Most fans of Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion will be super excited, everyone else will probably be underwhelmed.
Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion Developer: Nightdive Studios, Iguana Entertainment, Inc. Publisher: Nightdive Studios Release Date: 11/30/2023 |
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Quick Verdict: | Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion Remastered shows that Nightdive Studios really wanted to give this game a proper update, but the game itself holds it back in many ways. |
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Reviewer played on PC. A review code was provided by the publisher. | Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion Remastered is now available on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox X|S. |
Picture this: it's the year 2000, and you've been saving up money all summer mowing lawns for your neighbors so you can snag a copy of Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion from EB Games at the local mall. All of the hands-on previews in your favorite gaming magazines have made it look like it's going to be the best Turok game yet. It has to be...right?
It’s now 2023. Nightdive Studios has done something that I never thought I would ever see: they have remastered Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion, which was originally released all the way back in the year 2000.
The reason I never figured I would see a re-release is because the game just kind of came and went without as much praise as the first two titles in the series back when it was released.
It wasn’t a terrible game, but just not anything special. Despite that, this remastered version is honestly a great looking and extremely smooth remaster, with a rock-solid framerate, higher resolution textures, good lighting effects, and dynamic shadows.
Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion Remastered even includes some content that was cut from the original (much like Nightdive Studios did with their remaster of Shadow Man back in 2021). However, they did omit one aspect from the original that will upset a good number of fans: the multiplayer.
This might not be a big deal to a lot of potential players, but a lot of the player base spent hours and hours in the 4 player mode as well as bot deathmatches back in their younger days and were hoping to relive some of those memories.
The good news is that the presentation of everything else here is top notch. The graphics look crisp and detailed and the sounds and music have been given a lot of love. The sound even has a 7.1 surround sound option this time around!
The gameplay in Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion Remastered is fast paced and simple, with players running and gunning through each of the game’s five stages with an arsenal of weapons, such as pistols, rifles, shotguns, grenade and rocket launchers, tomahawks, and even the fan favorite from the series: the cerebral bore (which drains an enemy's brain from their skull in gruesome fashion). Absolutely brutal.
The weapons that are available depend on which of the two protagonists (siblings named Joseph and Danielle) are chosen to be the next Turok, since their brother Joshua dies during a brief skirmish with some minions sent by the villain Oblivion.
Welcome to Oblivion
As there are two characters to choose from at the beginning of the game, this means that there are two campaigns to complete. I wish I could tell you that the levels that you have to trek through were completely different during each of the campaigns, but they only marginally differ.
Danielle gets a grappling hook early on that she can use to get to spots that Joseph can’t reach, while he gets some Night Vision Goggles that can help him see in the dark. Also, his smaller stature allows him to crawl through areas that Danielle cannot.
The Night Vision Goggles are a bit of an eyesore, but thankfully there aren’t a lot of sections where their use is required for a prolonged period of time.
The enemy roster isn’t massive, but there is enough variety on display here to not get sick of a certain type of enemy before a level has ended. There are plenty of weird alien dogs, military guards, raptors, zombies, voodoo priests, and even weird blob tentacle monsters to go around.
Bosses show up in each of the levels too, but they are just often minor roadblocks that take only a short time to dispatch. The majority of them have some sort of puzzle aspect that must be conquered before they can be defeated, but these are relatively easy.
The same can be said for the other sections in Turok 3 where an item like a key, fuse, or pass must be found in order to open a door or power something on in order to progress. It’s all really straightforward. Thankfully the level designs are much more simple this time around and not confusing labyrinths like they were in Turok 2: Seeds of Evil.
More good news is that I only ran into one minor bug during my playtime. I had trouble with a few ladders when it came to my character not wanting to grab onto them sometimes. This led to a death or two when going down a long ladder. Thankfully, I found that jumping towards the ladder would usually trigger the climbing animation, but hopefully this can get patched.
Aside from that, the game worked as intended and was really smooth overall. As mentioned, the original game was average to begin with, but Nightdive Studios did what they could.
The lost world of the past
Another aspect about the campaigns that might disappoint players are their lengths. I was able to beat both of them in around 6 hours. While this isn’t too bad for an old shooter, there aren’t too many spots in each campaign that differ from one another, so you are really just essentially playing through nearly the exact same game twice.
This is a bummer considering how much longer the campaigns for Turok: Dinosaur Hunter and Turok 2: Seeds of Evil were, and how much cheaper their own remasters are(and Seeds of Evil also still includes the multiplayer modes). In terms of bang for the buck, the first two games win every time.
Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion Remastered does have some simple and fun levels to go through, and this remaster looks wonderful, but I don’t know if players will want to drop $30 on this title with how little there is here in terms of content.
I really hope that Nightdive Studios keep up the incredible work with their remasters because they did a great job here, but the setbacks of the original having such a short length and average gameplay really hold it back from being worth a really high recommendation.
Maybe we can get a remaster of Turok: Rage Wars from them in the future. Fingers crossed.