Phew, finally beat Turok 2. Those are some looong levels.
All said and done, I think I might actually prefer the first. The variety in Turok 2 is great, but there's something to be said of Turok 1's simplicity. Turok 2 got exhausting at some points, and I think it went out on a low with the last level. So many corridors and turrets. Not a lot of challenge, just nuisance. The Hive had tougher enemies. Turok 2 also has a lot of 'weird doohicky' weapons that serve little practical purpose compared to the numerous alternatives. Stuff like the sun pods, the tranquilizer gun, the flare gun, torpedo launcher, some straight upgrades (tek bow, war blade etc.) really clogs up the weapon list (thank goodness for the two wheels). Normally I'm all for that unusual stuff, but I'd prefer it have some lasting purpose. One reason I can't hail DOOM as the best FPS out there is because the pistol is only relevant for like 1% of the game. Then it's just a useless eighth of your arsenal. Poor design in my book. At least in something like Duke 3D, the pistol maintains an advantage in accuracy over the chaingun cannon (making it useful for activating distant buttons), and has its own type of ammo, making it a good backup when you run low. Plus it doesn't suck completely like the DOOM pistol does.
I've gotten sidetracked... uh...
The backtracking elements felt very padded. Levels are very large and segmented, and once you've cleared them the first time, they're mostly quiet. Abilities aside from the cleansing water had extremely limited use and weren't very exciting. There is a lot of new stuff being tried, and I appreciate it, I just wish they'd trimmed some of the fat out of these levels, and tweaked some weapons into having more useful functions in the later game.
As for the port, it's mostly excellent. I just struggled with aiming. Turok 1 enemies have giant hitboxes, and it doesn't matter much where you hit an enemy (honestly it became a bit of a problem as these giant hitboxes seemed to stick around on corpses, sometimes blocking my shots, or at least appearing to do so). However, Turok 2 is a game that really really demands precision with its tight hitboxes, high headshot damage on otherwise quite spongey enemies, and some very mobile foes, but I found the deadzone on both the stick and gyro aiming was too large. I tweaked the controller sensitivity and acceleration, but I couldn't find any configuration that remedied my issue. I got better with practice and compensated by learning how to dodge really well, but making precise adjustments to my aim was a struggle through to the end of the game. There doesn't appear to be much of any aim assist either to mitigate the issue. That and the overlay map resetting it's zoom level after every area change got annoying.
This probably isn't useful feedback given how old the original port is, but I'd thought I'd give it anyway. Still largely excellent, and I'm happy to add more to my old school FPS collection. It's a fine state of affairs when I can play Doom 1, 2, 64, and 3, Duke 3D, and Turok 1 & 2 on a PS5.
