Retro Review: Turok: Dinosaur Hunter

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Who is or Who are Turok ?

Originally Turok started as a comic book character but over the years and with the different incarnations there had been several individuals who had taken the Turok mantle.

The first Turok was a young Native American who, with his brother Andar, end up trapped in a Lost Valley filled with dinosaurs and they try to escape. Because of the different reboots, the origins of original Turok are quite vague and difficult to track as many of the first writers gave different ideas about Turok origins, but every one of them wrote one element in common, the dinosaurs.

When the character was bought by Valiant, there was another reboot, now Turok and his brother Andar were 18th Century Native Americans, and by some cosmic abnormality they ended in the Lost Land who was ruled by a crazy tyrant named Mothergod. In the Valiant comic’s adaptation, the dinosaur element was seen again as the previous ones.

The comics influenced the creation of the video games; elements that were present in the comics were also seen in the videogames. Characters like Andar or Mothergod were completely discarded and Turok himself was a re-imagined at some extent, he still was Native American but now his “real name” was Tal’ Set and Turok was merely a nickname.

Mothergod was reinvented as male cyborg called “The Campaigner” but there were little details about the identity of the new main enemy.

Like it was said before, several people had taken the mantle of Turok. The first one was Turok, Son of Stone, a pre-Columbian Native American; and the implicit hero of Turok: Dinosaur Hunter (even if his name was changed to Tal’ Set) and Turok 2. The second set of individuals who took the mantle of Turok were Joseph and Danielle Fireseed descendants of the original Turok and the last ones to be the heroes before the reboot.

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter Story (5 out of 5)

The one, who said the simpler the better, was right. Turok: Dinosaur Hunter had been one of the few games in history who don’t have a complete background story. The story of the game is given in two parts, a small part is given in the game and the other one is given briefly in the manual where we learn that Turok is a time-travelling warrior who is trying to stop an evil guy called “The Campaigner”, a cyborg who has given intelligence to the dinosaurs to help him to get the Chronocepter, the weapon who can help him to win complete control over the universe and time.

Beside the information given, there are no more pieces of facts about the game background, as there are no dialogues at all in the entire game, beside the subtitles that help the player to move between areas but those don’t give any information at all.

We can give a five over five in story, because it’s refreshing to imagine the missing pieces of the story.

Gameplay (4 out of 5)

The gameplay is a five of five. It’s similar to Doom, get the keys, kill the enemies and you will pass to the next stage. The game is well known because of his platform actions. To solve the puzzles you need to jump on platforms to get the keys that are mostly on high levels.

The controls aren’t easy, at least when I played it, I found hard to shoot at the enemies and move at the same time. I tried the game both in Nintendo 64 and Windows and I found it difficult in both consoles.

The graphics were neat and simple, for the time they were really excellent due the high level of realism, but there were some minor problems like enemies appear pixilated from time to time and the “fog transition” took some of the realism in the scenarios because the objects appeared like magic.

Overall (5 out of 5)

Overall the calcification given to Turok is a five of five, this game is classic and with plenty of replay value. Without words Turok told a great story, a story about a time traveler who found himself trapped in the middle of a war and ended victorious. After Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, came Battle of the Bionosaurs who appeared in Game Boy only; Turok 2: Seeds of Evil; Rage Wars that was only for Nintendo 64 and Game Boy color; Turok 3: Shadows of the Oblivion and Turok Evolution that was the last game of the franchise.

I highly recommend Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, is a great first-person shooter that many people would enjoy and if you want to buy it, you can click here and you will be redirect to a link in Amazon where is a list of the different Turok games that are available in the market. Remember to meassure your spendings and not buy an expensive item, because the experience is not of how much you spend but how much you like to play your favorite games.

This post is part of the series: Gus Retro Reviews

Retro Reviews is a series that condense many old games that marked a hint when they appeared, such as Monkey Island, Beneath a Steel Sky and many others.

  1. Retro Reviews Part One: The Secret of Monkey Island
  2. Retro Reviews Part Two: Indiana Jones and The Fate of Atlantis
  3. Retro Reviews Part Three: Beneath a Steel Sky
  4. Retro Reviews Part Four: LeChuck’s Revenge
  5. Retro Reviews: Roller Coaster Tycoon 2
  6. Retro Reviews: Grand Theft Auto Vice City
  7. Retro Reviews: Age of Empires
  8. Retro Reviews Part Five: Duke Nukem
  9. Retro Reviews: Little Big Adventure
  10. Retro Reviews: WWE Raw
  11. Retro Reviews: Unreal
  12. Retro Reviews: Turok