Turok: Dinosaur Hunter

 N64, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter (1997) game

October marked my N64's 25th Anniversary so I had to play something on the system, preferably that I hadn't revisited in a while. I was surprised I hadn't thought of 'Turok' before, and even more surprised to realise I'd never replayed the game after initial completion in early 2001! Most of my N64 games, especially in the first-person shooter genre, had been revisited in the last decade, or at least sometime in the 2000s, but not this one. The main reason was probably the fact it required a Memory Pak to play and first time round I'd had to start again when the unofficial Pak malfunctioned, losing all my data, forcing me to restart, so perhaps I'd unconsciously blocked the game from memory. Except I hadn't, I'd always had quite fond memories of it, vaguely remembering big dinos attacking as I circumnavigated the outer walls of a huge city, or travelling across treetop bridges with a powerful energy crossbow-type weapon, or the simpler runs through jungle scenery shrouded in fog where you were more likely to meet the screaming form of a man charging towards you out of the mist than actual dinosaurs! But though I'd thought I'd replayed it at some point, I hadn't, and it was ripe for a revisit, especially now I'd bought official Memory Paks.

It always fascinates me that these artificial worlds, existing only in the code of a plastic cartridge live on while time and the world changes around them, and perhaps that's one of the great appeals of retrogaming: to return after so long, to travel back in time years or decades before and find the same world unchanged within. When I do replay I tend to make it more worth my while by doing more than I did originally, or selecting a tougher difficulty, and that was the case here - originally I would have played on the standard level, so this time I chose Hard and expected a really tough, probably long, challenge. Actually, I found it pretty straightforward, and while still somewhat of a challenge, with save points taking a while to reach, even so, it wasn't anywhere near as harsh on me as I expected, completing it within a month. 'Turok' was one of the three UK launch titles, I believe, and I can imagine it being a real standout experience back then for its fast, smooth gameplay, chunky weaponry and pleasingly robust sound design. But I came to it having begun with the best, 'Goldeneye,' so it was never going to match up to the detail and freedom of that early triumph. It's very much rooted in retro style, mixing FPS with platformer, collecting tokens to earn extra lives, picking up ammo, and while the jumping around isn't pixel-perfect, it does take some getting used to, especially when there are so many bottomless drops to plummet into and die.

I found the best technique was to tilt my view downwards during my jump so I could better see the approaching platform, but I still made many fatal errors, especially in areas where you have multiple jumps (like the memorable area of square pillars at the end of the Ruined City of Level 3, something I still had vague memories of over twenty years later for the trial of losing so many lives there!), though the game isn't as brutal on the player as I'd thought, usually featuring a save point just before so you can try it as many times as you need. The main compliment I would pay the game is the quality of its atmosphere. The infamous fogging (cleared out of the technically superior sequel), was a result of Acclaim/Iguana still learning to master the N64's innards, but a lot of the time it served to heighten the tension as vague shapes would appear, usually heading straight for you. Though the game was largely a linear layout it did a fine job of making you feel you had options, and encouraged exploration in order to find new weapons, vital ammo (one of the things I imagine made Hard mode tougher must have been less ammunition, as I was close to running out a number of times), health powerups, and the vital Keys required to unlock each Stargate (I mean Gateway...!), as well as one piece of a unique special weapon called the Chronoscepter that was hidden within each level, often near the end.

Usually I find the stage in games when you have to revisit levels and search out the missing collectables or complete tasks you'd bypassed on first run, to be the more enjoyable part, but for some reason, while I still enjoyed the challenge of locating every missing Chronoscepter part (the complete weapon very useful in the final battle), I didn't enjoy that aspect as much as going through the levels the first time. Maybe it's because the lands are fairly large, and become much emptier when most of the creatures or men you've killed off don't regenerate - not that I wanted them to, as sometimes returning to levels was necessary merely for the sake of picking up much needed ammo, and occasionally life tokens. But it did make the levels a little dead and merely a case of forensically exploring every nook to make sure I hadn't missed a tunnel or a cliff-edge ledge to drop down to. In most cases I was able to find everything first time, but not always, and increasing the sense of player control came from the ability to skip ahead to levels out of sequence if you'd found those Keys, enhancing the illusion of non-linearity that otherwise was pretty much the case. Assisting greatly in the search was a simple plan view line map with different colours representing parts of the landscape, blue for water, or brown for caves, pointing out important features like save points.

Having a map that could be switched on with the tap of 'L' was very helpful and made things a lot easier and quicker since due to fog it was easy to become disoriented, not something you want when some enemies do regenerate every so often, so you didn't want to be wandering round areas you'd already explored only to waste ammo on attackers that would keep coming back. The trade-off with the map was that it was a distraction, for while it didn't obscure vision too badly since it was all lines, you're still called to concentrate on both the map overlay, and the actual environment behind it, orient according to the map, keep track of enemies, deadly drops, and what weapon you're using. It was certainly a skill that developed, and I'd be flicking it on and off, or charging about with it on, so that by the later stages of the game it was second nature and a vital tool in the armoury. Another vital tool was the diagonal jump. I don't know that I'd have worked this feature out for myself if I hadn't read the manual where it's mentioned, but it was an absolutely vital skill to master: jumping normally could get you a fair distance, but pressing forward and a sidestep 'C' at the same time gave you an even greater leap. Like the map, however, it had its pitfalls, since it was harder to control and see where you were going in such a jump.

That's one of the things about the game which really worked for me, having to learn skills beyond the usual circle-strafing or observation, and the environments were pretty well designed to take advantage of a player's growing ability. The main skill needed was accurate aiming, also something tricky to master with the analogue stick and no onscreen target to aim with - most weapons had a wide blast radius, be that the trusty Shotgun (the multi-shot Automatic version of which became my standard weapon of choice), or the Tek Arrows that exploded on impact, and the series has always been known for its oversized weaponry. On Hard you're really forced to conserve ammo as much as possible so you learn what works best for each target and its a trade-off between how much ammo you're going to use up and how much health you're going to risk. Health was another major issue as you start at 100 hit-points with the ability to add them, up to a total of 250. The most common health pickup, these little '+' symbols, were 2 hit-points, but can be added beyond your standard 100, while other pickups were 25 or the full 100, but would only fill you up to that 100, unless you found an Ultra Health which I think added 100 to whatever you had. Once all hit-points are gone you die, returning to the last save or checkpoint, and though a very old system, it worked.

The life tokens could be collected to add an extra life for every 100 tokens, although, like a cat, you're limited to nine lives, after which, if you touch a life token an invincibility code appears on screen. I liked the idea of these cheats (you also get some for completing the game), though I was never interested in using them, preferring the 'purity' of my own abilities to complete the game. Standing in the way of that were many foes to defeat, including the occasional Boss, in keeping with the creaky old style, ranging from your nemesis' lieutenant, to a full-size augmented Tyrannosaurus Rex. If you thought you were going to encounter full-sized dinosaurs at every turn you'd have been disappointed - it's not really a dino-hunting game, more of a survival experience with lots of little adversaries chipping away at your health as you try to navigate the environment, sometimes taking risks to uncover more pickups. But you do take on some dinos, including the mighty rocket launcher-wielding Triceratops, which were quite impressive compared to the general riff-raff and cannon fodder. Oddly, it was the little critters, skittering bugs or leaping froggy things that caused the most bother and through which I wasted the most ammo - the bugs rush across the floor and are so flat they're almost two-dimensional, requiring more precise aiming until they're up close and leap at your face, while the frog/lizard creatures bound haphazardly along the corridors of their chosen habitat, the caves.

A great sense of place is achieved through sound, with the drip-drip of dank caves, the rushing of waterfalls or the distant thudding of larger enemies, and while it's all taken for granted now, I can put my mind back into the late-90s and see how impressive it all is. A good mix of environments, too, with natural areas of jungle and cliffs, to travelling creepily down under the earth into tomb-like structures, high in the treetops, or into the Campaigner's high-tech stronghold, it's a game well worth playing. There are natural criticisms to be made, not just about the overriding fog (which I've already made a case for), but also the artificial intelligence, which is really just creatures that rush at you and have very simple attack patterns, but I wouldn't say it took away from the adventure - it's not really so much about the shooting and battling as it is about the navigation and exploration, and though the levels weren't quite as vast and tough to get through as in my memory, they were still sizeable. You get a sense of how they aren't quite so big once you've dispatched most of the enemies and run through from the starting point, as when you know where you are and where to go it takes a lot of time off the journey. There's even a Training option included to help players get to grips with the game's way of doing things, because that's the other thing, the controls are quite different to most games: you move using top and bottom 'C' buttons, while looking around or aiming with the stick, jumping with 'R,' and, naturally, shooting with the 'Z Trigger.' But it's movement that takes getting used to.

There also isn't the weapons wheel of subsequent instalments so you have to cycle up and down through all your weapons to find the right tool for the job - for example, you might not want to use the Grenade Launcher in the confines of a cave as you can damage yourself, while the best way to kill the bugs is to slash at them with a knife as they come close. Enemies who wait in the distance or snipe at you from alcoves are best offed with the precision of a Tek Arrow, heavier creatures with explosives, and so on. There's a good mix of weaponry for all occasions, plus further pickups that increase the amount of ammo each gun can carry, which is always useful. The Run/Walk mode toggle wasn't something I ever used since it made sense to keep it permanently on Run, but I can see why some might prefer a decrease in speed when dealing with tricky areas such as the edge of cliffs. You can even swim, a further addition to the feeling of empowerment and freedom, though after a while, Tal'set, the Native Indian you're playing, starts to run out of air so it can become quite claustrophobic when you're plunging along watery mazes desperate to reach an air pocket before you die, bringing a whole other dimension to the game. One other gameplay addition is the Invincibility pickup, quite rare, which slows everything around Tal'set while he keeps going at normal speed, although the world blinks in multicoloured mayhem so it can be slightly disorienting, and is a rare find anyway.

Though most of the time the environment is solid and non-interactive, you can sometimes meet forest creatures, wild boar and deer, which drop health pickups each time they're shot, though they don't hang around once the shooting starts, so there is a sense of life beyond just a level to be traversed. Other times, floor switches can be pressed to open new areas, accompanied by a suitably rumbling noise of stone moving. In all respects it's a solid, chunky game to get into, and though there's no incentive to go back to it once all eight levels have been completed (in fact you can't go back to earlier levels once the eighth is entered as there's no Gateway at the start, unlike the others, which is annoying if you save within the level and then want to revisit older levels for whatever reason), and the Campaigner defeated. It does look a bit bland, devoid of colour, but you're too busy trying to stay alive to be overly concerned with how nice everything looks. I'm glad I thought of playing the game, it was entirely worth a replay, and provided just enough challenge without becoming a chore, even if I did end up going through Level 3 with a fine tooth comb thinking there was some secret entrance or Warp I'd missed to find the Chronoscepter piece, until I realised it was right at the very end where there was a vine-covered wall to climb up! It could be annoying sometimes if you took a fatal fall through misjudging a jump and hadn't saved for a while, or getting killed just before the next save point, but every game has its frustrations and this was a good, strong start to a series which I think has since evaporated in later years.

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