Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion

Echoing Half-Life, Turok 3 is an ambitious evolution of the series and perhaps one of the most cinematic games on the console. The setting is now more futuristic, and the now corridor-based levels are segmented into tidy checkpoints and allow you to save progress whenever you need to. It's a far cry from the hours-apart save points in the previous games, making Turok 3 a much more manageable experience. It's not a bad FPS, but the frame rate is still a serious issue at times, even in low-res mode, and combined with auto-aim that seems to work only half the time, it's a real struggle to play today.

A game so mediocre it wraps back around to being bizarre. It's easy to appreciate how it tried to push the envelope for cinematics and storytelling on the N64; the problem is it was arguably being undone even at the time. Even without voice acting, Ocarina's cinematics and overall narrative flow are still compelling. Perfect Dark, released a few months earlier, has a much more cogent story even with the curveball twist of aliens. Even the similarly forgotten N64 exclusive Hybrid Heaven did a cinematic storyline much better. That's not to say Turok 3 had nothing going for it; the early levels feature some great setpieces for the time, with NPC interactions and in-fighting, dank lighting and atmosphere, some neat train sequences, and an earnest attempt to mix up the gameplay with two characters, not only exploring the wild weapon selection the series is known for, but also including some light puzzle elements, with a grappling hook and night vision split between the two campaigns, each short enough to make separate playthroughs worthwhile.

But "flair" will only get you so far in the dying days of the Nintendo 64. Months before the US release of the PS2, a hilariously undercooked story with go-nowhere plotlines, non-sequitur Macguffins and god-awful voice compression made it look quaint even back then. And with this focus on a story that kind of sucks, the gameplay and level design take a few hits. While zooming around with boomer shooter ice physics is still fun, enemy density and secrets are tuned down. Level variety is alright, but only a few times does it allow for clever objectives; otherwise, it's another corridor shooter. It's hard to tell whether this game was trying to ape Half-Life or Quake more. Either way, it's functional, but never compelling.

Still, I'm very glad the remaster exists, as hard as it is to recommend at full price. It's completely missing the robust multiplayer package of the original (the credits seem to indicate they have no interest in porting Rage Wars), and some lighting choices get in the way of the original art direction, but considering how shit the performance was on the N64, the fact we got a silky smooth 60FPS version, when there was no source code to work from AFAIK, is a goddamn miracle. It's like...Devil May Cry 2. The HD collection would be incomplete without it, even if the only reason to play it is to see how every other game in the series was better. Turok 3 is at least better than DMC2, but is still leagues behind Turok 1 and 2 (...honestly maybe even the 2008 game).