Turok: Dinosaur Hunter is a first-person shooter video game developed by Iguana Entertainment and published by Acclaim Entertainment. It was released in 1997 in North America and Europe for the Nintendo 64 and Microsoft Windows, and is an adaptation of the comic book series of the same name from Valiant Comics. The player controls Turok, a Native American warrior who must stop the evil Campaigner from conquering the universe with an ancient and powerful weapon.
As Acclaim's first title for the Nintendo 64, Turok was part of a strategy to develop games internally and license merchandise. Acclaim acquired the rights to Turok when it purchased Valiant Comics in 1994, renaming it Acclaim Comics. Suffering from cash flow problems and falling sales, Acclaim came to rely on Turok as its best hope for a financial turnaround. Iguana pushed the Nintendo 64's graphics capabilities to its limits, and were forced to compress or cut elements to fit the game on its 8 megabyte cartridge. Bugs delayed the game's release from September 1996 to January 1997.
Critical reception of Turok was highly positive. Becoming one of the most popular games for the console on release, Turok won praise for its graphics and evolution of the genre. Complaints centered on graphical slowdowns caused by multiple enemies appearing onscreen and occasionally awkward controls. The game sold 1.5 million copies and boosted sales of the Nintendo 64. Turok spawned a video game franchise that includes a direct sequel, titled Turok 2: Seeds of Evil, in 1998, and a prequel, Turok: Evolution, in 2002. A remastered version of the game by Nightdive Studios was released through digital distribution for Microsoft Windows in 2015, followed by an OS X release in 2016, Xbox One and Linux releases in 2018, a Nintendo Switch release in 2019,
Gameplay
left|thumb|A dinosaur attacks the player character, who wields a shotgun. [[Distance fog limits visibility to a small radius around the player.|alt=View of a jungle swallowed by fog; a scaled dinosaur charges out of the gloom towards the player, whose weapon (a shotgun) is visible in the corner of the screen. Around the edge of the frame are two-dimensional icons relaying game information.]]
Played from a first person perspective, the 3D graphics and style of play combine elements of the run-and-gun video game Doom with exploration mechanics of Tomb Raider. Players begin the game in a central hub level, which contains portals to seven other stages. The player must find keys scattered across the stages. When enough keys have been inserted into the lock mechanisms of a hub portal, that level is unlocked. Players explore the large, typically jungle-based levels by jumping, swimming, climbing, crawling, and running.
One of the player's main objectives is to find pieces of a relic known as the Chronoscepter; there is one piece on each level. In exploring the levels the player fights various enemies such as poachers, gunmen, indigenous warriors, dinosaurs, demons, and insects. ranging from a knife and bow to high tech weaponry. All weapons except the knife require ammunition, which is dropped by dead enemies or picked up in the levels. Enemies and boss characters have multiple death animations depending on what body region the player shot.
The player character's health is shown as a number at the bottom of the screen. When the player is at full health, the meter reads 100, while dropping to 0 subtracts one life, and losing the last life ends the game. Gathering "life force" points scattered across the levels increases the player's life count by one for every 100 points accumulated. Players restore health by picking up powerups, which can increase health above full. Players may also gain health points by shooting deer or non-threatening wildlife. The mantle of Turok is passed down every generation to the eldest male. Each Turok is charged with protecting the barrier between Earth and the Lost Land, a primitive world where time has no meaning. The Lost Land is inhabited by a variety of creatures, from dinosaurs to aliens. An evil overlord known as the Campaigner seeks an ancient artifact known as the Chronoscepter, a weapon so powerful that it was broken into pieces to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. The Campaigner plans on using a focusing array to magnify the Chronoscepter's power, destroying the barriers that separate the ages of time and rule the universe. Turok vows to find the Chronoscepter's eight pieces and prevent the Campaigner's schemes.
Development
thumb|right|Turok was the first video game for Nintendo's [[Nintendo 64 to be developed by a third party. Critics found that the controller's analog stick took time to get used to but functioned well.|alt=A black and grey plastic game console attached via cables to a grey, W-shaped controller with colored buttons.]]
Turok originally appeared in comics from Western Publishing and Dell Comics in December 1954. Valiant Comics revived the series and published the first issue of their Turok series in 1993. Video game publisher Acclaim Entertainment bought Valiant for $65 million in 1994 part of a strategy to develop games in-house and make money licensing characters in different entertainment media.
Development of Turok commenced in 1996. The game was developed by a 15-person team. While loosely based on the comic book, Iguana made the game more action-oriented. In early discussions about the project the developers decided that the typical side-scrolling game presentation had become tired. Iguana considered a third-person perspective similar to Super Mario 64 and Tomb Raider, but decided to make the game a first-person shooter instead. According to project manager David Dienstbier, the first-person perspective was a natural way to showcase the 3D power of the Nintendo 64. Creative director Nigel Cook explained that "first-person would be ideal to engage the player in the experience of hunting prey or being hunted." While the development team benefited from Acclaim's clout as a longtime Nintendo supporter, getting earlier feedback from the publisher and more face-to-face time during production, most of the developers at Iguana were new and inexperienced; Turok was Dienstbier's first title. Due to the game's action and violent content, Dienstbier believed they were pushing the limits of what Nintendo would allow on their console, but Nintendo never asked to see or approve anything in the game. Fitting the game on its 8 MB cartridge was difficult; ultimately, Iguana had to compress everything and reduce the quality of the music to meet size requirements. Despite system constraints the developers were interested in producing the best-looking video game for the system: Turok, Acclaim's first Nintendo 64 title, became the company's best hope of a turnaround, as there were only ten Nintendo 64 games on the market, and Turok was the only shooter. Alex. Brown Inc analysts figured that selling one million copies of Turok could bring Acclaim as much as $45 million. Endangering Turoks sales was its high price—$79.99 in the US, £70 in the UK, and $129.95 in Australia—and Entertainment Software Rating Board's "mature" rating, which suggested lower sales as parents would not buy the game for their children. the game was initially delayed to January 1997. Acclaim explained that the game had not reached the desired quality level; Nintendo maintained that the delay was to "add more depth to the gameplay". According to The New York Times, the delay stemmed from computer bugs in the program. Responding to positive pre-orders and advance sales of Turok, Acclaim announced on January 2, 1997, that a sequel, tentatively titled Turok: Dinosaur Hunter 2, would be released in late 1997. Acclaim dubbed the March 4 release date of the game "Turok Tuesday", reporting that pre-sales at Toys "R" Us had exceeded expectations.
Reception
Turok was a critical and commercial success, earning rave reviews from video game magazines and becoming the most popular title for the Nintendo 64 in the months following its release. While agreeing that the game offers greater freedom of movement, a Next Generation reviewer opined that first-person platforming does not work since the player cannot see their character. He found this strongly contrasted with the game's "top notch" shooting elements. Video game magazine Edge said that Turok contradicted the prevailing notion at the time that only Nintendo could create superior games for the console. In contrast, William Burrill of The Toronto Star wrote that Turok offered nothing new if players had tried a first-person shooter before, and Next Generation Online said that its similar gameplay essentially made the game "a very pretty Duke Nukem". The four reviewers of Electronic Gaming Monthly remarked that while the graphics and animation are stunning, the controls and level design are lacking.
Reviewers found that Turoks controls generally worked well. Perry, GamePro, and Next Generation all noted that while many players would not initially like using the Nintendo 64's analog stick for weapon movement, they would become adept at the control scheme. The Washington Posts Tom Ham said that "equally impressive" as the environmental detail were the "true-to-life" animations. "Blow away a baddie and he'll grab his throat, blood splatting, and then fall to the ground, still convulsing," Ham wrote. "How can you put a price on that?" GamePro agreed that the gruesome death animations are a highlight of the all-around impressive graphics. Perry commented that the inability to look into the distance forced players to rely on the game map.
Worldwide sales of Turok: Dinosaur Hunter surpassed $60 million in late June 1997, and accounted for 45% of Acclaim's revenues in the fiscal quarter in which the game was released. The game also held the top spot for video game rentals for seven weeks consecutively. Turok was later named a Nintendo "Player's Choice" title in 1998—the only third-party Nintendo 64 game to be featured at the time—and ultimately sold about 1.5 million units. The game generated $200 million in revenue worldwide by 1998. At the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences' inaugural Interactive Achievement Awards (now known as the D.I.C.E. Awards), Turok was nominated for "Interactive Title of the Year", "Console Game of the Year", and "Console Action Game of the Year".
NGC Magazine wrote that Turok changed perceptions of a Nintendo console: "On a machine from a company that had long specialised in primary colours and family fun, the last thing anyone anticipated was the kind of cutting-edge first-person shooter that was previously the sole preserve of expensive gaming PCs." Not only did Turok change this, but it established a "system-selling franchise" that persisted even after the N64 was replaced. Justin Joy of ComicBook.com credited Turok with being "the shooter that proved consoles could compete with PC", with its "open levels, verticality, platforming, and fluid controls that made the game feel faster than anything on home consoles, even 007: Goldeneye."
Legacy
Following the game's success, Sculptured Software (another of Acclaim's internal studios) conducted tests to see if Turok: Dinosaur Hunter could be faithfully converted to the PlayStation. A Game.com version was announced, and early screenshots of it circulated in the press, but it was never released. In February 2017, the source code of the N64 version was sold on eBay for $2551.99 which was found on a Silicon Graphics (SGI) Indy development machine which originated from the Acclaim Entertainment liquidation.
Nightdive Studios produced a remastered version of the game, along with Turok 2, for the PC. The game includes improved graphics as well as "other improvements" based on the original PC ports of the titles. The remaster was released in digital stores on December 17, 2015. Nightdive also released the original game on the Nintendo Classics service via the Mature 17+ app in June 2024 due to their license of the original game. Former Iguana employees who worked on Turok joined Retro Studios upon its founding in 1998, eventually releasing Metroid Prime (2002), expanding on Turoks focus on movement and exploration, and spawning its own series. Rare saw Turok as a benchmark when they were developing GoldenEye 007, noting its "very nice looking art" and smooth framerate.