Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion

Developer : Iguana Entertainment / Nightdive Studios

Publisher : Acclaim Entertainment / Nightdive Studios

Platform : Nintendo 64 / PC-Steam

Release Year :  2000 / 2023

The Final Hunt

I would love to say that Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion improved on everything Turok 2: Seeds of Evil did and added even more good stuff to the winning formula, but that would be a lie. Now I don’t think Shadow of Oblivion is a terrible game by any stretch of the imagination, or that it didn’t improve on certain parts of the Turok formula, but at the end of the day I felt that it lost that something special that made Seeds of Evil and Dinosaur Hunter so good. Maybe it’s the more linear level design or the lack of wacky weapons, but more often than not, it didn’t feel like I was playing a Turok title when I was playing through Shadow of Oblivion; it felt like this title just happened to be a Turok game by happenstance and not by design, if that makes any sense? Let’s see if I can put into words how I feel about this game and if I can come to some sort of consensus on if Turok 3 was a good conclusion to the N64 trilogy.

A Straight Line

I loved the level design in Dinosaur Hunter and especially in Seeds of Evil; their massive and maze-like levels really made you feel like you’re exploring the Lost Lands and helped to make the game world feel larger than life. When I started playing through Shadow of Oblivion and experienced how linear the levels were, to say I was disappointed is a bit of an understatement. Sure, there are some open areas here and there during the campaign, and the fact that the two playable characters have slightly different paths through the levels does help to give the maps a bit of variety, but it was still hard to not be disappointed. I missed that feeling of exploration the previous games in the series were so good at conveying, and without it, Turok 3 just doesn’t feel as grand as either of its predecessors. The levels also feel a lot shorter this time, and when you combine that with their overly linear design, it takes what was a highlight of the last games and turns it into something that I feel really pulls the game down. It’s such a shame, because until now, I found the map design to be highlight of the series, so to see it being so bland and lifeless here really does suck.

One thing I did like about the level design was the call back to the opening level of Turok: Dinosaur Hunter when you finally reach the Lost Lands in this game after making your way through a cyberpunk city and a military base. Seeing that opening area again was neat and then having the map diverge from what was originally there was also really cool. It was here I got a brief sense of the exploration Seeds of Evil and Dinosaur Hunter had in spade, but this is not nearly enough for me to forgive the shitty level design, but it says something that it is one of the few things that really stuck out for me in the map design department.

I like that the each of our playable characters take slightly different routes through the levels, which does help alleviate some of my issues with the maps. While they’re not going through completely different levels, it does add a bit of replayability to the otherwise largely linear levels having these minor differences. I would have liked if the two characters had entirely different levels to play through, but I guess that wasn’t in the cards, and I can see that being maybe a bridge too far for the N64 even in 2000. I do feel that it was a missed opportunity not having different levels for the characters, but I do have to give them credit for what they did here, because the small differences in how the campaign plays out depending on who you’re in control of did make me play through Shadow of Oblivion twice (once on the PC with the remake, and the second time on the N64 via emulation), which does say something.

Choose Your Adventure

The narrative plays a much bigger role here in Shadow of Oblivion than in any of the previous games, for better and for worse: for the better, because knowing why you’re doing what you’re doing is always welcome; for the worse, because I think this greater emphasis on story is why the levels are so straightforward. They are going to tell this story, and we are along for the ride, whether we like it or not.

The game starts out with Joshua Fireseed, the hero from Seeds of Evil, dreaming of a Child who needs to be protected, because the fate of the universe and the Turok family line depends on it. Soon after waking from his dream, Joshua is attacked by the forces of Oblivion, and a fight breaks out. As the battle starts to turn against Turok, he tells his siblings Danielle and Joseph (who are going to be our two playable characters) to get away in the truck, and that he will take care of the Oblivion Spawn. While the two siblings drive away, Joshua blows up the house sacrificing himself in the explosion in his attempt to stop the evil aliens. As Danielle and Joseph are driving away through the desert, they are attacked by a giant beast from beyond the stars, but they are soon saved by Adon, the alien woman (she is not blue this go around, which I think is super lame) who helped Joshua in the last game. She teleports the two of them away to safety and soon ushers them into a council meeting where how to deal with the forces of Oblivion is being discussed. The council, a group of robot heads who seem to have their own agendas, decides that one of the siblings is to become the new Turok, and this choice is given to you: who you pick to play as is the new Turok. Once you pick from either Danielle or Joseph, the battle against Oblivion begins!

One of the more impressive things about this game considering the time and platform, are the cutscenes that playout between the levels. These cutscenes help pull you into the narrative and keep the story moving forward, and even when I was doing my play through on the N64, I was impressed how well they were pulled off. The story is good enough, and while I do appreciate them making the effort to even tell a good story in an FPS from the late ‘90s, it’s not about to win any awards. The narrative is your basic ‘stop evil being from ending the world,’ and it works well enough.

Gameplay

The biggest difference between this game and the last two Turok titles is the two playable characters. Danielle and Joseph both have unique items and ways of moving through the levels, with Danielle getting a grappling hook and being able to jump higher than her bother, while Joseph gets night vision goggles and he can fit into smaller spaces than his older sister. The differences between the siblings does give the game a bit of replayability, and it was neat seeing the different paths the siblings take through the same levels. They don’t have completely different levels, but the differences are neat, and like I said, it did make me play through the game twice.

The gunplay here is almost as good as in Seeds of Evil, but there is something lacking here that I have a hard time putting my finger on. Maybe it’s the weapons, which I found were not nearly as fun as what came before? Or maybe it’s because it feels like there is something missing when you pull the trigger? I don’t know. It’s not like the gunplay is awful by any stretch of the imagination, but throughout my time with Shadow of Oblivion I felt like there was something missing. Hell, I felt like that about a lot of aspects about this game, that there is just something missing; that feeling the last games had in spades just isn’t here.

The controls in the remake are so much better than the controls in the original N64 version, which is to be expected. Just like the last two Turok games, these modern controls make the gameplay fast and furious when compared to the slow and ponderous pace of the old Nintendo releases. This quicker pace and better aiming is really evident in the boss fights, with them being so much easier in the remake versus the original: I was able to body the bosses in the remake while they would pound me into the dirt in the original, with very little overlap. As usual, if I can recommend a version to play, it would 100% be the remake, because the modern controls just make everything better.

The End

I would have loved if the Turok trilogy had ended on the N64 with a bang, but in my humble opinion, Shadow of Oblivion is a bit of step back from Seeds of Evil. I remember playing this game back in the day, and I was so impressed with how far the developers were able to push the N64; the first level with the police going about their work while you explore a ruined city was something else. Yet now, almost 30 years on, Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion is the entry in the series in which I had the least amount of fun. It’s not terrible, but the lack of exploration in the levels, as well as the lackluster gunplay and shallow weapon variety, add together to drag the whole experience down when you compare it to Dinosaur Hunter and Seeds of Evil. I can totally see why some folks love this game and consider it the best of the series, but I just cannot put this game above Turok 2. I loved Rage Wars as a kid probably more than all of them put together, but only being able to play that one on the N64 with its awful controls, even via emulation, is not helping me capture those old memories, so for now, Seeds of Evil is the best in the series.

It is such a shame that after this title the Turok series basically died. Yes, there was a game released on the 360, PS2, and Game Cube, but from what I have heard, I am not missing much. I do want to try it eventually, but this backlog is not going to play itself. I have my fingers crossed that the upcoming Turok game isn’t half bad, because you would think making an FPS about shooting dinosaurs, aliens, and everything else wouldn’t be that hard. Only time will tell but based on how things are going with gaming as a whole, I am not about to hold my breath. At least we have these amazing remakes of the classics, because they just don’t make ‘em like they used to.