Review #675: 64 Memories - Turok 3 - Shadow of Oblivion

 Third time's the charm. Sorta.

 Part I: The Flashback
 This was one of the final few games I got on the Nintendo 64, and thus, I never got to play it as much as I played the other Turok games. That said, I remember enjoying Turok 3 - Shadow of Oblivion a whole lot. I loved having two playable characters, with different weaponry and routes, and I sure loved continuing Turok's story. I don't think I spent much time with this game's multiplayer since Rage Wars had that covered.

 The first thing that hit me was how great the game looked as soon as the intro cinematic played. It's very memorable, and you can tell that this game had high production costs. What I hadn't noticed back then, however, is how much they toned down the violence. Maiming enemies is a pretty rare occurrence now, and when it does happen we don't get fancy, gruesome death animations. A shame!

 Part II: The Review
 The Turok series hasn't aged the best, but it's my humble opinion that Turok 3 has held up much better than the other two. Firstly, they have streamlined levels into much more linear affairs, to the game's benefits. There are still keys to be found, a super powerful weapon to be assembled and what not, but you no longer need keys to open up other levels, need to revisit older stages or even go round and round through massive levels. It's a much better approach that makes the game much more fun to play through. As previously mentioned, there are two characters now, Danielle and Joseph, each one gets alternate routes at key points during every level, since Danielle has a grappling hook and can jump a little higher than Joseph, while Joseph can crawl through smaller spaces. Each character also gets different enhanced weaponry, so, for instance, while both characters get the Shotgun, Danille can upgraded it into a Fire Shotgun while Joseph gets the Shredder. As a rule of thumb, Danielle gets the more explosive and powerful weaponry, while Joseph gets more tactical and stealthier upgrades. Which means Danielle is a blast to play with.

 Besides levels being more constricted and thus more manageable, the game has completely done away with the lives system, now we have unlimited retries as well as very generous checkpoints. Praise the gods. You can also save at any time. The framerate is still pretty bad, but nowhere near as unplayable as Turok 2. While cutscenes look like very early PS2 graphics, you can tell that graphics during gameplay have definitely lost a bit of detail, but it's a fair tradeoff if I can actually play the game now. That said, there were a few instances that dropped the framerate into single digits, but they were brief and far in-between.

 While in my youth I adored every Turok game(except the first one), this one is the first one that I can say I enjoyed all the way through in the present day. I lurked a few forums before trying out Turok 3 after all these years, and I saw that it received a rather lukewarm reception, and now I know why, at a surface level it feels like a step back from Turok 2, with simpler graphics, smaller levels and less collectibles... but seen through modern-day lenses, all those tweaks and changes make for a much more enjoyable experience.

 It's still not perfect, however. I found a few setpieces, particularly in the last two levels, to be rather boring. Aiming with the N64's joystick is less than ideal, as per usual, and while the framerate is more tolerable... it's still pretty bad.
 5.0 out of 10