Das beste Leveldesign der Turok-Reihe, oder eher "das am wenigsten schlimme". Ein großartiger Production Value für die Plattform für die es designed wurde mit sehr hohen Ambitionen, ein konstanter Reminder was in dieser Zeit alles in Shootern populär war, haufenweise "oh, das kenn ich aus Half-Life!"-Momente - und nun auch endlich in einer Version die legit spielbar ist.

Ich wünschte das Remaster hätte weniger versucht die Grafik zu verbessern, oder es gäbe zumindest einen Modus sie erneut zu downgraden, aber an sich ist das schon okeh.

Das Problem mit dem Spiel ist, dass es zwar endlich mal ein Turok ist, bei dem man nicht 70% der Spielzeit backtracken muss, dafür ist aber der Kampf so uninspiriert wie in keinem Teil zuvor. Teil 1 war deutlich schneller und actionreicher, Teil 2 hatte mehr mit seinen Waffen und Gegnern gemacht, während Teil 3 sich mehr auf seine kleinen Setpieces und die abwechslungsreichen Orte verlässt.
Und nach knapp 3,5 Stunden war ich dann auch schon durch.

Ich glaaaaube dieses "Turok" war damals gar nicht mal so gut. Aber ich bin trotzdem froh es endlich mal mit mehr als 7fps gespielt zu haben.

Another amazing remaster by Nightdive studios. Unfortunately, this time their efforts went towards a mid game. Turok 3 isn’t bad nor is it boring and tedious, it is however somewhat lifeless and uninspired. The level design in Turok 3 is generally good, but the exploration is way tuned down from Turok: DH and especially Seeds of Evil. This may sound appealing, but when you strip out Turok’s exploration, you start to realize that the combat can’t carry the entire experience. The weaponry is still great and the spectacle of the gore and dismember still leaves me in awe. I just feel the game never throws enough at the player. There’s not enough enemies, there’s not enough secrets, there’s not enough puzzles; it’s just all a bit plain outside of the visceral combat. Still worth a playthrough or two. It’s only 4 hours.

I have been fascinated by this game ever since I saw a super low-res upload of the intro cutscene in the pre-YouTube days. I couldn't beleive an N64 game could have such good facial animation and cinematics.

I ended up getting it a few years ago on N64 but the performance was so, so poor - especially during boss fights.

Here we are in 2023 and I'm finally playing it at 60fps and it's a cracking bite sized Half-Life style campaign.

Very ambitious and silly. And I will be going back to play the second character's campaign.

Oh, and the remaster work on this is great. Nightdive are some of the best in the business.

As a huge fan of Turok: Dinosaur Hunter and even Turok 2: Seeds of Evil, I came into Shadow of Oblivion knowing it likely wouldn't quite live up to those games and I was mostly right but I think it still has a couple surprises. I had never played this on N64 like the first two entries. I'd considered emulating it a few times but it just never happened. Nightdive did incredible work bringing them to modern hardware and I'd hoped they'd finally do this so I could play it, and they did!

First thing is that the game is insanely short. It released 2 years after Half Life, and its influence is all over this game. The first two are relatively loose games structurally, especially the first which is almost all full on run-and-gun. This has more in common with 2, with more structured levels/sections but rather than giving you the area with a couple objectives it is a more linear narrative experience that you simply go end-to-end in. I prefer that structure to 2's, but 2 has a much stronger presence in its settings and its atmosphere and weaponry is unrivaled.

The biggest surprise, which is both good and bad, is the length. My first fully fresh playthrough took about 3 hours on the dot. It is a very brisk game, each section taking about 30-45 minutes. It keeps the game fresh, but all the sudden you realize you're at the end. I don't care at all about the narrative and it's pretty non-existent outside cutscenes anyway. Narrative cutscenes in a Turok game is odd. I like when a game doesn't waste my time, but I was hoping I'd get to see a bit more and this game doesn't show you much more than you've seen from the series before outside its opening section. You straight up revisit the opening level of Turok: Dinosaur Hunter.

I played Danielle for my first playthrough. She has a more hard-hitting loadout and I had a good time using the rocket launcher, flame shotgun, and grapple. Since it only took me 3 hours in a sitting...I immediately started over as Joseph on Hard difficulty. I think Hard should be the default way to play this game, it's very forgiving. Also, just going as fast as you can. This playthrough took 2 hours and I had a lot more fun this go round. The sniper rifle, possession bore, and napalm launcher are just a lot of fun. The night vision is a gimmick but the effect looks really cool. I think the auto-lock feature is a bit strange, but I know Night Dive typically prefers to keep the game just as you remember it and that feature was certainly needed on N64 but not here anymore.

I waited this long to play what I thought would likely be the last good Turok game I ever play, and I'm glad I mostly enjoyed it even if I'm a bit disappointed it doesn't touch the first two games and if it's so short that it left me hoping for more. The gunplay is just as fantastic, as are the creatures and gore. The bosses are very lackluster though. Very glad they got this one up to 120fps, the first two remasters cap at 60.

Edit: Played through 3 more times and as they added two secret playthroughs after Danielle and Joseph: Joshua and Raptor. Joshua is the ideal way to play, can just have total freedom with all the arsenal. Raptor is a fun gimmick playthrough, although the bosses are not at all made to be fought with melee. That said you move super fast and that playthrough clocked in at just over an hour. Mastered the game, 15 hours total logged. Fun game!

(Beaten with Danielle, will go back with Joseph later but not right now)

A neat effect of going through the Turok games is seeing where Acclaim thought the state of the FPS genre was going. They clearly made a safe bet on Half-Life being the way of the future, this game shifts hard towards linear storytelling and level design. The level design isn't nearly as frustrating as either game could be, but also the worlds don't feel anywhere near as distinct as they used to. Shockingly brief.

As always, Nightdive delivered with the remaster. Might be one of their more impressive remasters simply by how much work they had to do reverse engineering it. Shadow of Oblivion is probably the most impressive use of the N64's technology, even if it barely runs, so it's nice to see that hard work shine.

"Remastered" feels like they are underselling just how much work had to have been put into this. Almost every element feels like it had to have been redone for this. I have no way of knowing, but it's a very well-done re-release of what really feels like a forgotten game.

This isn't my favorite Turok game: the enemies are nowhere near as dynamically animated or reactive as Turok 2's, and the level design is very inconsistent between flat, square boxes and more inspired levels. The shotgun still sounds like a Turok shotgun though, and blowing enemies apart is still as wicked as it is in any Turok game.

Plus, Danielle is a cool character design. I wish there was something more being done with her, but I won't complain about a good thing.

Would recommend Turok 1 and 2 over this, but real Turokaholics will want to complete their collection with this.