Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion Remastered review for PC, PlayStation, Xbox

The first thing to mention before I get into any depth here is that this is a remaster of an N64 game from 2000, and I did not play the original. I do have experience with Turok however, as I owned Turok 1 and 2 as a kid, and have played the Steam remasters since then. If you’re a fan of retro games with modern quality of life, then definitely keep your eyes on this one.

Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion is a first-person shooter dating all the way back from the N64 era in 2000, and is the end of the N64 trilogy. Don’t worry, you don’t have to have played the first two. It is a wild time, even today. You’ll get to pick from two characters with varied paths, giving you a different play experience each time. Aliens are invading, and you’re tasked with taking up the mantle of Turok after the previous protagonist is killed. You will be using an arsenal of different weapons, including but not limited to handguns, rifles, shotguns, grenade launchers, bows, etc. Not to mention there are some traversal differences too. One character gets a higher jump, enabling you to explore some out-of-reach places with the other. Additionally, you’ll get a grapple gauntlet that will allow you to zip to distant places you can’t reach otherwise!

If you’ve played an N64 shooter, you may be worried about how Turok plays on modern platforms. Fret not, as it plays like a regular first-person shooter on a keyboard and mouse (I played on PC). I did use a controller as well and it is your typical two-stick controls you’ve grown accustomed to in the last 20 years or so. It feels a little floaty, as did quite a few games from that era. I don’t think it hampers the experience at all, as you get used to it quite quickly.

On a technical level, this is a really nice remaster. It offers settings for motion blur, antialiasing, depth of field, ambient occlusion, and a good batch of others. A neat setting I noticed is that you can modify settings to emulate a CRT’s display! If you don’t like the default bindings, they were kind enough to have full remapping options for your keyboard/mouse if you prefer to make it something different. Controllers have the option to modify things like aim assist, vibration, sensitivity, and something I don’t know I’ve ever seen in a settings menu, dead zone options.

For regular video options that aren’t related to graphics, you can change resolution, and framerate (supports my 144hz monitor), and I feel like I shouldn’t have to include the fact that it has a borderless window option, but you’d be surprised how many games I’ve played released recently that don’t have that.

While this is a great remaster, I do have some issues with bugs. I had multiple times where I would have something break and get soft-locked, forcing me to restart from a save. This wouldn’t be such an issue if it weren’t still an N64 game with no manual save option. I’ve lost upwards of 15 to 20 minutes of progress multiple times due to soft-locks and having to restart. Combine that with it being what I feel is the weakest of the three Turok games in this bunch, it can be frustrating to play sometimes. I ran into an issue where I beat a boss and moved to the next chapter but it didn’t autosave, so I had to re-fight that same boss, which is where my first soft-lock was. The game registered that a button had been pushed, but the door did not open, and the only solution was a restart. As of this review, it has not been patched that I have seen, so be wary of that while playing on your own time.

All in all, this is a great remaster of a game from many of our childhoods. It is fun for the most part, has relatively okay replayability, and offers reasons for you to explore each area. However, due to the technical issues I ran into, it does hamper the experience. I think it’s a little hard to justify $30 for, so if you can find it on a sale, definitely do so. I think it’s a fantastic $20 game, even with the issues, because I’m sure Nightdive will fix it up. If you’re looking for a fun romp through a classic, Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion has you covered, just be mindful of some of its hiccups and N64isms here two weeks into the launch period.

Note: Nightdive Studios provided us with a Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion Remastered PC code for review purposes.