DF Retro: Turok Dinosaur Hunter - How An N64 Classic Evolved The Console FPS

Ithil · Jul 14, 2019

Turok was great for its time, even with its dated jank and hyper speed controls today (even in the remastered Nightdive version I was surprised by how damn fast you move and aim in the game, particularly compared to Turok 2's more Killzone type movement). Still has a lot of fun weapons and enemies as long as you play with a keyboard and mouse. For 1996 it's very impressive in the small details, blowing enemies around in a simulation of "ragdoll", knocking over trees, etc. Turok 2 was just as ambitious for the time.

Deleted member 43872 · Jul 14, 2019

Lafazar said:
The leveldesign was a bit streamlined in the Nightdive remaster. Some keys were moved a bit closer to the main path than they were in the original, for example.

Huh, interesting. That would seem to explain it. I knew the sequel's remaster had significant differences (even adding a ledge climb to help with platforming), but I wasn't sure how much the first game was changed in the port.

LakeEarth · Jul 14, 2019

I remember being blown away by this game, both graphically and gameplay-wise. I recall going to an area where the knife guys couldn't reach, and I just watched them run back and forth, being blown away by that motion capture. Never seen anything like it before.

Lafazar · Jul 14, 2019

GibdoInferno said:
Huh, interesting. That would seem to explain it. I knew the sequel's remaster had significant differences (even adding a ledge climb to help with platforming), but I wasn't sure how much the first game was changed in the port.

You can play the original levels here:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=830735923

AFAIR it was mostly the treetop village that was changed so the keys would be less missable. I remember replaying that level several times in the N64 original because I kept missing one or two keys and there was no way to got back once you hit certain points of no return.

And yes, Turok 2 was modified even more in its remaster. There are whole areas that used to hide a key that are now pointless dead ends.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/405830/discussions/0/135512133545298495/

I still vastly prefer the remasters, but I wish there was an option to play Turok 2 with the original levels.

darz1 · Jul 14, 2019

Karspankey said:
Love the bit of the Switch version I've played so far! Gyro controls work really well!

I did not realize it had gyro. Im gonna get this asap

Bane · Jul 14, 2019

Bane said:
Oh man, I can't wait to watch this in a bit. I've no great love for the title but John usually gives me some sort of new appreciation of a game so I'm excited to see what all he brings this time.

Just as I thought, John made me realize something I'd not considered. I'm one of the ones he mentioned: I went into this game thinking it was Doom or Dark Forces so I became bored by the lulls in action and confused by the level design. Now knowing it was always went to be more of an exploration game I'm curious to come at it with that new perspective now.

I'm going to grab the remaster during a sale now to give it another go. Kind of excited to be honest.

Deleted member 42484 · Jul 14, 2019

Anyone know when Turok 2 hits the Switch?

Border · Jul 14, 2019

Bane said:
Just as I thought, John made me realize something I'd not considered. I'm one of the ones he mentioned: I went into this game thinking it was Doom or Dark Forces so I became bored by the lulls in action and confused by the level design. Now knowing it was always went to be more of an exploration game I'm curious to come at it with that new perspective now.

He makes a good case for the game, but I can't possibly imagine enjoying exploration with that thick wall of fog that is 15 feet in every direction.

Leo-Tyrant · Jul 14, 2019

Dark1x said:
Ahhh, dang it, I actually had planned to do that but straight up forgot to include it!

In Latin America we had the "Club Nintendo" magazine in the 90´s, and I remember in 97 or 98 they showed a side by side comparison of US vs PAL releases for Star Fox and Turok (Lylat Wars and robot enemies). It was a cool topic to talk about in high school for a while.

Fantastic video as always.

DonMigs85 · Jul 14, 2019

I remember Turok 2 with its soft-skin technology. Also made you proud to own the Expansion Pak.

Cow Mengde · Jul 14, 2019

Man, watching the character run animation really makes me appreciate the graphics more. I remember seeing Resident Evil on the PS1 and the animation of people turning is just so bad. The stuff in Turok really looks a generation ahead of the janky stuff on the PS1.

Edward850 · Jul 14, 2019

Lafazar said:
I still vastly prefer the remasters, but I wish there was an option to play Turok 2 with the original levels.

The original Turok2 levels are lost to time, unfortunately. Unlike the Turok1 levels which still technically worked but needed changes to account for the fog draw distance, Turok2's levels were outright broken from extraction and needed modifications to even be playable (the source code was not in the best of conditions when we received it). During this process the original design layouts were lost, which means we'd have to re-extract and fix them all over again.

Cow Mengde · Jul 14, 2019

Edward850 said:
The original Turok2 levels are lost to time, unfortunately. Unlike the Turok1 levels which still worked but needed changes to account for the fog draw distance, Turok2's levels were outright broken from extraction and needed modifications to even be playable (the source code was not in the best of conditions when we received it). During this process the original design layouts were lost.

So there's no way to extract the levels from the N64 game and use them to recreate it?

Edward850 · Jul 14, 2019

We would have to fix them all over again.

Deleted member 23212 · Jul 14, 2019

Edward850 said:
We would have to fix them all over again.

Oh hey! I have a question. Are Turok: Rage Wars and Turok 3 ever going to get new releases?

scitek · Jul 14, 2019

Atolm said:
There's a HL2 chapter already, with the Xbox version covered. Take a look.

https://youtu.be/8lALppQeolw

I still can't fucking believe they got Half-Life 2 running on an Xbox. The full game, too!

Edward850 said:
The original Turok2 levels are lost to time, unfortunately. Unlike the Turok1 levels which still technically worked but needed changes to account for the fog draw distance, Turok2's levels were outright broken from extraction and needed modifications to even be playable (the source code was not in the best of conditions when we received it). During this process the original design layouts were lost, which means we'd have to re-extract and fix them all over again.

What are the chances of you guys putting out an official remaster of Powerslave?

icecold1983 · Jul 14, 2019

I played the shit out of this game. The weapons and their effects were amazing at the time. As was the enemy animation. It was fun to get the enemies to fight eachother. I hope John does turok 2. Performance was rough but the visuals were mind boggling, esp in the high rez mode. Weapons were even more outlandish as well

RestEerie · Jul 14, 2019

More interested on the analysis of Turok 2 and may 3 and Rage Wars.

Since it's the game that's being pimp with the 4MB RAM Cart the most......where acclaim likes to proclaimed Turok 2 uses 'skin technology' and Hi-Rez™ graphics when paired with the RAM Cart. yah..i still remember those ads in EGM.

halfjoey · Jul 14, 2019

Turok 2 was incredible to me at the time. Can't wait for a DF video on that as well or the Switch remaster at the end of this year.

Edward850 · Jul 14, 2019

Oheao said:
Oh hey! I have a question. Are Turok: Rage Wars and Turok 3 ever going to get new releases?

Heh, I can't really say anything on that. If it happens, announcing such projects would be up to the license holder.

scitek said:
What are the chances of you guys putting out an official remaster of Powerslave?

Ask Stephen and Larry. :P

Coen · Jul 15, 2019

Isn't 'Seeds of Evil' just the best subtitle a game has ever received? I loved everything about the series. Rage Wars took the multiplayer crown away from GoldenEye 007 in our house and just knowing part of the team moved to Retro Studios made me super excited for Metroid Prime.

Reinhardt Schneider · Jul 15, 2019

Leo-Tyrant said:
In Latin America we had the "Club Nintendo" magazine in the 90´s, and I remember in 97 or 98 they showed a side by side comparison of US vs PAL releases for Star Fox and Turok (Lylat Wars and robot enemies). It was a cool topic to talk about in high school for a while.

Fantastic video as always.

The robot enemies were only for the German market, that was way more strict with violence. The other countries got human enemies and red blood

Emergency & I · Jul 15, 2019

I bought and played the OG on Switch earlier this year and it holds up great. The design is great and the game is just FUN. Game is basically a classic in my eyes.

Really hope we get 2/3 on Switch.

Blackpuppy · Jul 15, 2019

Kevtones said:
I bought and played the OG on Switch earlier this year and it holds up great. The design is great and the game is just FUN. Game is basically a classic in my eyes.

Really hope we get 2/3 on Switch.

Turok 2 on Switch has been confirmed (Limited Run games is even doing a physical release). Release date is TBD however.

S1kkZ · Jul 15, 2019

Reinhardt Schneider said:
The robot enemies were only for the German market, that was way more strict with violence. The other countries got human enemies and red blood

despite the missing death animations, i still prefer the robots. the only thing i hated about the german version: no cheatcodes.

bytesized · Jul 15, 2019

Oops, wrong thread

But now that I'm here I'll say that I have very very good memories of this game on n64, I specially remember thinking that the controls were really good at the time and really loving the platforming in it.

Really would like to get out on switch eventually once I work a bit more on my backlog

Atolm · Jul 15, 2019

Cow Mengde said:
Man, watching the character run animation really makes me appreciate the graphics more. I remember seeing Resident Evil on the PS1 and the animation of people turning is just so bad. The stuff in Turok really looks a generation ahead of the janky stuff on the PS1.

Yeah, this one and Mario 64 have to be the first games with proper, interpolated animation, though I consider Turok more impressive due to the mocap use.

Dark1x · Jul 15, 2019

Atolm said:
Yeah, this one and Mario 64 have to be the first games with proper, interpolated animation, though I consider Turok more impressive due to the mocap use.

What's funny is that, even years later, we still have games with characters that basically 'rotate on a stick' in their full running animation. That Iguana thought about and implemented momentum and weight shifting into its animation is really insane for the time.

Deus Ex is one of my favorites of all time but I always laugh when you alert a guard and he goes into a full on sprint while turning in place. It looks hilariously awful but I love it ha ha.

Sankara · Jul 15, 2019

Great video! I remember playing the game on a friend's computer that had a 3DFX card and I was blown away.

Atolm · Jul 15, 2019

Dark1x said:
What's funny is that, even years later, we still have games with characters that basically 'rotate on a stick' in their full running animation. That Iguana thought about and implemented momentum and weight shifting into its animation is really insane for the time.

Deus Ex is one of my favorites of all time but I always laugh when you alert a guard and he goes into a full on sprint while turning in place. It looks hilariously awful but I love it ha ha.

When you guys did a Dinasty Warriors 9 video (I don't know if it was you or Richard, I think it was Richard) I almost had a heart attack with the animations, which don't have interpolation of any kind. In fucking 2018. It was hilarious to see tons of horses turn around, it was like something from a mini project a student could do.

Dark1x · Jul 15, 2019

Atolm said:
When you guys did a Dinasty Warriors 9 video (I don't know if it was you or Richard, I think it was Richard) I almost had a heart attack with the animations, which don't have interpolation of any kind. In fucking 2018. It was hilarious to see tons of horses turn around, it was like something from a mini project a student could do.

Oh it looks like garbage in motion and it runs poorly too. I think that was a Dave video prior to his departure into space!

Zellia · Jul 15, 2019

Will watch this after work! Recently played through the Turok 1 remaster and although the game shows its age in a few places (particularly the platforming) it was still super fun to play.

Jazzem · Jul 15, 2019

Love DF Retro so much <3 I've just started playing Turok (via PC remaster) for the first time and I'm loving it for all the reasons stated in the video, a tremendously satisfying mixture of exploration and Quake esque fast shooting. I read about it so much in UK magazines back in the day so is nice to have that curiosity finally piqued :)

For those playing on PC, the Next Generation mod pack is highly recommended, which has the primary function of enhancing all the textures with ESRGAN (or similar) AI machine learning tech:

7FD31CFABC29DC19A4E793DF8668B48AE3C9BD4F

E62A33E3C4C0C96D2F6703CB2822B28DC73BFBEE

BA4B66275767C16D92DEC942FED553957583099C

Creation_Scapes · Jul 15, 2019

Jazzem said:
Love DF Retro so much <3 I've just started playing Turok (via PC remaster) for the first time and I'm loving it for all the reasons stated in the video, a tremendously satisfying mixture of exploration and Quake esque fast shooting. I read about it so much in UK magazines back in the day so is nice to have that curiosity finally piqued :)

For those playing on PC, the Next Generation mod pack is highly recommended, which has the primary function of enhancing all the textures with ESRGAN (or similar) AI machine learning tech:

That's a huge difference.

boris_feinbrand · Jul 15, 2019

Jazzem said:

Meth, not even once.

ShinJohnpv · Jul 15, 2019

Great video, and I am a big Turok fan as well. I drooled over all the magazine pics before its release, and played through it quite a few times on my N64. If I can just make one little comment on the video. You mention that they went for keyframe animation instead of inverse kinematics and that's not an accurate statement. Inverse Kinematics (IK) is just a rigging technique for setting up character controls. Its not an or in regards to keyframe animation. The or for IK would be Forward Kinematics (FK). IK definitely makes things like planting a foot and doing walk/run cycles so much easier, but I don't remember if the 3D Animation software available at the time would have had IK yet. For what they accomplished using FK is pretty damn impressive.

catashtrophe · Jul 15, 2019

Edward850 said:
The original Turok2 levels are lost to time, unfortunately. Unlike the Turok1 levels which still technically worked but needed changes to account for the fog draw distance, Turok2's levels were outright broken from extraction and needed modifications to even be playable (the source code was not in the best of conditions when we received it). During this process the original design layouts were lost, which means we'd have to re-extract and fix them all over again.

So does Turok 2 remaster have different level designs?

Also will this ever come to PS4?

Dictator · Jul 15, 2019

catashtrophe said:
So does Turok 2 remaster have different level designs?

Yes, but they are 100% for the better. Turok 2s levels... in OG form are extremely confusing and not in a good way.

Edward850 said:
Heh, I can't really say anything on that. If it happens, announcing such projects would be up to the license holder.

Ask Stephen and Larry. :P

Any chance of a revist of Turok 1 PC adding in that original lens flare or some other nice features that have been added to Kex since Turok 2? :D

Kain · Jul 15, 2019

Yeah, Turok was the shit back in the day, I remember specially Rage Wars, which was basically old times DLC, we had such a blast playing with my cousins. Cerebral bore for days.

Buuuuuut the fog. Even back in 90 whatever the fog was an issue, specially compared with stuff like Golden eye or heck, even Quake or Doom. Yeah I know they are completely different beasts and Turok's animations and particles were top notch but 13 year old me didn't know shit about that stuff and I only saw the fog. I was a Playstation kid and fog was not so common in PSX games (that's not to say there wasn't any game with fog, of course) and it really made an impact on me. Still a great experience.

GrrImAFridge · Jul 15, 2019

scitek said:
I still can't fucking believe they got Half-Life 2 running on an Xbox. The full game, too!

A fun fact about the Xbox port is that it makes use of data streaming to overcome the Xbox's paltry amount of RAM (64MB, or a quarter of the 256MB minimum for the PC version). For whatever reason, Valve never expanded upon the feature for the PC or PS360 branches of Source, but Source 2 does have its own data streaming system, which is used in Dota 2. Better late than never!

Rolodzeo · Jul 15, 2019

It just came to my mind, I always heard nice things of the Turok GB(C) games, any impressions on those? Do they follow the same hub structure?

boris_feinbrand · Jul 15, 2019

Rolodzeo said:
It just came to my mind, I always heard nice things of the Turok GB(C) games, any impressions on those? Do they follow the same hub structure?

From my recollection they were more like Contra no?

Anthony Hopkins · Jul 15, 2019

Back in day the turok1 was the one with a cool idea, but lacking and turok 2 was more its final form.
I formed somewhat of an associated anxiety from turok 2 though. Will probably never play it again.

Edward850 · Jul 15, 2019

catashtrophe said:
Also will this ever come to PS4?

I can't give you a definitive answer to this because that conversation would currently be between various partners, however it is something that we do want to do.
The PS4 has had all sorts of weird hurdles for us and had the misfortune of consistently drawing the short straw. Getting Kex3 up to speed on different platforms requires a lot of work so we can only really do one at a time. The Xbox came first and things were simple with full support of Dx11. We may have jumped on the PS4 after but then the Switch came out and was super hot, and has complete support for OpenGL and Vulkan with Nvidia specs so that didn't even need Kaiser to write up a new RHI.

Dictator said:
Any chance of a revist of Turok 1 PC adding in that original lens flare or some other nice features that have been added to Kex since Turok 2? :D

Eventually. Due to other priority projects, patch updates for previous titles tend to slow down a bit.

Gen X · Jul 17, 2019

I remember ringing an advert in a local trading paper where someone had Turok and wanted to swap for another game. I rang and offered SM64 to which he accepted (I had done the 120 Stars). I had to drive through to his work and he worked in an Audio and Visual store. I was blown away when he booted up the game to show it running and the N64 was hooked up to a 300" Projector screen and Dolby Surround stereo. Despite me enjoying the game at home on my 29" telly, I couldn't help being spoiled by the projector experience. I ended up buying a projector about 6yrs later which I used with my OG Xbox.

But Turok, man that game was awesome. Also, the jumping sections were very easy if you turned on the map overlay.

mccauslander · Jul 18, 2019

I have no idea why I never got around to playing Turok back in the day. I just downloaded the Switch port because I loved what I saw in John's video (90's FPS action mixed with exploration made by the guys who would end up making Metroid Prime?!) - I am in looooooove!

Thanks Dark1x for bringing up this gem with your superb video! Now I patiently wait for the sequels to hit the Switch...

EeK9X · Aug 9, 2019

I've only recently watched this fantastic DF Retro episode (congrats, as always, Dark1x and Dictator), and it inspired me to finally download and play my Steam copy of the remaster.

It runs great in 4K@60Hz on my rig (i7-7700K, 32GB RAM, 1080 Ti), but, occasionally, I get massive slowdowns, to the point where I think the game has crashed (the frame rate drops to literally 0). It only lasts for a few seconds (maybe four or five), then everything gets back to normal. Sill, it's very distracting and can make platforming very difficult, since it happens every 5-10 minutes.

I'm running in exclusive full screen mode, and tried playing with VSync both enabled and disabled, as well as with and without RTSS (using Scanline Sync). The issue persists, no matter the settings. Anyone else having this problem?

Edit: Edward850, can you help me? There's no way to tag users on the Steam forums and I just found out that you're here thanks to the Turok Switch thread.

horkrux · Aug 9, 2019

Wow I didn't know static meshes for maps were a thing back then. I thought this was a relatively recent thing.

DF Retro: Turok Dinosaur Hunter - How An N64 Classic Evolved The Console FPS

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