Turok: 1st Impressions
Robert Fischer
Like the subject says, my 1st impressions of Turok.
I've only finished the 1st level, and gotten lost many a time. I've worked
on the second level for about an hour or so (Time really seems to go by
quickly as I play). A little background on me. Played Doom a lot, Quake a
little, Duke a little. My old 486dx33 just doesn't like those new games. :)
So...
Turok is just about everything Acclaim claimed.A first person shooter. Very
fluid motion. Great graphics. Great music. Good control, does not take long
before you're completely used to it.
Okay a little longer explanation - (Never written a somewhat formal review
before)...
Control, as you probably know, uses the yellow buttons for movement (or the
D-pad for lefties), and the analog for aiming. Actually, the left and right
yellows make you strafe, and the analog makes you turn. So, when you're
walking around, you pretty much just hold the yellow up, and use the analog
to control direction. The R button makes you jump. The longer you hold, the
more you go. You can also control your jump movement with the yellows while in
the air. The Z-button fires. The A and B button scroll through your weapons,
with a neat little scrolling circle like thing that fades into and out of view
as you switch. The Directional (yellows for lefties) switches between walk
and run (run most of the time), and the L button brings up the map ala doom.
So... The only gripe I had with the control was that it is hard to switch
weapons while running backwards away from dinosaurs. Then I thought, well,
if a dinosaur were chasing me, it would probably be a hell of a lot harder
to switch weapons than this makes it out to be, so it's not that bad. The
analog can be adjusted to your preference for sensitivity. I find the default
to work well, pretty fast. No control problems.
Game play: 1st person Doom shooter/exploration. If you don't like these sort
of games, you probably won't like this. New elements, you can climb walls,
the layout is not a strict, "You MUST do parts 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 in order."
Once you finish level 1, you can go to 2 or 3, and probably can choose
what order you want to do things the whole way. Pretty cool.
Also includes a training/obstacle course/time trials beginning. I'm waiting
for the World Record Turok Training Mode Times myself. Victor Kwan? You
working on that web page yet? :)
Graphics: What can I say, everyone said they were great, and they are. Dino-
saurs run like they should, big animals move like they should. Monkeys jump
like they should. All pretty realistic, very immersive. A couple gripes,
when climbing (you can climb vines), you don't see your hands above you
pulling on the vines or anything. This would have been a cool touch. Also,
when climbing, you can look around, and if you look down, you just see the
wall, no body parts of yours at all. Just minor things, but it would have
been cool to have these. The explosions, on the other hand, are great. The
water is wonderful. I love the fish in the second level, like Mario64, only
I think better. I love when a madman comes running at me around turns, looking
totally out of control, swooning all over the place like a drunk. Perfect.
When you kill things, they die in a variety of ways. Very nice. I'm sure
you've already read about that though. I don't like how the bodies disappear
so quickly, after about 5 seconds they fade away. Torturing dead bodies
consists of a little blood squirt, and that's it. Not worth the hype. Another
gripe: They put in deer and pigs to kill, to get health points. You hit them
twice, two points pop out, one more time, they pop into nothing. Boring.
It would have been much better if they twitched around like the dinos. Just
one death sequence would have been enough. Oh well.
Music&Sound: Great Jungle music, switches instantly when you hop under water.
The 1st and Second level have the same music (repetitive), but the third is
different. The music is probably the best so far on the N64. It is great
stereo. But, then again, the music in Mario64 and Mario Kart is good, but I
just don't like it too much. Childish, while Turok is more adult, fitting
to the game. A simple drum beat, and some monkey sounds so far. But cool.
Reminds me of Crash Bandicoot (ah say what you will). Sound effects are
great. Panning stereo. Use a good sound system.
What else is there? What a fun game. I love knifing people.
The levels, so far, are huge. I don't think we'll be hearing about people
finishing in 3 hours, like SOTE. I was playing on medium difficulty (3
settings), and it was hard enough. I have actually lost my game, just
getting around the second level, lost my 3 lives. Argh.
You want to know about actual game play, I guess I didn't cover that. You are
Turok, a dinosaur hunter. I guess you are saving some land or something.
Doesn't matter much. You kill things. They give you power ups. You are trying
to find keys for each level. Level 1 has 6 keys in it. These 6 keys allow you
to open up later levels, in combinations. (automatic. If you have the right
keys, the level opens.) this is why I could open levels 2 and 3, but not
the others. Each level also has a piece of crystal, but I don't know what
that's for. :) So you wander around, trying to find these keys, jumping
gorges, teleporting, climbing over crevices, swimming under tunnels, and this
is just the 1st level.
Enough already, right? A great 1st person game. If you liked Doom, I would
recommend BUYING this game. But, if you are prudent, rent it. I bought it
knowing I could sell it for a little less than I paid if I didn't like it.
Did I ramble enough? You want a rating? Too bad. Ratings are for magazines,
which people with brains know not to trust. This is a very solid, well put
together game. Beats Doom with a raptor leg.
Enjoy. Comment.
--
- Rob Fischer - rfis...@eecs.uic.edu - rfi...@uic.edu -
- http://www.eecs.uic.edu/~rfischer -
thu...@eznet.net
In article <5f8f4s$2...@news.eecs.uic.edu>, rfis...@ernie.eecs.uic.edu
(Robert Fischer) wrote:
> Like the subject says, my 1st impressions of Turok.
>
<snip>
>
>
> Enough already, right? A great 1st person game. If you liked Doom, I would
> recommend BUYING this game. But, if you are prudent, rent it. I bought it
> knowing I could sell it for a little less than I paid if I didn't like it.
> Did I ramble enough? You want a rating? Too bad. Ratings are for magazines,
> which people with brains know not to trust. This is a very solid, well put
> together game. Beats Doom with a raptor leg.
>
>
> Enjoy. Comment.
>
You summed it up very well, although I'm not much into blood and gore,
knifing people and the sort, so I chose the option to turn the blood off
(or I could have changed it to green to make it more alien-like...nah).
All things considered, this game is great - and as I alluded to before,
I'm not really big on shooters. The fluid music and graphics, the
options, the codes (disco mode!!! ROFL!) ...worth every penny. I was
going to sit this one out, but I'm glad I didn't.
\ /
o o
~ Y ~
thu...@eznet.net
Travis Prebble
Robert Fischer <rfis...@ernie.eecs.uic.edu> wrote in article
<5f8f4s$2...@news.eecs.uic.edu>...
> Like the subject says, my 1st impressions of Turok.
> I've only finished the 1st level, and gotten lost many a time. I've
worked
> on the second level for about an hour or so (Time really seems to go by
> quickly as I play). A little background on me. Played Doom a lot, Quake a
> little, Duke a little. My old 486dx33 just doesn't like those new games.
:)
Well then, before I continue, I'll do my summary. :)
Finished levels 1, 2, and 3. Now working on level 5. Played Doom a lot,
Duke a little less, and Quake a *whole* lot more!
[some well-covered observations snipped]
> The water is wonderful. I love the fish in the second level, like
Mario64, only
> I think better. I love when a madman comes running at me around turns,
looking
> totally out of control, swooning all over the place like a drunk.
Perfect.
I was 100% impressed to see my enemies actually *lean into their turns*
when running around a corner to come after me! This was a beautiful touch.
> When you kill things, they die in a variety of ways. Very nice.
So far, I've seen far more variety in character deaths than Quake. Of
course, Turok's enemies don't splatter into a shower of gibs, but I
wouldn't really expect them to.
> I don't like how the bodies disappear
> so quickly, after about 5 seconds they fade away. Torturing dead bodies
> consists of a little blood squirt, and that's it. Not worth the hype.
However, it was a classy way to deal with the problem of keeping bodies
lying about vs. memory restrictions. It was much better to have them fade
and flatten than to have them just pop out of existence. There is a lot in
Turok that will have people saying, "Hmm, that's kind of cool", when all
they are seeing is how Iguana dealt with memory and speed issues (fading
dead, London Fog jungles).
> Music&Sound: Great Jungle music, switches instantly when you hop under
water.
> The 1st and Second level have the same music (repetitive), but the third
is
> different. The music is probably the best so far on the N64.
Definite agreement with this. The music fits the game perfectly (so far...
don't know what it will sound like in further levels) and is relatively
unobtrusive. This kind of music is an example of what Shigeru Miyamoto
meant when he said that people have to learn to rethink how music is used
in a game - as you enter different environments or come up against
overbearing obstacles, the music changes instantly. There is no waiting
for the CD to catch up with your escapades.
> The levels, so far, are huge. I don't think we'll be hearing about people
> finishing in 3 hours, like SOTE. I was playing on medium difficulty (3
> settings), and it was hard enough. I have actually lost my game, just
> getting around the second level, lost my 3 lives. Argh.
I have actually been playing in Easy, simply because I like to see what's
in a game and then go back and beat it legitimately, but, as I said at the
top of the post, even in Easy, I'm still only as far as level 5 access
(which means, I beat 1,2, & 3, but not 4).
> Beats Doom with a raptor leg.
Couldn't have said it better. :)
-- Trav