev magicry to make these games the best they can possibly be without sacrificing what made theme so great in the first place.
After dutifully bringing Turok Dinosaur Hunter and Turok 2: Seeds of Evil out of retirement and giving them the remastered treatment, Nightdive Studios then turned their attention to completing the trilogy and have brought us Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion Remastered to Nintendo Switch and other platforms and we are all for it!
The story of Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion Remastered takes place sometime after the events of Turok 2: Seeds of Evil. Upon Joshua Fireseed’s victory over the Primagen, a old evil has awakened that wishes to devour the whole universe. Joshua, who is staying with his sister and brother at their home, is attacked one night by soldiers of Oblivion and is killed. It is now up to his older sister Danielle and younger brother Joseph, to take up the mantle of TUROK and defeat Oblivion.
Much like the previous installments, Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion Remastered (which I shall now refer to simply as Turok 3 Remastered), is a 3D first-person shooter game with platforming elements that will task the player with navigating their way through a series of environments, killing enemies and defeating bosses, as they go. Players can collect an arsenal of weapons that they can use to accomplish their task. They start off with a simple melee weapon and a bow but soon they will be able to arm themselves with pistols, shotguns, assault rifles, and the infamous Cerebral Bore. Turok 2 players will be all too familiar with this weapon and for good reason, it’s a real head splitter.
Where Turok 3 Remastered differs from its predecessors is that instead of a single protagonist, they are given the option of choosing between two; Danielle and Joseph. Both characters differ slightly from one another with Danielle being able to jump higher and use a grappling hook and Joseph being able to squeeze through tight spaces and use night vision goggles. The weapons they find in-game also differ, with Danielle able to use powerful weapons like the Firestorm Cannon, and RPG and Joseph taking a stealthier approach with long range sniper rifles and silenced pistols.
Due to their differences, players will get the opportunity to take alternate paths in some of the game’s levels. For example, Danielle will have to use the grappling hook to reach areas that are inaccessible to her brother, but on the other hand, Joseph can crawl through tight spaces and use night vision to navigate pitch-black areas. It helps to expand the game somewhat by giving players the option to experience the game a little differently on multiple playthroughs.
In case of the game’s length, Turok 3 Remastered is not a particularly long game and feels shorter in comparison to its predecessor Turok 2. However, some chapters are much longer than others and blend into one another as opposed to Turok 2’s hub world that had players return to it upon defeating a boss. This has its advantages and disadvantages, of course. On the plus side, the gameplay and story progression are a lot smoother with a rather seamless transition between chapters. The contrast to this that you cannot revisit previous chapters so if you have missed something that is only available in a previous chapter, there is no going back without having to restart that chapter using a warp cheat or playing from the beginning.
On the topic of cheats, Turok 3 on the N64 had a myriad of cheats that required the use of pass codes using glyphs of animals like bear, deer, monkey, coyote, eagle, etc. All that is done away with for the remaster and now cheats are accessible upon beating the game. This may make the game a bit more challenging for some players who would prefer to use cheats on their first playthrough.
Another topic I wish to touch upon is the game’s visuals and performance. Turok 3 Remastered is an absolute dream as it runs superbly on Switch with hardly a stutter. The Turok games were infamous for reaching single digits FPS on the N64 but Nightdive have worked their magic touch to make sure this game performs its very best on all platforms.
The textures and character models look fantastic as well. While the developers tried to stay as faithful to the original as possible, they have updated and modernized as much as they could without making it look like a completely different game. Some textures, they painstakingly created themselves and the results are just fantastic. They blend in so well that unless you were playing the N64 original side by side with the remaster, you wouldn’t have a clue of what has been changed and what was added. It really is that good of a job.
As for the game’s difficulty, it can be rather a challenge on harder difficulties and I would recommend playing on at least Normal if you are somewhat familiar with FPS and Turok games. On the harder difficulties, the AI has much better aim and can do much more damage to you. Health drops from enemies can be few and far between so, while there are default health packs dotted throughout each level, one clumsy move in collecting a 10-health pack could cost you 3o or more because of enemy AI with the aim of a Military sharpshooter will waste no time wasting you for standing still for more than a millisecond.
One last thing that I really need to bring up is that there is no multiplayer in the game. Some people may be wondering if it has it or not because the Nintendo 64 version did have it. Unfortunately, it has been done away with for the remaster as the development team wanted to focus purely on the single player experience. Working on the multiplayer would have put more time on development and would require reverse engineering the AI bots to make it work. This would mean that Turok 3 Remastered would have missed its November 2023 release and wouldn’t be out until sometime next year.
The silver lining to this is, while nothing has been confirmed as of yet, it is possible that multiplayer could be added at a later date via an update, much like Turok 2 Remastered did. The other possibility is that they could use the time they would have spent on the multiplayer mode to develop Turok Rage Wars which offers a brilliant multiplayer experience. We have no facts to back this up of course, but we remain hopeful that if Turok 3 Remastered is successful upon launch, we could see any one of these possibilities come into fruition.
To wrap up Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion Remastered is one of the best first-person shooter games I have played on Nintendo Switch in a good while. It’s graphic, gory, beautifully recreated, explosive, invigorating, and above all, enjoyable. The game was already a great game to play but Nightdive Studios have gone above and beyond to make this the absolute best Turok experience you can have.
Turok 3: Shadow Of Oblivion Remastered (The Gameplay)
Game Specifications:
Developer: Nightdive Studios
Publisher: Nightdive Studios
Platform: Nintendo Switch (eShop)
Category: Action, Adventure, Shooter
No. of Players: 1 (Single System)
Release Date: NA: November 30, 2023 | EU: November 14, 2023
Price: $29.99
File Size: 1.6 GB
Nintendo.com Listing
