DF Retro is quickly becoming my "Sunday morning cartoons" for grownups. I'm watching these videos while having my breakfast. Great way to start a morning.
You said it. Especially if it's a Switch video. I don't have one myself, but I just find it to be the most interesting device in terms of finding out how the games run in handheld and docked modes and the decisions the developers make in order to make their games work.
i use to play it on n64 back then now i got both on pc from steam. very low opinion but turok 3 shadows of oblivion was my favorite even though the graphics were downgraded compared to turok 2, i loved the minigun and the shotgun with dragon breath shells and the vampire gun when i was getting destroyed on chapter 5 by grenade throwing machete holding alien dudes.
turok 3 probably reduced graphics to increase framerate and draw distance, not a better game than turok 2 though, sure the level design is less maze like yet its also tedious in its own way, feels generic a lot of times for example.
@@therealpizzagirl i beat it 3 times and even once in 7 hours. if you beat it without cheating and at lease on normal you unlock the cheat to play with both gun set ups which can look weird because it switches from male hands to female hands.
They got the inspiration from Golden Eye, back in those days i can't think of any other shooter console or PC that came close. It took some years until Soldier of Fortune came with even more over the top stuff. There's was a weapon called the Razor Wind, you could aim it at legs, arms or the head to dismember the creatures. T2 get's lots of flak for it's poor frame rates but seen the game with an expantion pak in 98 compared to PlayStation/Saturn stuff it just looked a generation ahead.
For me Turok 2 is legendary status. I prefer it quite abit over Turok 1. I was born in 82, so when I got Turok 2 on release on N64, I was old enough to comprehend the level design, somewhat, and did beat the the game all the way back then. Lair of the Blind ones to me wasn't that bad, it was the Hive that taxed my sanity, it probably was the color scheme and overall architecture of the level, but I could slowly feel my sanity leaving me. That and the 3 sisters of despair with their infinite spawning mobs. Still overall as I said, as a package. Gameplay. Weapons. Music. Levels. Legendary status. 'Your failure is...inevitable..."
From Turok 1 and 2 yes, Turok 3 had quite a different team, in fact, Retro was founded in '98 with the main team of the first two games, while Turok 3 was launched in 2000.
Man I have so many good memories from this game, I remember how hyped I was when I went to the store to grab my pre-ordered copy for the N64. I also got the memory expansion pack too for that sweet extra resolution bump, haha. I remember the game offered different control setups, one of those very similar to how we'd play on a PC, moving and strafing with the C-Buttons and aiming with the stick, so we could do a lot of circle strafing and all that. The gore and animations really blew my mind back then, and so did the atmosphere of many of the levels, and of course the incredible soundtrack. The N64 really had lots of cool first persons shooters ported to the system, I didn't have a PC back then but thanks to this console I got introduced to Duke Nukem, Quake, DOOM and of course Turok.
The boring gun which drilled into enemies heads and blew up was great heh. Played seeds of evil multiplayer where one person is a monkey you have to kill.. it was good times
And in Turok 3 you have 2 variants of the cerebral bore, based on characters you choose. Danielle's version lets you control your enemies when the bore locks on one of em. Josephs version is basically a flying proximity mine, which was badass too
Its still not perfect, if you're too close to an enemy, the shot will just not register at all in some cases. Only major complaint I have about the 64 version, its still the best in my eyes.
Turok 2 was not the downfall of Turok but rather its peak, seeds of evil was the favorite of many including me and i played the first turok game first and second one later. The first turok was cool, but the second one fleshed out the game more. The maze like maps were a bit confusing and could be troublesome for some people, but as a kid i took it as a challenge to figure out things and it probably helped me to learn to think more when i play games.
I thought it was great back when it came out, i loved it. Don't remember the game running poorly on the Euro version i have, i know it used the memory expansion and i already had it in my console so i don't know if that made all the difference to improve what these guys are complaining about.
It actually makes the game run worse from what I remember because of the higher texture and less fog... meaning more rendering on screen. At least for me. The expansion pak did make the game look prettier and higher-def... but I had way more slow downs and FPS drops. Lmao!
You could change the resolution in the options and the low res ran much better with the expansion pack. Although some of the more explosive weapons would still cause the fps to hit low single digits lol.
What I usually did when playing Turok 2 on the N64 was to play it in Letterbox mode. It actually ran a bit smoother using up less vertical room on the screen.
I LOVED the original Turok trilogy on the N64. Thank you for your DF Retro review on this and other classic games . I will however have to respectfully disagree with your assessment of Turok 2. Yes, its flawed but it was a superior game when compared to the original. The game was clearly designed for the N64 console . And for a console FPS , Turok 2 was a feat in gaming at the time of its release . Especially paired with the Expansion Pack, everything from the graphics, animations, levels, weapons, music, etc. were EPIC for its time. Sure the levels were confusing and caused a player to backtrack quite a bit , but for the time I remember thinking how incredible it was to play in worlds that were so large. It was an immersive experience for me at the time. Each of the levels were unique and made you feel that you were part of the epic (VERY 1990’s)storyline. To call to pretty much “unplayable” .is a bit much especially when compared to other games that were released at the time. Frame rate dips were common in all console games and so gamers like myself were very tolerant of it especially if it meant we got the graphical presentation of games like Turok 2 and Perfect Dark. Calling it “not good enough to have the name Turok ...” is also a bit much as the original was incredible but its wasn’t Half-Life. While it was an incredibly fun game, I feel was not nearly as creative or expansive as its sequel. I think the Nightdive remake really retains the elements that made it so much fun while making tweaks to help clean up the gameplay a bit while still retaining its original feel. Ultimately i think Turok 2 is an important game in the history of FPS in general. Without it you wouldn’t get games like Metriod Prime and thus makes it ( in my opinion of course) one of the best FPSs of all time.
I preferred Turok 2 over the first game. I liked it was a bit more than just finding keys. It was something new at the time (1998). It also had some of the best weapons yet. I must say the remasters are brilliant and have fixed a lot of issues with the game.
I remember trying in vain to kill the triceratops in the river of souls, when I discovered that I could ride it I was elated. Nothing like watching enemies run for their lives
Really hope NightDive does a remaster for turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion. It was late 2000 release on N64 and If memory serves, it never got a PC release.
They will. Samuel "Kaiser" Villarreal along with Nightdive themselves actually considered doing a remaster of the third one at some point according to a few interviews. In fact, Kaiser managed to port Doom 64 to the PC using his own expertise thus proving this possibility. It's only a matter of time.
Same. I feel like Rage Wars is the most forgotten, but so fascinating. Basically tried to get its own slice of the Quake 3/UT99 pie for N64 and decently well.
I really enjoyed Turok 1, but Turok 2 made me fall in love with the series. When I was playing it on the N64 I felt like it was an incredible step up from the first game. Just thinking about the articles in EGM and remembering the screenshots of Turok 2 get me all euphoric with nostalgia.
Great video....but I have to disagree on Turok 2. It had flaws (frammrate, fog and levels were too big)..... but dang it was so much fun. The story, very varied level designs from level to level, the guns, enemy types....the game BLEW me away back in the day. I'm actually sad that they never finished the story. #3 ended on a cliffhanger and I really wanted to know what happened next
It had lots of problems, the only reason I liked it then was because I was younger. The level design is rather horrible in Turok games, big and maze like. This is after all released in the same year as something much more complex such as Thief: The Dark Project
Hirnlego999 Thief is great. But I wouldn’t compare the level design with T2 as it’s more an immersive sim stealth game and Turok is a first person shooter. They share similar ideas and world aesthetics no doubt, but the overall game level design and gameplay philosophies are very different.
one of the greatest games ever made, the atmosphere/soundtrack/combat/ weapon veriety/weapon feel/authenticity/enemy AI/animation etc put 99%of FPS from that era to shame
Turok 2 has some great graphical presentation for the N64, but no, it's got a lot of flaws. The map design, the framerate. I beat Turok Dinosaur Hunter. I never beat Turok 2. The weapons, in isolation, are amazing. The enemy animations and design, in isolation, are amazing. The game as a total package? It's a little frustrating to play with the chugging frame-rate, the overly long levels with poor layout, and the obtuse objectives where things are basically buried in the furthest corners of the map. Turok Dinosaur Hunter is just way more fun to play. Tal'set moves way fast and smoother, the levels aren't as big or overly designed. It's just more playable on the original hardware today. Granted Night Dive did some great things with the remaster to help fix some of the issues that Turok 2 has, but I still prefer Dinosaur Hunter.
I admire your persistence to get to the part of the game on N64 when you ride the monster ('cause obviously it's not in the beginning) just to capture the footage and measure fps... Keep up the good job! All the best to you
Fair analysis. Still, even if the level design gets progressively worse, the first 2 levels of Turok 2 are THE best oldschool FPS action you'll ever find imo, specialy with this remaster.
Can i say something? The enemy AI was so advanced, you can actually make them fight each other! I would use the invisible cheat, and make em miss and hit one another. The types of enemies that fought each other were special! Watching the Entrail destroy a raptoid never gets old
Turok 1 is amazing as a casual game you can just speed through and have fun with without having to backtrack ever. Turok 2 on the other hand is much more like a Zelda game where theres lots of exploration and back tracking. Both are amazing, I personally prefer 2 a lot more but 1 is still an amazing game.
I AM TUROK!... I really enjoyed this episode... Can't get enough of Turok. The 2008 attempt has nice brutal Dino killing quick time sequences. I really enjoyed them, felt so intense.
I can't believe you haven't talked about the game's performance on N64 with the expansion pack. Come on DF, you're the pros. How could you leave that out of the analysis??
@@AdolfoWWolf Back in the day I remember reading super positive reviews of the game, saying the graphics were uncanny and the gameplay even better. I have the game and I've tried it with the expansion pack, but I can't talk about the difference because I haven't played it 100% yet. I think I'll finally give some use to that cartridge (as soon as I finish Eternal Darkness on the Cube).
@@stonerdemon well, i couldn't see anything big when talking about resolution, the hi-res mode just looked to me like a wide screen mode, however, in framerate, i don't recall having that bad of a frame rate in the first stage like was shown here, it was low, but not that low. I picked the remastered version because i like this game a lot, i no longer have my N64 unfortunately. Good times.
The Switch is quickly becoming one of my favourite consoles, its such a good platform for pretty much every game, from older classics like Turok to modern masterpieces like Witcher 3 and Doom.
@I see you liked your own comment the fact that it even runs on the Switch is a miracle tbh, but yeah I'd be surprised if it maintained 30 FPS. Outer Worlds is another game that'll be interesting to see running on the Switch too.
@@therealpizzagirl you're not wrong, but its still cool to have a portable console that can play AAA games literally anywhere. I see the Switch as more a compliment to a PC, rather than an only option.
@MultiTarded I'd argue portability is its greatest strength, and there are some amazing exclusives for it like Mario Maker 2, BotW, Smash, Mario + Rabbids etc
A little disappointed that you didn't get into the pros and cons of the expansion pak capability. Also, my favorite part of the game was playing it multi-player with friends.
Expansion pak increased the resolution but it also caused som input latency that kind of ruined the game for me. The N64 version of Quake II had the same issue.
I played through the N64 version back in the 90s and I feel like it wasn’t nearly as awful or terrible a game as this video makes out. A lot of games on N64 ran at 15-20 FPS. Ocarina of Time, one of the greatest games of all time, was locked at 20. Goldeneye ran at 10-15 FPS, and yet was fondly remembered. So while Turok 2’s 10-15 FPS was disappointing, I don’t think it was as abysmal judged by the standards of the time as this video suggests. Granted, Toruk 2’s frame rate has aged horribly. Now that we are all used to 60 FPS+ on PC and 30 FPS on console the N64 game is virtually unplayable now. But at the time it was well-loved and pretty well regarded as an N64 game, and the weapons and gore were fantastic. It really was not a catastrophic technical failure as you present it as.
I liked the level design of Turok 2 and the way it made you feel like you were in a large real world instead of a get to the end of the stage type of game.
Real Dinosaur Hunters endured the harsh frame rates on the N64 version of Turok 2 and loved the fogging which added it's own unique atmosphere to the level heh! I loved Turok 2 and can still play it to this day on the N64 and marvel at some of the things that game was doing at that time in gaming. Great stuff.
I own a complete N64 Pal collection (cib). Downloaded Turok 2 Remastered last year on Xbox One X and finished one of my favorite childhood games, I could not finish as a lil kid. Now I preordered the physical copies of Turok 1 and 2 for Nintendo Switch from Limited Run Games. Looking forward to complete Turok 1 on it. I wished they could also remaster Turok 3 and give the series a sequel/reboot it deserves.
I actually returned my copy of Turok: Evolution to EB on the grounds it was defective. There's a mission where you're supposed to sneak around and use a silenced weapon to kill enemies without being spotted, and the weapon magically decided to delete itself from my inventory at the start of the level, leaving me completely unable to progress. I couldn't even pick up the ammo boxes lying around. GC version btw
Evolution was the game that sunk Acclaim. They borrowed and borrowed to develop that hot mess, and when it flopped, because it was an awful game, they had no way to repay their debts. It probably didn't help that their other big name franchise sequel at the time was Shadow Man 2, and that, just like Turok Evolution, was a laughably bad game compared to it's brilliant prequel.
I have a few gripes with the Night Dive version of Turok 2. Firstly, the flashlight is the wrong colour. In the original game, it's a moody blue. And it is also vertex-based, casting a jagged light pointed forward. In the Night Dive version, is is a perfectly circular yellow light source placed seemingly inside the camera. It doesn't feel like a flashlight. Secondly, the Night Dive version, much like the old PC version, loses a lot of the dark and moody aesthetic the N64 version had. It's not just adding bloom and such. Remember that Turok 2 featured a flare gun (which Quake II RTX later ripped off) in order to demonstrate its impressive dynamic lighting system. This meant a lot of indoor areas in Turok 2 are quite dark in the N64 original. The Night Dive version is a LOT brighter and the contrasts are less defined. I think the pistol demonstrates this lighting issue more than anything else. In the N64 version, it is darker and more clearly defined, and this makes it look compact and menacing. In the later versions the pistol is much brighter, and it kinda looks like a plastic toy. Also, the original game's lighting system was per-vertex. What this means is that explosions and light sources cast a kind of "organic" looking light. By contrast, the per-pixel lighting of the Night Dive version is always perfectly round. You fire your shotgun with explosive shells, and the explosion creates a perfect circle of light instead of the jagged one the original had. Perfectly circular dynamic lights are never very nice to look at. They appear very artificial, especially if their source is fire or an explosion or something. Overall, Night Dive's version is a lot better to play. It's just a bit... off, IMHO.
I wish developers would post short details on why and how their games' ports turned out the way they did. It would really put into perspective why a game runs the way it does, whether it be poorly, okay, or well. The doom 3 port on newest consoles doesn't run flawlessly even on the PS4, so it would've been cool to know what caused the framerate drops on a console from this generation for a game that old. I guess I'm asking too much.
Yes, the Cerebral Bore is cool and creative, but I agree with Alex - I never used that thing unless I was showing off the game to one of my friends. It was just quicker to scalp the bad guys with that glorious shotgun!
I love the host connection for these Turok episodes. I met my now best friend who was the new kid in ninth grade after sharing our collective hype for the newly released Turok 2 in early 1999!
Turok: Evolution will always hold a special place in my heart for being the game which forced me to adopt dual-analog shooting controls. My previous PS2 FPS games, TimeSplitters and Red Faction, allowed for control remapping, so I was able to put strafing on the right stick and turning on the left. It wasn't until Evolution, which didn't allow control remapping, that I was forced to open my eyes, and I never looked back. So there will always be respect there, even if I have no desire to ever go back and see how Evolution holds up, or more likely, does not hold up.
You all didn’t talk about the N64 expansion pack enhancements like resolution and improved frame rate! I originally played the game with it way back in 1999.
If they ever remaster Turok: Evolution, I like to see the game mechanics TOTALLY reworked, and seamless loading, so I guess I'd like more of a remake than a remaster.
What? No mention of Turok: Rage Wars? ;p I would love to see a PC remaster of that with some added content and local split-screen multiplayer (and online MP too)
I frickin loved turok 2, found it so damn hard and easy to get lost but back in the day it was weird, if a game began to stutter with bad frame rate it was kinda like ''wow! look how hard they are pushing the n64 hardware man!'' lol I had a weird way of looking at things back then. Loved the game though and loving this remaster but got it on pc, mouse and keyboard all the way baby.
Turok 2 was one of the first games to use the expansion on N64, if I remember correctly, right? Did you take a second to look at what it brought to the game?
all it does is increase resolution I think, maybe does affect framerate negativly also, because higher res still requires more processing, not just extra ram
10:00 what? No, no, no. I got this game with a RivaTNT 2 Ultra 32MB card back in 1999. I can assure you the game looked and ran _alot_ better! Voodoo 1 cards started to become outdated at that point.
I got Turok 2 and Extreme G2 together with my TNT 2 Graphics card and I loved this game it was one of my favorites. still is very fun today. Still have my Turok 2 disk but can't find my Extreme G2 one... ah well
The first time I ever blasted a hole clean through an enemy with the shredder and saw bits of rib sticking out and guts spurting everywhere, I was even more hooked than I already was
Did I miss a discussion of the expansion pack? Also, you can do really interesting things if you use a GameShark on the N64, like having multiple players in split-screen on campaign maps.
Still love this game.. Played it 20 years ago.. Bought it when the remaster launched on Switch and guess what?: Its still as great as I remembered. One of the best shooters of all time and imo even better than Half Life 2.
I was so hyped for this game at the time, and I too got stuck in the Blind Ones area for far too long... but did eventually beat it...on the N64! Did you guys ever play Turok Rage Wars? I found that game a massive time sink and ended up enjoying it much more than the other games that followed...
I have both these games for N64. Rented Turok back in the day And thought it was a great game. I have the remastered versions for PC off Steam and really enjoying playing the first game again. Never actually played much of Turok 2. Great review guys!
I dont think it was the console itself and using cartridges probably wasnt a performance issue either, its mainly because they prefered graphics more than framerate, which is ironic considering they advertised turok1 being 30fps, I guess for turok2 they thought otherwise
yea the gpu and ram can be an issue, although again, considering turok1 had better framerate, its probably because they wanted to increase the graphics regardless of performance
You also need to keep in mind the state of the industry as a whole at the time. By MODERN standards the N64 had terrible framerates, yes, but when you compare the performance of N64 games versus the same or similar games on PS1 and Saturn, you start to get a clearer picture of how that was pretty standard. Heck, games like Wolfenstein, DOOM, and even Quake were considered playable running at framerates that nowadays would be considered completely unacceptable, and that was for their original PC releases (20 FPS or lower at times.) The N64 had one thing going for it during the 5th generation console war, and it wasn't its controller. The N64 was THE graphical powerhouse at the time, in an era when that title didn't necessarily have to include a framerate bump alongside the smoother textures, higher resolutions, and larger poly counts. PS1 (and even Saturn) games may have AGED better, but at the time a lot of the features the N64 packed we lament nowadays, including its fuzz filter, helped to make it stand head and shoulders in graphical presentation over its competitors.
Guerilla Grue Plays I love the N64 but there were times the n64 versions of games ran at lower framerates lower than the competition. I think it’s biggest bottleneck was the memory. It was a shared pool and the bandwidth was too narrow to support both cpu and gpu fully at the same time. It was still overall the most powerful by far no doubt but some developers didn’t know how to work around the bottlenecks as good as others.
I had a blast playing this game when it came out on n64. Yeah the low fps sucked, but the world is so amazing... my 2nd best game on n64. Finished it a few times too
Currently playing this game after 20yrs Never had the patience as a kid or the intelligence as a young child to beat even the 1st level But holy hot hell am I having a blast Do feel like normal mode is a little too easy enemy wise but hey, I'm having fun
I remember back when we had video rental stores there was this advertisement for the original Turok game that made me want to buy a n64 so bad! I really enjoyed the Turok trilogy on the 64.
To be fair, everything on Nintendo 64 chugged along at 10 fps. Nobody seemed to care, or at least we were willing to live with it. Saturn owners will gladly point to the Lobotomy Trilogy and ask why gamers were so obsessed with transparencies above all else. Anyway, the important thing is that Turok is back and looks fantastic, and that I wore an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time.
Love this conversation. Glad to know there is still love for the Turok series. My first M-rated game I ever owned via N64; all because it only featured "gore and violence" and had a dinosaurs on the cover. If only my parents knew the extent of the gore lol.
for all the hate RTX gets i cant help imagining what an implementation of ray tracing would look like every time i see these old classic games. it seems to be the most powerful use of the technology so far.
DF Retro is quickly becoming my "Sunday morning cartoons" for grownups. I'm watching these videos while having my breakfast. Great way to start a morning.
Sickbrain DF Retro is my Sunday morning breakfast show as well
Me too ;) or lunch :D
You said it. Especially if it's a Switch video. I don't have one myself, but I just find it to be the most interesting device in terms of finding out how the games run in handheld and docked modes and the decisions the developers make in order to make their games work.
Never played these games but man, those are top notch death animations even today.
i use to play it on n64 back then now i got both on pc from steam. very low opinion but turok 3 shadows of oblivion was my favorite even though the graphics were downgraded compared to turok 2, i loved the minigun and the shotgun with dragon breath shells and the vampire gun when i was getting destroyed on chapter 5 by grenade throwing machete holding alien dudes.
turok 3 probably reduced graphics to increase framerate and draw distance, not a better game than turok 2 though, sure the level design is less maze like yet its also tedious in its own way, feels generic a lot of times for example.
@@FreeAimDog Turok 3 was a great game
@@therealpizzagirl i beat it 3 times and even once in 7 hours. if you beat it without cheating and at lease on normal you unlock the cheat to play with both gun set ups which can look weird because it switches from male hands to female hands.
They got the inspiration from Golden Eye, back in those days i can't think of any other shooter console or PC that came close. It took some years until Soldier of Fortune came with even more over the top stuff.
There's was a weapon called the Razor Wind, you could aim it at legs, arms or the head to dismember the creatures. T2 get's lots of flak for it's poor frame rates but seen the game with an expantion pak in 98 compared to PlayStation/Saturn stuff it just looked a generation ahead.
For me Turok 2 is legendary status. I prefer it quite abit over Turok 1. I was born in 82, so when I got Turok 2 on release on N64, I was old enough to comprehend the level design, somewhat, and did beat the the game all the way back then. Lair of the Blind ones to me wasn't that bad, it was the Hive that taxed my sanity, it probably was the color scheme and overall architecture of the level, but I could slowly feel my sanity leaving me. That and the 3 sisters of despair with their infinite spawning mobs.
Still overall as I said, as a package. Gameplay. Weapons. Music. Levels. Legendary status.
'Your failure is...inevitable..."
Turok 1-3 team went on to form Retro Studios and do the Metroid Prime games...
Beavernator really??
Beavernator thanks for the info , I knew there was something cool about the Metroid prime series
From Turok 1 and 2 yes, Turok 3 had quite a different team, in fact, Retro was founded in '98 with the main team of the first two games, while Turok 3 was launched in 2000.
Is this true? I’ve never heard that before.
Man I have so many good memories from this game, I remember how hyped I was when I went to the store to grab my pre-ordered copy for the N64. I also got the memory expansion pack too for that sweet extra resolution bump, haha. I remember the game offered different control setups, one of those very similar to how we'd play on a PC, moving and strafing with the C-Buttons and aiming with the stick, so we could do a lot of circle strafing and all that. The gore and animations really blew my mind back then, and so did the atmosphere of many of the levels, and of course the incredible soundtrack.
The N64 really had lots of cool first persons shooters ported to the system, I didn't have a PC back then but thanks to this console I got introduced to Duke Nukem, Quake, DOOM and of course Turok.
Turok 2 best weapons ever put in a video game. They are all so satisfying to use
The Turok series always had the coolest most unique arsenal. Even the more forgettable games, like that one that came out during the ps2/gc/xbox era.
The boring gun which drilled into enemies heads and blew up was great heh. Played seeds of evil multiplayer where one person is a monkey you have to kill.. it was good times
And in Turok 3 you have 2 variants of the cerebral bore, based on characters you choose. Danielle's version lets you control your enemies when the bore locks on one of em. Josephs version is basically a flying proximity mine, which was badass too
I like using the Turok Plus mod for Turok Remastered because it adds the weapons from Turok 2.
@@greysky1252 evolution
The hit detection for the N64 version works fine when you turn off auto aim.
Its still not perfect, if you're too close to an enemy, the shot will just not register at all in some cases. Only major complaint I have about the 64 version, its still the best in my eyes.
Turok 2 was not the downfall of Turok but rather its peak, seeds of evil was the favorite of many including me and i played the first turok game first and second one later. The first turok was cool, but the second one fleshed out the game more. The maze like maps were a bit confusing and could be troublesome for some people, but as a kid i took it as a challenge to figure out things and it probably helped me to learn to think more when i play games.
I thought it was great back when it came out, i loved it.
Don't remember the game running poorly on the Euro version i have, i know it used the memory expansion and i already had it in my console so i don't know if that made all the difference to improve what these guys are complaining about.
Turok 2 is honestly probably my favorite N64 game after Starfox 64 and OoT.
Good taste 👍🏽
You guys forgot to mention the 4mb ram-pack for the N64.
Really helped with the frame rate and visuals
It actually makes the game run worse from what I remember because of the higher texture and less fog... meaning more rendering on screen. At least for me.
The expansion pak did make the game look prettier and higher-def... but I had way more slow downs and FPS drops. Lmao!
You could change the resolution in the options and the low res ran much better with the expansion pack.
Although some of the more explosive weapons would still cause the fps to hit low single digits lol.
What I usually did when playing Turok 2 on the N64 was to play it in Letterbox mode. It actually ran a bit smoother using up less vertical room on the screen.
I LOVED the original Turok trilogy on the N64. Thank you for your DF Retro review on this and other classic games . I will however have to respectfully disagree with your assessment of Turok 2. Yes, its flawed but it was a superior game when compared to the original. The game was clearly designed for the N64 console . And for a console FPS , Turok 2 was a feat in gaming at the time of its release . Especially paired with the Expansion Pack, everything from the graphics, animations, levels, weapons, music, etc. were EPIC for its time. Sure the levels were confusing and caused a player to backtrack quite a bit , but for the time I remember thinking how incredible it was to play in worlds that were so large. It was an immersive experience for me at the time. Each of the levels were unique and made you feel that you were part of the epic (VERY 1990’s)storyline. To call to pretty much “unplayable” .is a bit much especially when compared to other games that were released at the time. Frame rate dips were common in all console games and so gamers like myself were very tolerant of it especially if it meant we got the graphical presentation of games like Turok 2 and Perfect Dark. Calling it “not good enough to have the name Turok ...” is also a bit much as the original was incredible but its wasn’t Half-Life. While it was an incredibly fun game, I feel was not nearly as creative or expansive as its sequel. I think the Nightdive remake really retains the elements that made it so much fun while making tweaks to help clean up the gameplay a bit while still retaining its original feel. Ultimately i think Turok 2 is an important game in the history of FPS in general. Without it you wouldn’t get games like Metriod Prime and thus makes it ( in my opinion of course) one of the best FPSs of all time.
I preferred Turok 2 over the first game. I liked it was a bit more than just finding keys. It was something new at the time (1998). It also had some of the best weapons yet. I must say the remasters are brilliant and have fixed a lot of issues with the game.
Turok 2 is superior in every way except for framerate maybe.
I remember trying in vain to kill the triceratops in the river of souls, when I discovered that I could ride it I was elated. Nothing like watching enemies run for their lives
I had the same Opinion back then, but for the Switch, those oldschool Shooters are great.
Here and there a few Rounds of Doom or Turok, so much Fun.
I found Turok 2 way too tedious to play because of the level design.
@@FelixS. Yes I agree, thanks to the remaster it has also addressed the framerate fog etc issues.
I love that you guys have a working voodoo equipped pc for this review. Never stop with the details DF. 😊
We need graphic card emulators.
@@Clay3613 I would love to have an FPGA that simulates various old graphic cards. Maybe we will get there in the future.
Really hope NightDive does a remaster for turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion. It was late 2000 release on N64 and If memory serves, it never got a PC release.
They will. Samuel "Kaiser" Villarreal along with Nightdive themselves actually considered doing a remaster of the third one at some point according to a few interviews. In fact, Kaiser managed to port Doom 64 to the PC using his own expertise thus proving this possibility. It's only a matter of time.
not sure the reason, the game was mostly lame, they also seemed to reduced enemy animation, had nice draw distance and textures though
Never played 3 but heard it's good and much different. I'm hoping for an online Rage Wars. THAT game was awesome.
After the little number Night Dive did with Blood remaster I've lost a lot of faith for them.
I'm really looking forward to that, the 3rd game was the most balanced in the series, i'd go as far as saying it was the best one.
I want to see Turok: Rage Wars get remastered and come to switch.
Same. I feel like Rage Wars is the most forgotten, but so fascinating. Basically tried to get its own slice of the Quake 3/UT99 pie for N64 and decently well.
I really enjoyed Turok 1, but Turok 2 made me fall in love with the series. When I was playing it on the N64 I felt like it was an incredible step up from the first game. Just thinking about the articles in EGM and remembering the screenshots of Turok 2 get me all euphoric with nostalgia.
Great video....but I have to disagree on Turok 2. It had flaws (frammrate, fog and levels were too big)..... but dang it was so much fun. The story, very varied level designs from level to level, the guns, enemy types....the game BLEW me away back in the day.
I'm actually sad that they never finished the story. #3 ended on a cliffhanger and I really wanted to know what happened next
The Nerdy Therapist I must agree. I actually prefer T2 to T1. It’s a massive step up from the original game to me.
RHYTHMGAMEGAWD absolutely it makes Turok 1 Look like an early tech Demo. Fantastic Game!
It had lots of problems, the only reason I liked it then was because I was younger. The level design is rather horrible in Turok games, big and maze like.
This is after all released in the same year as something much more complex such as Thief: The Dark Project
Hirnlego999 Thief is great. But I wouldn’t compare the level design with T2 as it’s more an immersive sim stealth game and Turok is a first person shooter. They share similar ideas and world aesthetics no doubt, but the overall game level design and gameplay philosophies are very different.
the blue alien looks a lot like a Twi'lek to me :D
Silly Szili I thought so too 👍
Exactly what I thought.
one of the greatest games ever made, the atmosphere/soundtrack/combat/ weapon veriety/weapon feel/authenticity/enemy AI/animation etc put 99%of FPS from that era to shame
It puts most of the FPS from THIS era to shame. Most games today are dumbed down for casuals.
factual
My only issue is the auto "look ahead" , no way to dissable it.
Turok 2 has some great graphical presentation for the N64, but no, it's got a lot of flaws. The map design, the framerate. I beat Turok Dinosaur Hunter. I never beat Turok 2. The weapons, in isolation, are amazing. The enemy animations and design, in isolation, are amazing. The game as a total package? It's a little frustrating to play with the chugging frame-rate, the overly long levels with poor layout, and the obtuse objectives where things are basically buried in the furthest corners of the map.
Turok Dinosaur Hunter is just way more fun to play. Tal'set moves way fast and smoother, the levels aren't as big or overly designed. It's just more playable on the original hardware today.
Granted Night Dive did some great things with the remaster to help fix some of the issues that Turok 2 has, but I still prefer Dinosaur Hunter.
You know what would be nice? Conkers Bad Fur Day on Switch. Nintendo and Microsoft are working more closely sooo
Rare replay on switch will sell like hotcakes!
I loved Rage Wars, I'd love to see that return. I still play it with friends to this day.
I admire your persistence to get to the part of the game on N64 when you ride the monster ('cause obviously it's not in the beginning) just to capture the footage and measure fps... Keep up the good job! All the best to you
You know the game has cheats right?
@@benny4333 dude. Beware, oblivion is at hand!
It's the beginning of the second level. You consider that "persistence"?
Is Alex just perpetually laughing? Imagine Jimmy Fallon interviewing Alex, just both laughing non stop.
I notice he always laughs when he gets introduced. Either he is extremely high at all times or he just has an odd complex
HAHAHAHAHA
It's just nerves really.
Nobody at all:
Alex: Hahaha
Sorry about this horribly dead meme...
I remember playing the original Turok on my PC running a Voodoo Rush and PII 266mhz. Then playing Turok 2 on my N64 with the RAM expansion pack.
still one of the best soundtracks from the N64.
Man I played this on N64 at a friend's house when I was about 10 years old and it was absolutely mind blowing.
The black cartridge was badass as well.
How dare you refuse to mention the greatest game of all time, Turok: Rage Wars
Fair analysis. Still, even if the level design gets progressively worse, the first 2 levels of Turok 2 are THE best oldschool FPS action you'll ever find imo, specialy with this remaster.
Can i say something? The enemy AI was so advanced, you can actually make them fight each other! I would use the invisible cheat, and make em miss and hit one another. The types of enemies that fought each other were special! Watching the Entrail destroy a raptoid never gets old
I always saw Turok 2 as the superior version. Never enjoyed Turok 1 as much, but loved Turok 2.
Because Turok 2 is the superior game.
Turok 1 is amazing as a casual game you can just speed through and have fun with without having to backtrack ever. Turok 2 on the other hand is much more like a Zelda game where theres lots of exploration and back tracking. Both are amazing, I personally prefer 2 a lot more but 1 is still an amazing game.
I AM TUROK!... I really enjoyed this episode... Can't get enough of Turok. The 2008 attempt has nice brutal Dino killing quick time sequences. I really enjoyed them, felt so intense.
I can't believe you haven't talked about the game's performance on N64 with the expansion pack. Come on DF, you're the pros. How could you leave that out of the analysis??
Its still not a proper DF retro but I hope they do one on this game soon.
0:52
Yeah it made it more decent to play, i remember not having that bad of a frame rate. I'm waiting for a full DF Retro on Turok 2 now.
@@AdolfoWWolf Back in the day I remember reading super positive reviews of the game, saying the graphics were uncanny and the gameplay even better. I have the game and I've tried it with the expansion pack, but I can't talk about the difference because I haven't played it 100% yet. I think I'll finally give some use to that cartridge (as soon as I finish Eternal Darkness on the Cube).
@@stonerdemon well, i couldn't see anything big when talking about resolution, the hi-res mode just looked to me like a wide screen mode, however, in framerate, i don't recall having that bad of a frame rate in the first stage like was shown here, it was low, but not that low. I picked the remastered version because i like this game a lot, i no longer have my N64 unfortunately. Good times.
Now give us Shadow man!
Oh man Shadow Man please! I love that game so much!
Daniel Nelson I agree Daniel ,, Shadowman was superb
and it's happening, nightdive studios is doing it and has a couple trailers on their youtube channel
The Switch is quickly becoming one of my favourite consoles, its such a good platform for pretty much every game, from older classics like Turok to modern masterpieces like Witcher 3 and Doom.
@I see you liked your own comment gameplay will be at gamescom on the show floor, people will be able to try the game.
@I see you liked your own comment the fact that it even runs on the Switch is a miracle tbh, but yeah I'd be surprised if it maintained 30 FPS. Outer Worlds is another game that'll be interesting to see running on the Switch too.
Doom is a pc first game, playing any in the series with a controller is way less fun.
@@therealpizzagirl you're not wrong, but its still cool to have a portable console that can play AAA games literally anywhere. I see the Switch as more a compliment to a PC, rather than an only option.
@MultiTarded I'd argue portability is its greatest strength, and there are some amazing exclusives for it like Mario Maker 2, BotW, Smash, Mario + Rabbids etc
A little disappointed that you didn't get into the pros and cons of the expansion pak capability. Also, my favorite part of the game was playing it multi-player with friends.
Expansion pak increased the resolution but it also caused som input latency that kind of ruined the game for me. The N64 version of Quake II had the same issue.
I played through the N64 version back in the 90s and I feel like it wasn’t nearly as awful or terrible a game as this video makes out. A lot of games on N64 ran at 15-20 FPS. Ocarina of Time, one of the greatest games of all time, was locked at 20. Goldeneye ran at 10-15 FPS, and yet was fondly remembered. So while Turok 2’s 10-15 FPS was disappointing, I don’t think it was as abysmal judged by the standards of the time as this video suggests.
Granted, Toruk 2’s frame rate has aged horribly. Now that we are all used to 60 FPS+ on PC and 30 FPS on console the N64 game is virtually unplayable now. But at the time it was well-loved and pretty well regarded as an N64 game, and the weapons and gore were fantastic. It really was not a catastrophic technical failure as you present it as.
Wasn't nowhere near as bad. 15 fps was to be expected BACK THEN😲. But not now
I liked the level design of Turok 2 and the way it made you feel like you were in a large real world instead of a get to the end of the stage type of game.
Real Dinosaur Hunters endured the harsh frame rates on the N64 version of Turok 2 and loved the fogging which added it's own unique atmosphere to the level heh! I loved Turok 2 and can still play it to this day on the N64 and marvel at some of the things that game was doing at that time in gaming. Great stuff.
I own a complete N64 Pal collection (cib). Downloaded Turok 2 Remastered last year on Xbox One X and finished one of my favorite childhood games, I could not finish as a lil kid. Now I preordered the physical copies of Turok 1 and 2 for Nintendo Switch from Limited Run Games. Looking forward to complete Turok 1 on it. I wished they could also remaster Turok 3 and give the series a sequel/reboot it deserves.
Still no mention of Turok: Rage Wars...
Or 3
The cerebral bore can insta-kill some of the toughest enemies in the game without even really aiming at them. But ok.
I actually returned my copy of Turok: Evolution to EB on the grounds it was defective. There's a mission where you're supposed to sneak around and use a silenced weapon to kill enemies without being spotted, and the weapon magically decided to delete itself from my inventory at the start of the level, leaving me completely unable to progress. I couldn't even pick up the ammo boxes lying around. GC version btw
Evolution was the game that sunk Acclaim. They borrowed and borrowed to develop that hot mess, and when it flopped, because it was an awful game, they had no way to repay their debts. It probably didn't help that their other big name franchise sequel at the time was Shadow Man 2, and that, just like Turok Evolution, was a laughably bad game compared to it's brilliant prequel.
I have a few gripes with the Night Dive version of Turok 2. Firstly, the flashlight is the wrong colour. In the original game, it's a moody blue. And it is also vertex-based, casting a jagged light pointed forward. In the Night Dive version, is is a perfectly circular yellow light source placed seemingly inside the camera. It doesn't feel like a flashlight. Secondly, the Night Dive version, much like the old PC version, loses a lot of the dark and moody aesthetic the N64 version had. It's not just adding bloom and such. Remember that Turok 2 featured a flare gun (which Quake II RTX later ripped off) in order to demonstrate its impressive dynamic lighting system. This meant a lot of indoor areas in Turok 2 are quite dark in the N64 original. The Night Dive version is a LOT brighter and the contrasts are less defined. I think the pistol demonstrates this lighting issue more than anything else. In the N64 version, it is darker and more clearly defined, and this makes it look compact and menacing. In the later versions the pistol is much brighter, and it kinda looks like a plastic toy. Also, the original game's lighting system was per-vertex. What this means is that explosions and light sources cast a kind of "organic" looking light. By contrast, the per-pixel lighting of the Night Dive version is always perfectly round. You fire your shotgun with explosive shells, and the explosion creates a perfect circle of light instead of the jagged one the original had. Perfectly circular dynamic lights are never very nice to look at. They appear very artificial, especially if their source is fire or an explosion or something.
Overall, Night Dive's version is a lot better to play. It's just a bit... off, IMHO.
Turok 1 & 2 was the bomb back in the day.
I wish developers would post short details on why and how their games' ports turned out the way they did. It would really put into perspective why a game runs the way it does, whether it be poorly, okay, or well. The doom 3 port on newest consoles doesn't run flawlessly even on the PS4, so it would've been cool to know what caused the framerate drops on a console from this generation for a game that old. I guess I'm asking too much.
Turok 2 - for me - was one of the killer apps for N64.
Yes, the Cerebral Bore is cool and creative, but I agree with Alex - I never used that thing unless I was showing off the game to one of my friends. It was just quicker to scalp the bad guys with that glorious shotgun!
Cerebral bore is quite useful in level 5, especially with the giant aliens.
Please cover The Vanishing of Ethan Carter on the Switch
Bleh that game was so disappointing. Nice photogrammetry though.
Meh
Quest 64 4 hour long DF Retro Special when?
Wish they maintained the fog,
not the small render distance, but just the mist
it really adds to the game's atmosphere
Turok 2 , was faaaar better than Turok 1 . It was difficult, of course, but so awesome.
I love the host connection for these Turok episodes. I met my now best friend who was the new kid in ninth grade after sharing our collective hype for the newly released Turok 2 in early 1999!
Those animations are amazing for such an old game.
Lets not forget, they even added a climbing option to the Turok 2 Remaster, i wonder why it was not mentioned.
I would love to see turok rage wars. I would play that game for hours with my friends
Second Turok video, second time it gets snubbed. They probably just hate it more than Evolution :(
Riccardo Piontini I think a lot of people didn’t get to play it. It definitely came out when the n64 had lost steam
Turok: Evolution will always hold a special place in my heart for being the game which forced me to adopt dual-analog shooting controls. My previous PS2 FPS games, TimeSplitters and Red Faction, allowed for control remapping, so I was able to put strafing on the right stick and turning on the left.
It wasn't until Evolution, which didn't allow control remapping, that I was forced to open my eyes, and I never looked back. So there will always be respect there, even if I have no desire to ever go back and see how Evolution holds up, or more likely, does not hold up.
You all didn’t talk about the N64 expansion pack enhancements like resolution and improved frame rate! I originally played the game with it way back in 1999.
The expansion pack improved resolution. It didn't improve frame rate in fact the higher resolution textures made it even worse
@@dimitriuss it improved framerate if you didn't run high rez mode. Quake 2 on N64 implemented its mode this same way.
If they ever remaster Turok: Evolution, I like to see the game mechanics TOTALLY reworked, and seamless loading, so I guess I'd like more of a remake than a remaster.
What? No mention of Turok: Rage Wars? ;p
I would love to see a PC remaster of that with some added content and local split-screen multiplayer (and online MP too)
You know? Watching the N64 version, they did not include the expansion pak peripheral.
I frickin loved turok 2, found it so damn hard and easy to get lost but back in the day it was weird, if a game began to stutter with bad frame rate it was kinda like ''wow! look how hard they are pushing the n64 hardware man!'' lol I had a weird way of looking at things back then. Loved the game though and loving this remaster but got it on pc, mouse and keyboard all the way baby.
Turok 2 was one of the first games to use the expansion on N64, if I remember correctly, right?
Did you take a second to look at what it brought to the game?
all it does is increase resolution I think, maybe does affect framerate negativly also, because higher res still requires more processing, not just extra ram
10:00 what? No, no, no.
I got this game with a RivaTNT 2 Ultra 32MB card back in 1999.
I can assure you the game looked and ran _alot_ better! Voodoo 1 cards started to become outdated at that point.
Riva was a literal game changer back then.
*I'm a simple man. I see a DF Retro video, I click.*
I´m so happy to have Turok 2 on Switch now.
I´d die for a new good Turok game
@MultiTarded what if the original had system link?
You didn't use the N64 memory pak!
Durithick P. Steele did you mean N64 expansion pack?
@@powermaster84 the expansion pak was more "memory"
@@powermaster84 Yes and no. The expansion pak added 4 megs of memory/ram. You are right to as what it was called but it was a memory expansion.
I got Turok 2 and Extreme G2 together with my TNT 2 Graphics card and I loved this game it was one of my favorites. still is very fun today.
Still have my Turok 2 disk but can't find my Extreme G2 one... ah well
Please cover Turok 3! Maybe even a short dive into Rage Wars as well, just for kicks! I love all this Turok content!!
"DF Retro": two words that always guarantee that I will stop what I am doing and watch the video.
Did the N64 expansion pack help the frame rate or just the resolution?
The first time I ever blasted a hole clean through an enemy with the shredder and saw bits of rib sticking out and guts spurting everywhere, I was even more hooked than I already was
I remember back in the day uograding my voodoo3 for a voodoo5 for tribes 2. Miss those glory days! Great video guys!
Goldeneye needs to be released on Switch.
If only...
Work is so dead today and this is just what I needed. You are my cape-less hero John
I'd love to see a DF retro for F.E.A.R. Replaying it again at the moment and it holds up great.
Did I miss a discussion of the expansion pack? Also, you can do really interesting things if you use a GameShark on the N64, like having multiple players in split-screen on campaign maps.
Awesome work, as usual
Ps. Im still waiting for that PC Quake episode...
Thanks guys for all your hard work with your channel. I would enjoy seeing your examination of Turok 2008.
Still love this game.. Played it 20 years ago..
Bought it when the remaster launched on Switch and guess what?:
Its still as great as I remembered.
One of the best shooters of all time and imo even better than Half Life 2.
I was so hyped for this game at the time, and I too got stuck in the Blind Ones area for far too long... but did eventually beat it...on the N64! Did you guys ever play Turok Rage Wars? I found that game a massive time sink and ended up enjoying it much more than the other games that followed...
I have both these games for N64. Rented Turok back in the day And thought it was a great game. I have the remastered versions for PC off Steam and really enjoying playing the first game again. Never actually played much of Turok 2. Great review guys!
God, the animation in this game is gorgeous. Just compare this to any other game of the time and it blows it out of the water.
Why do the Devs never focuse on Turok.3???? It's a masterpiece and most impressive game graphically the N64 has.
Sure wish you guys would have talked about the terrible audio issues before I bought this thing. Don't know how you missed that one.
This game is amazing
you think you can make a df retro video on why the n64 in particular had such bad framerate in games was it the cpu?
I dont think it was the console itself and using cartridges probably wasnt a performance issue either, its mainly because they prefered graphics more than framerate, which is ironic considering they advertised turok1 being 30fps, I guess for turok2 they thought otherwise
I could be wrong but if I remember the N64 had very limited memory bandwidth and fill rate issues. That’s why framerates could be lower on N64.
yea the gpu and ram can be an issue, although again, considering turok1 had better framerate, its probably because they wanted to increase the graphics regardless of performance
You also need to keep in mind the state of the industry as a whole at the time. By MODERN standards the N64 had terrible framerates, yes, but when you compare the performance of N64 games versus the same or similar games on PS1 and Saturn, you start to get a clearer picture of how that was pretty standard. Heck, games like Wolfenstein, DOOM, and even Quake were considered playable running at framerates that nowadays would be considered completely unacceptable, and that was for their original PC releases (20 FPS or lower at times.)
The N64 had one thing going for it during the 5th generation console war, and it wasn't its controller. The N64 was THE graphical powerhouse at the time, in an era when that title didn't necessarily have to include a framerate bump alongside the smoother textures, higher resolutions, and larger poly counts. PS1 (and even Saturn) games may have AGED better, but at the time a lot of the features the N64 packed we lament nowadays, including its fuzz filter, helped to make it stand head and shoulders in graphical presentation over its competitors.
Guerilla Grue Plays I love the N64 but there were times the n64 versions of games ran at lower framerates lower than the competition. I think it’s biggest bottleneck was the memory. It was a shared pool and the bandwidth was too narrow to support both cpu and gpu fully at the same time. It was still overall the most powerful by far no doubt but some developers didn’t know how to work around the bottlenecks as good as others.
Please tell me you guys know the protagonist is the first Turok isn't Joshua Fireseed, but another Turok named Tal'Set.
He's not even the original Turok from the 60s comics!
I had a blast playing this game when it came out on n64. Yeah the low fps sucked, but the world is so amazing... my 2nd best game on n64. Finished it a few times too
I'm Commander Shepard and this is my favorite show on RUclips.
Currently playing this game after 20yrs
Never had the patience as a kid or the intelligence as a young child to beat even the 1st level
But holy hot hell am I having a blast
Do feel like normal mode is a little too easy enemy wise but hey, I'm having fun
I bought Turok 1 for $129 AUD in 1997 for my N64... And you also needed a memory pak to save your game... I have no regrets...
I remember back when we had video rental stores there was this advertisement for the original Turok game that made me want to buy a n64 so bad! I really enjoyed the Turok trilogy on the 64.
A giant frog speaks about a dude hunting Dinosaurs.
We've come full circle.
Well done, John.
cerebral bore still remains the greatest video game weapon of all time
To be fair, everything on Nintendo 64 chugged along at 10 fps. Nobody seemed to care, or at least we were willing to live with it. Saturn owners will gladly point to the Lobotomy Trilogy and ask why gamers were so obsessed with transparencies above all else.
Anyway, the important thing is that Turok is back and looks fantastic, and that I wore an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time.
Love this conversation. Glad to know there is still love for the Turok series. My first M-rated game I ever owned via N64; all because it only featured "gore and violence" and had a dinosaurs on the cover. If only my parents knew the extent of the gore lol.
Damn yall destroying Turok 2. I loved it and was good at it
Turok 2 was the original Halo like game for me.
for all the hate RTX gets i cant help imagining what an implementation of ray tracing would look like every time i see these old classic games. it seems to be the most powerful use of the technology so far.
Sundays get so much better with a new DF Retro! :)
Feeling like a kid again playing T2 on my Switch.