Turok Retrospective Part 3: Shadow of Oblivion

 

Acclaim's final Lost Land adventure for the N64, Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion, released in the year 2000. The Turok-mania of the late 90s was certainly still going on, but even then I think most people saw the writing on the wall: interest in the series was waning.

The year's previous release, Rage Wars*, wasn't received poorly, exactly, but fans and critics both agreed that it didn't match up to the previous Turok games. It got net-positive scores overall but they were consistently lower than Dinosaur Hunter and Seeds of Evil and the criticism they got was much harsher. Reviewers from GameSpot and Daily Radar called the game's weapon system "frustrating", it's audio "lacking", and it's graphics "mushy and ugly". Things seemed to be even worse in the comics-verse. I don't know any sales figures but I'm guessing they weren't good (or at least good enough) because, while Turok 2 had multiple runs leading up to its release and fleshing out its world, Turok 3 had only one singular comic book and it was a direct adaptation of the game.

*Yes, I know I keep beating around the bush with Rage Wars. It's like this: the completionist in me wants to track it down and give it a go, but for the purposes of this retrospective and my own curiosity there honestly isn't much incentive. I'm not saying that as any kind of commentary on the quality of the game (I truly wouldn't know), but it was very intentionally built around multiplayer. Rage Wars has no story and is very light on novel content: it's mostly an online FPS with character skins from Turok 1 and 2. I assume it's still canon, but there just isn't much to talk about. It doesn't affect Turok 3 at all.

All this to say: pressure was mounting. Acclaim's Turok series was beginning to waver and needed a shot in the arm to keep going. All eyes were on Shadow of Oblivion to be that shot and fans were hoping it was going to be something truly exceptional. Expectations ran high, very high, and if you've ever witnessed the hype-up and release of anything you can probably guess where this story is going.

Turok 3 sold and reviewed just fine but doesn't have a fraction of the cult following its two mainline predecessors do. It just isn't remembered as fondly. My own experience with it was basically non-existent: nobody I knew owned Turok 3, so I never got a chance to play it hands on, and the few kids at school who did didn't have good things to say. I didn't even see gameplay until I was in highschool, and it didn't appeal. Lots of goofy looking eyeball monsters and military bases, no dinosaurs, some silly looking story with talking robot heads and poorly aged facial animations. I wrote it off as not worthy of the Turok title and only gave it one half-hearted attempt years later, only playing through level one.

As my previous two retrospectives show, however, my first impressions are rarely ever spot-on...

So how is Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion, actually?

The Review

It's fine.

Turok 3 isn't the slam dunk that Acclaim fans were hoping for, but having finally gotten a copy for myself and played it from start to stop, I'm honestly kind of shocked by how few grievances I have! Sure, it doesn't have the masterful fun-factor of the original or the expansive worldbuilding of its sequel, but it's not a bad game.

Shadow of Oblivion is ambitious in other ways. More than any of the other Acclaim games up to that point it tried the hardest to have a real story, to use cutscenes not just as level intros but as a means to flesh out characters, further its story, and create a cohesive narrative. It feels the closest to a modern cinematic videogame and has what are, for its time, legitimately very impressive graphics. Yes, I did play the NightDive remaster again, but don't worry, I made sure to go back on Youtube and rewatch as much of the N64 version as I could.

"WAIT TUROK HAS GUNS?!"

The biggest visual achievement in Turok 3 is, unfortunately, both a pro and a con (and largely what turned me away from it as a teenager). It marks the first time in the series that we see real facial animations. Character heads are no longer angular ovals with noses and mouths and eyes painted on, but fully modeled faces that have dynamic 3D expressions, moving eyes, and lip synch. That is a huge leap forward and a major graphical accomplishment for the Nintendo-freaking-64, but as the history or visual storytelling shows us time and time again and it's the most ambitious visual effects that tend to age the worst*. A lot of Turok 3's cutscenes come across as cartoony and melodramatic now because of how hard the animators and voice actors were trying to convey their characters' emotions. It's really no fault of their own though, this is just what happens with the passage of time: an example of how things aren't always pretty the first time you test your limitations and do new things.

*The one major exception to this is, of course, Jurassic Park, which we all know was made by wizards.

If you ignore all the things that didn't age well or live up to expectations then you'll see that Turok 3 is a perfectly acceptable and even fun game to play. The developers listened to negative feedback on Seeds of Evil and made a set of levels that are much easier to navigate, with better lighting, far fewer switches and buttons, cutscenes to show exactly what every necessary pull and push accomplished, and way, way, way less backtracking. Hallelujah! "Simpler" is my preferred way of referring to this game as a whole: the levels aren't as long, there aren't as many worlds or enemies, it's just a very boiled down, concise and to-the-point experience. Sometimes that works in its favor, sometimes it doesn't.

Shadow of Oblivion is a mixed bag to be sure, but it's one that at least tries with genuine sincerity to win you over and is self-conscious enough not to overstay its welcome. It doesn't hold a candle to Turok: Dinosaur Hunter and probably won't have much of a lasting impact on me personally, but I respect Turok 3 for what it is and what it was trying to do, and for what it's worth I'd replay this game ten times over before I ever pick up Seeds of Evil again. I don't think it deserves the bad rap it got and would like to see more Turok fans give it a fair shake: it's not likely to blow them away, but it is much better than it gets credit for.

The Legacy

While Turok 2 was largely about worldbuilding, Turok 3 focuses more on narrative. It makes for a much more coherent story, but of course the trade-off is there's not as much lore to talk about. We aren't introduced to as many new locales, weapons, creatures, or characters, and most of what is seen in-game is expanded on from Turok 2.

The story picks up some time after the Primagen's defeat, with last game's hero Joshua Fireseed back on Earth and living with his previously unmentioned younger siblings, Joseph and Danielle. He's been suffering from recurring nightmares about Oblivion's Flesh-Eaters returning to threaten the life of some unknown child before killing him. Soon after a squadron of Sentinels warp in and attack the Fireseed family farm, and while he does defeat them, Joshua loses his life in the process. Joseph and Danielle try to flee the scene but are attacked by more of Oblivion's forces and have to be rescued by Adon, who ferries them off to her home realm where they're met with the mentioned-but-previously-unseen Council of Voices, a multi-headed mechanical construct containing the digitized minds of all the Lost Land's past leaders. Together they pass the title of Turok down to one of the younger Fireseed siblings (the player gets to choose which) and authorize a mission to track down and destroy Oblivion.

It's nice to finally get some direct continuity and see our main characters Joshua and Adon again, and I mostly have good things to say about Shadow of Oblivion as a Turok title I swear, but this IS the part where I complain about what Acclaim did with Adon. It's non-negotiable, I'm sorry!

When she first showed up in Seeds of Evil Adon was portrayed as being very human-like but not actually human, like the aliens in Star Trek or Guardians of the Galaxy, which made sense because she is supposed to be an alien of some sort. Her design wasn't anything a cosplayer with a shoestring budget couldn't replicate at home, but she did have unique features like golden sclera, silver hair, grayish white skin, and four-fingered hands* that communicated the fact that she isn't a normal Earth woman.

*And no, it's not a graphical limitation! Joshua was standing right there next to her with ten fingers!

We didn't get to know much about Adon as a person because all her dialogue was about the Lost Land and stopping the Primagen, but I'd describe her demeanor as warm and formal. She seemed genuinely welcoming and empathetic but was also being exceedingly proper, with very reserved and lady-like gestures, no slang or excitement in her speech, and a posture so straight you'd swear she was expecting reprimand from someone if she ever relaxed... which she may well have been, because as the Speaker for the Council of Voices she's essentially her country's sole ambassador to every president who's ever lived.

I've never heard any of the writers talk about why Adon changed between games, but I suspect Valiant and Acclaim had differing opinions on her from day one. Even before Seeds of Evil came out there were some marked differences between her character in the game and in the comics. The Adon we see in Shadow of Oblivion is definitely more like her comic book incarnation than the one most people met in Turok 2, and she was...

...written with different intentions.

I'm not a fan of this interpretation. Seeds of Evil Adon isn't exactly a deeply fleshed out character and I'm not gonna pretend like she got designed as an attractive woman with an open midriff for no reason or that alien ambassadors can't be smart and sexy, but come on, this is all a little demeaning isn't it? Adon doesn't need to be Joshua's love interest to be relevant to the story! There doesn't need to be this much attention drawn to her physique, either. She certainly doesn't need to be naked on the front cover. It all feels a bit gross, not to mention cliché.

Unfortunately this is also the Adon we see in Turok 3. She's still got most of her base character traits like open midriff armor with oversized gauntlets, a serious disposition, and a British-ish accent, but her warmth, composure, and outwardly alien traits are gone. She looks completely and totally human now and is so desperately head over heels for Joshua that she'll backtalk and even betray the Council to chase after him. She's filmed from time to time with some very purposeful low angles, stands with a sassy hip tilt, and has a bust so bouncy it somehow manages to jiggle through vacuformed metal.

This is certainly an Adon, but it's not the one I grew attached to.

Anyway, that's it for my feminist #justiceforAdon rant. How's everything else Turok-y in Turok 3? Well... I'd say it's a little watered down, but not bad. For better or worse Adon does have a lot more to do, Joshua actually gets some speaking lines, and we finally get to meet this Council of Voices. Seeds of Evil enemies like the the Flesh-Eater Sentinels & Death Guards, Fireborns, and GE raptors return, plus some weapons like the Firestorm Cannon, Shredder, and Cerebral Bore. These were all pleasant surprises, though I'd argue they all come with caveats that make them feel just a smidge off.

My go-to example for this is the Cerebral Bore: the projectile it fires has dramatically improved pathfinding which makes it much faster and more reliable but it's also limited to one shot at a time now, meaning you have to wait for each bullet to track its target, attach, drill in, and explode before you can press the trigger again. It makes the weapon totally obsolete for any firefight involving multiple enemies and forces you to either switch to something else or run away every time you fire. It gets two cool new variant upgrades, but one of them is functionally identical and the other is buggy and likely to crash your game. See what I mean...?

All four of Turok's staple tenets are here, though: Shadow of Oblivion is all about indigenous heroes with big guns going on chaotic dinosaur-adjacent adventures in the Lost Land, as it should be!

My second favorite thing about Shadow of Oblivion is that it gives us a female Turok. I wish she'd got a chance to yell that iconic "I... AM TUROK!" line from the last two games, but oh well. She's still the more likeable and badass of the two Fireseed kids, and in the comic it's her who takes the title. Nice!

No Allosaurs were harmed (or included) in the making of this game.

What's my first favorite thing? Weeeell...

There's this persistent misunderstanding that the events of Turok 3 all take place on Earth and don't feature dinosaurs. I know this wasn't just what I believed as a kid because I've seen videos as recent as last year publicly making the same assumption. The reality is all that stuff just comes later, so players who didn't enjoy fighting policemen and rottweilers in the first level simply didn't get far enough to see it.

Turok 3 still has the series' lowest dinosaur count and spends the least amount of time in the Lost Land, but when it does deliver those things... ohhh man. 

I had always assumed the direct continuity in Shadow of Oblivion was all aimed at Seeds of Evil, but upon playing it all the way through I was absolutely flabbergasted in the best possible way to learn that isn't true. After a brief romp in a new Lost Land location called the Grotto your Turok of choice gets to pass through a hole in the ruins of a perimeter wall and discover the first level of Dinosaur Hunter.

Wait a minute...

Holy shit. I can't believe I'd never heard about this part, not only because of the unexpected callback and nostalgia, but because it's legitimately the best part of the game! It's easy to see the developers put real love into this level and took their time making it as faithful and thought out as it possibly could be. It isn't a lazy repurposing of old assets or a slavish 1:1 copy, either: this is The Jungle from TDH, but you're visiting it several decades later. There's more foliage, the wooden ramps and ladders are all falling apart, some of the pressure plates don't work, a few buildings have collapsed. The enemy and item placement is familiar but not identical, so there are actually quite a few surprises. You'll also have to use some alternative methods to progress since so much has changed, weaving your way in and out of the original path Tal'Set blazed to explore a level that's one part new and one part old. It's the game's most creative and memorable level, restores that classic Turok feeling that the earlier Earth levels lacked, and put a huge smile on my face from start to finish. Kickass stuff. Hats off to whoever came up with that idea!

The Prehistory!

This'll be quick: there are only three dinosaurs in Turok 3, and one of them doesn't move!

The compies from Turok 2 are back. They're a little more detailed than before and aren't nearly as hard to hit, but otherwise they're basically the same. Not much to say here, we've already covered them once before... I do wonder if they were always in this part of the Lost Land, or if this is an invasive species?

 

This kind of raptor isn't native, though, that's for sure! I figured going into Tal'Set's level that there wouldn't be any brand new models, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that Acclaim actually took the time to edit their default human enemies to look like the armored mercenaries from Dinosaur Hunter, so a reskinned raptor was apparently not out of the question. That makes the inclusion of this particular dromaeosaurid feel like a conscious decision, one I take as an implication that the selectively bred dinos released by the dinosoids during Turok 2 have begun outcompeting their wild counterparts. Yikes!

There is, technically, a Tyrannosaurus rex in Shadow of Oblivion. It's a static model (literally) seen only during a brief museum tutorial that introduces Joshua's night vision goggles (I missed it completely by playing as Danielle). We'll probably never know when or why the Turok 3 rex was created, but I suspect whoever modeled it didn't go through all that trouble just for it to get a T-pose cameo. Maybe it was a cut boss from earlier in development?

The Monsters!

As I mentioned previously one of Turok 3's greatest weaknesses is its first level. I think Acclaim was already taking an unnecessary risk by starting the game on Earth and it didn't help that they also chose to downplay the science fiction elements. Most of what you fight in level one barely counts as out of the ordinary: attack dogs with glowing yellow eyes, fully clothed zombie citizens who are only just starting to rot, an overzealous police force that's channeling a little Half-Life and RoboCop. It's all fine stuff on its own, but players who are used to extradimensional death cults, bugmen from outer space, and cyborg dinosaurs are gonna find it preeeetty tame. Thankfully there is one enemy in level one outlandish enough to be called a monster, but it doesn't do as much to help as I would've liked.

The game itself never acknowledges or explains these creatures, but apparently they're humans who have been possessed and mutated by Oblivion. Called Stryders, they're the largest and weirdest enemies in their level, but I don't think that's saying much. Tame is once again an appropriate descriptor here. Scripted events in the early game try to set them up as these terrifying creatures of the night that can rip a person in half, and maybe Oblivion really did give them enough strength to do that, but after two games of fending off dinosaurs, armored alien cyborgs, and mutants the size of small houses, I can't help but feel underwhelmed by these eggheaded half-humans on stilts. Just imagine if we were playing as Tal'Set instead of one of these newcomers. Do you really think HE would need a gun for this?

Ditto for this thing. It's called a Ligatrix? I mean... it's a fun little critter design, but it looks more like the type of thing you'd keep in a saltwater aquarium than fight to the death. Described as a "combination of mold and fungi", it's about the size of a cat and so far as I'm aware its tendrils have no special properties to them- they're not barbed or acidic or lined with stinging cells, they just whip around really fast and smack at you. I know that can't feel good, but surely it's more frustrating than life-threatening...? It's also sessile and bursts into goo the moment you start shooting, so yeah, I'm definitely getting "baby's first enemy" vibes here. Is it even enough of a threat to bother with? I vote we just scrape it off the wall and keep it as a pet. How much harm could it do!

The first boss of the game is a... uh... mutated vehicle? Somehow? It looks a bit like a cartoon whale with two octopus arms and a police siren on its head. Not exactly the stuff of nightmares, but I think it could pass for a Digimon.

I'm not gonna spend any longer than a moment thinking about how any of this works because I'm pretty sure nobody else did either. This is the only time Oblivion ever affects technology.

This "Oblivion Gunship" hangs down from a portal in the sky, suspended by one extra large tentacle, and is honestly not a hell of a lot more mobile than that fungus slug I just talked about. I'm sure it'd be frightening and very confusing to run into in real life, but it's fairly pitiful by video-game monster standards and feels more random than anything else.

This Infestoid mutant doesn't appear until way, way later in the game, but I'm trying to get the most boring stuff out of the way first, okay?! The Infestoid belongs to a faction called the Lost Ones who live in a toxic waste junkyard not far from where Tal'Set began his Turok adventure in the Lost Land. Their surroundings are harsh, but they're human in nature and most of them are still easily recognized as people, just dirty, malnourished people with lots of open sores and patchwork armor. They've all been possessed by Oblivion and have "mush" for brains, but the Infestoid is the only one that seems extensively mutated. To what end, I don't know. Their only weapon is one (1) functioning mechanical arm made from old junkyard trash, and it shoots Nickelodeon slime instead of bullets.

I'll give the Infestoid some points for their cool digitigrade legs and horrific fused heads, but I don't see much point in talking about their anatomy at length when everything about them can just be explained away by "Oblivion made it all gross cuz Oblivion makes things all gross".

Truthfully I think they're less intimidating than the un-mutated Lost Ones. There's just no menace in their design! It's partly the expressions, they're just too exaggerated to read as anything but cartoonish. And look, that one head is sad! He doesn't wanna be here! Shootin' at Turok and experimenting on people, this isn't what he wanted to be doing with his life! These two would be happier working as background characters in a Star Wars cantina scene, I think, or maybe as characters in something more lighthearted like The Nightmare Before Christmas or Mad Monster Party. They might even be the life of the monster mash! Why, I bet that slime-slinging arm of theirs could be repurposed to serve drinks! They could've been a bartender!

About three quarters of the way through Turok 3 you get to go underground and meet your old pals the Fireborn again. They appear almost identical to their Turok 2 incarnation but are a little better animated, with smoother movements, more fire effects, and more destructible body parts! Very cool! They're also given a class name this time, Fireborn Magmites, because they're not alone.

The Fireborne Legionnaire is the bigger, tankier version, and even more than the Magmite it really shows off its artificial nature. That honkin' big spike arm and out of proportion T. rex head just scream "I was designed to kill things and nothing else". Legionnaires shoot paired fireballs at you, but from where I'm not entirely sure. I think it's from those headlight-like openings up on their shoulders, but they also have extra luminous and frankly quite absurdly large eyes, so who knows, maybe they're like the lava golem version of laser eye-beams!

The culmination of all these outlandish features creates something that I once again think is more silly than intimidating, but it is nice to get some new breadcrumbs of Fireborn lore! Maybe these are an older, less efficient model that got phased out of open warfare but persist in the deeper reachers of Fireborn society? You do encounter a lot of them in the nursery area... maybe the Magmites adopted them after the dinosoid army discarded them and gave them all jobs as doormen and guards?

P.S., they fart. I don't know what that has to do with anything or why the animators felt the need to include that detail, but they did, so now we both know. You're welcome.

Another new type of flamey-stony-saury kinda thing comes in the form of a level boss, the Alpha Fireborn. The Turok 3 strategy guide calls this one "the big papa" of all Fireborn. Some fans have interpreted this as meaning it's the literal parent of the whole faction and thus must be the original, and I won't try to rule that out, but personally I just think somebody was makin' a "granddaddy of them all" joke.

Honestly I'm not sure what the Alpha is. It is significantly larger than the Magmites & Legionnaires but it doesn't seem to spawn them, at least not in combat, and we never see it around anything like a nest or a clutch of Fireborn eggs. Not that I'm claiming to understand anything about how a race of living rocks with organic blood and brains who were genetically engineered and created magically reproduce. It's probably best not to think about the Fireborn too hard in general.

Still, I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't point out how odd the Alpha is for a Fireborn. Sure, these things were all dinosoid-made for war so there doesn't need to be any rhyme or reason to their physiology, but the other two still seem to be "related" somehow; the Magmite is a modified Endtrail to be sure, and while the Legionnaire does have very different proportions it still looks like a dinosoid. The Alpha... does not.

If I had to compare this creature to something in the real world, it'd be an aquatic mammal. It's like a cross between a seal, a whale, and an ogre. The face is very humanoid but it's got a sea creature's body, with a streamlined teardrop body shape, a horizontal tail fluke, and broad, meaty flippers.  It has no hind limbs and it looks pretty awkward trying to undulate around a solid stone floor. It needs to be in lava to move around comfortably and regenerate health and is, at least for its intents and purposes, an ""aquatic"" monster.

I don't see a lot of point in trying to speculate on something this random, but if I had to guess I'd say maybe the Alpha here was a failed attempt at creating an underground siege weapon? I mean, there can't be that many Lost Land cities that're situated close enough to underground magma chambers or rivers of lava for that to actually be a good idea, but these are the dinosoids we're talking about. Last game they wanted to get the Lost Land all to themselves by completely vaporizing the Lost Land and themselves. I'm not putting anything past them anymore, this thing's probably lucky it doesn't have upside-down wings on its head or gasoline for blood!

 

 

You might expect my favorite enemy in the Fireborn level to be a kind of Fireborn, but no! Near the end of their level, in a single chamber without any lava or dinosoids, you get mobbed by a swarm of knee-high mammals called Dreadlings (or Rockrodents, if you go by IGN's coverage of the game). These scuzzy, grungy little things are built like furry camel crickets and probably would've been really unsettling if they moved slowly on all fours or climbed walls, but instead they wobble around on their thin, backwards joined stilt legs with their arms held up above their knees. It isn't scary at all, and honestly, that makes me love them so much more.

Dreadlings have such a nefarious, mischievous little personality and you can just tell they think they're serious big-time monsters even though they're like a foot tall and die in one hit. They're probably the most expendable jobbers in the whole game and they have no idea.

"Dreadlings scary! Dreadlings GET Turok!"

They're like Saturday morning cartoon villains, they should be chasing around Ewoks or something! Like don't get me wrong I am 100% sure these things loot corpses and eat babies, but no able-bodied adventurer anywhere would ever take them seriously and it's a little cute how ineffectual they are. If you take the Dreadlings' little ambush seriously enough and spill all of their dark green blood you'll be rewarded with a miniboss fight with a giant person-sized one!

These random little demon-lemurs are around for all of like two minutes yet still manage to be some of the game's most memorable enemies. Good for them!

 

 

You know what else is memorable about Shadow of Oblivion? Acclaim tryin to pretend like we don't remember what Pur-Lin are!

This creature is called a "Mummite", supposedly. Suuure. I know a frogorilla when I see one, guys. It's green, it only shows up in the Lost Land levels, it pounds the ground with its fists to make big shockwaves. Why are we acting like we don't know what this is? And why were all the parts of the game featuring it omitted from the comic book adaptation?

My best guess is there was some kind of licensing issue, though I don't understand how that could be since Turok 3 was still a Valiant/Acclaim production. Maybe it had something to do with their creator, Don Perlin? Was the game rushed out before he could sign off on it? Did he object to its inclusion? I'd love to know the full story behind this, there had to be something going on!

Aaaaanyway, let's talk about the design! This new Pur-Lin variant really benefited from the graphical update between games. It's got really clear and fitting textures, great animations, and a convincing sense of mass. The ground shakes when it runs, it warps the terrain when it slams down its fists, and every major movement sends ripples through its loose, saggy skin, pot belly, and dangling throat pouch. Exactly the kind of details I'd hope for in a high-res Pur-Lin, good shit!

Of course I'm a big fan of how overtly froggy it is, too, and I find it tremendously validating to know I wasn't the only one who thought the Pur-Lin in TDH looked amphibian! This new iteration runs even further with that idea and I really think that's for the best; there just aren't that many monsters in fiction that identify as amphibians, and in a setting that has so many dinosaurs and reptiles I think it goes a long way in giving the Pur-Lin their own visual identity. The new face this "Mummite" gets is especially hideous and I like its spiked arms, I just don't prefer them over the original look. Acclaim really nailed it on that first attempt, I think. This is a close second, though, definitely more appealing to me than the Turok 2 design!

Don't think I didn't notice that second set of teeth in the back of the throat! Pharyngeal jaws? On a giant flesh-eating frog?! Hell yeah!

 

 

The last non-boss type I'll talk about is the nigh-inscrutable Walligus, a truly bizarre and borderline comical enemy that shows up early in the game. Increasingly large numbers of them start gathering in your way as you descend though the lower reaches of a top secret, Area 51 esque military base, spewing acid slime, stomping around with their big muddy feet and swatting at you with their almost wing-like flippered hands and long... tongues? At first I thought they were cyclopses because I saw they had bright red circles for "faces" (and we all know how much Acclaim loves their cyclopses!), but that couldn't be because the tongue was coming straight out of the middle of it. So was the eyeball retracting before the tongue came out? Was the eye itself opening up somehow? How would that work? No... there was no eye.

Never was.

The Walligus aren't cycloptic fishmen, they're headless fishmen. Those bright red circles I kept seeing were the insides of their gaping, jawless throats. No eyes, no mouths, no skulls, just stump necks that their long tongues can dangle out of. But wait! There's more!

 

 

What is that? It couldn't be...? No, no. Must be the body clipping through itself or something.

"Surprise!"

Or not! There's a whole dang head hiding in there, what the heck?! It's a weird one too! I'd really like to see this design in higher resolution cuz those textures are wild. The bottom jaw is darker and curved upward with what seems like armor or at least tougher skin, but the top is smooth and flat with five indentations in it. I think they're four nostrils and a central eye (I knew you couldn't resist, Acclaim!), but it's too blurry to be sure. Maybe just five nostrils? Or five heat sensing pits! I really have no idea, but major props to whoever modeled and skinned this: this is the smallest, fastest moving, and easiest to miss part of this creature's anatomy and they still crammed as much detail as they could onto it. Bravo!

I lowkey kinda love the Walligus, but is it actually an effective monster design? Well, that's kind of my problem with most of Turok 3's bestiary... some of these creatures are impressively weird, charming, and even a bit cute, but they're supposed to be terrifying. These are all enemies, evil inhuman things following orders to rip innocent people limb from limb to amuse their apathetic and immortal chaos god. From an art direction perspective it's really not a good thing that I find so many of these monsters goofy and huggable. Designs like the Walligus and Infestoid have their own charm and absolutely hold worth, but I'd also be lying if I said any of them did a very good job of communicating what they were meant to here. I like them, but I'm not afraid of them.

I think of Turok 3 a bit like a less extreme version of Night of the Lepus. For those unfamiliar, that was a 1972 horror film that was practically laughed out of theaters because it was about people being terrorized by... bunnies. Said bunnies were, to their credit, very cute and cuddly, and I'm sure most people in the audience liked them a lot, but that doesn't mean Night of the Lepus succeeded at scaring anyone or that the bunnies were well cast movie monsters.

I like most of the monsters here, I just think they would've worked better in a different context.

The Xiphias here is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Looking at it gives me two very distinct and opposing feelings. Part of me doesn't want to say a single word against him because he's so dorky and sweet looking and I really don't think his innocent little alien heart could take it. Another part of me wants to lombast this as the worst boss design in the entire series because it's so monumentally ineffective at eliciting its intended emotional response.

This is the dark, awful secret at the bottom of the military base you infiltrate. The hideous, repulsive, alien thing that should not be here, and it looks... like a squeaky toy.

I don't hate the Xiphias. How could I? Look at him! He's just a little guy!

But does he look like the boss at the end of a horror-themed level in an M Rated game? Uhh... no.

The Opisthor boss fares a little better, but not much. Its round body, chunky legs, and googily eye-stalks all communicate silly and quirky to me more than anything serious. It also doesn't have anything that's immediately recognizable as a weapon and is a bit small in stature for a boss, being altogether no larger than a "Mummite". The hodge-podge junk armor it's wearing is also giving cute & quirky (I'm reminded of hermit crabs), but at least there's some interesting ethology implications there, especially since one of its mechanical add-ons is a prosthetic leg! There's no way that was just a happy accident, he put that there on purpose! How smart is Opisthor?!

Oppie's artificial leg makes a bit more sense in this concept art pitch because here all his legs have been constructed. This version of him just has a fat blob for a body so he had to use a jerry-rigged mechanical walker to get around on land. I think this would've been the more effective direction, personally! It could've been a lot grosser and more unsettling if they'd minimized the overtly organic elements and made Opisthor more like a heap of inanimate garbage. Just this mass of cobbled together things that shouldn't be able to move around, but somehow are, and are leaking this gross unidentifiable goo everywhere. It could've been fun to make more of a mystery of it, with players chipping away limbs and layers to work out how the thing is getting around and what's inside it.

Either way, Opisthor thankfully looks much more appropriate for his setting once he pops out of his shell. He's got a fairly nightmarish mouth, long jittery tendrils that move way too fast, and a very blank and unsettling predatory stare. The textures on his skin are downright putrid, too, I think I'd almost rather chance a bite than have to to touch him! You just know he's gotta be cold and slimy like a leftover turkey leg that's been sitting in the fridge for too long, and your fingers might slip and go into one of those big canker sores and... eugh!! Awful!

...But that's good! For once I actually wanna get away from the monster, not hug it!

Alright, enough underlings! Let's get down to the big bad himself, Oblivion!

Unlike the Primagen last game, Oblivion is a very straightforward villain: he's just evil. Maybe literally! The lore we get is not very specific: we know where he comes from and what he does, but nothing's ever said about what he is or why he does what he does. Oblivion simply is. That means he could be a demon or evil spirit, an eldritch chaos god or personification of entropy, the devil himself, or maybe just a really powerful alien. Who knows! It doesn't seem to matter.

What we are told about Oblivion is that he's very aptly named. Not only does he bring utter annihilation to every place he visits, he also comes from utter annihilation. His original home was a "time" before time, a "universe" before the universe. He existed in the primordial nothingness that preceded the Big Bang, in an infinite black void where things like matter, energy, and the very laws of nature had not yet come to be. His motivations are never spelled out for us in full but he must have preferred things the way they were because he's totally hellbent on unmaking all of everything.

That is some existential Lovecraftian bullshit right there. Geez! Have these Turok villains raised the stakes high enough for you yet?!

Thank the stars he wants to destroy, Oblivion is not another victim of Turok 3's cute and cuddly curse. He looks old, gross, bloated and malicious, with the kind of grotesque and asymmetrical physiology we were accustomed to in Turok 2. He reminds me a lot of the Primagen and, to a lesser extent, the Deadkin- though not because of any close resemblance. It's more of a vibes thing. The exposed guts, the ghastly face, the uneven features! He would've fit in just fine with the Seeds of Evil gang!

Speaking of, y'know who isn't here for this dark reunion? The Mother! Yeah, remember her?!

 

"We do not have, and never have had at any point in history, a mother."

 

It's brief, but before we meet Oblivion we get a cutscene with some of his Flesh-Eater minions that kind of writes her out of the story! Remember, we never heard what The Mother was or how long she'd been in the Lost Land, but we were told pretty explicitly that she birthed the entire Flesh-Eater race. In Turok 3, though, these dorky guys in hoods tell us the Flesh-Eaters predate the Lost Land and every living thing in it; they were fellow dwellers of the void before creation and were specifically brought to life by Oblivion. They even have a new title now, The Spawn of Oblivion.

So... has The Mother been completely retconned, then? Are we to believe she didn't exist, or that she did but wasn't actually their creator? I suppose it could be that both origins are true. Maybe Oblivion was The Father and he created them with The Mother. Or perhaps The Mother is also his creation, so teeechnically both statements are still true? I don't know why that would be, though. If he wanted an army of living things and had the power to create them why wouldn't he just do that instead of making something to make things for him?

For that matter, why does Oblivion make things at all?! I've gotta say, this "thing before creation" angle is just as nonsensical as it is intimidating! Oblivion comes from a time before everything, so he hates everything, and wants to undo everything... but even before he began his campaign to undo everything he was making things himself?!

And what does that whole chaos and corruption thing have to do with this? Does Oblivion want to erase life, make life, or just change life? Do things like the Stryders and Gunship even have a role in his plan?

Also, if Oblivion is some incomprehensible thing from before the conception of our reality why does he even have a form? I get that there's gotta be something for us to fight, but why a physical body? He could've looked like a ghost or a being of pure energy, he might've been a shapeshifter or possibly even a faceless evil force that just warps and possesses everything around it! This is all really weird high concept stuff, I know, but literally the first thing this villain told us was that he'd set "powers beyond the comprehension of flesh" into motion! Did that really just mean "I made some flesh to hurt your flesh"?! This is extremely confusing and anticlimactic!

But whatever. We just shoot Oblivion to death with bullets like everything else and the game ends.

P.S., the mystery child Joshua was dreaming about was Danielle's unborn son. AKA, sequel bait that never went anywhere.

P.S.S., there's an after-credits stinger where Adon abandons the Council because she knows a way to bring Joshua back to life and they don't approve. They send a faceless evil double to follow her and we end on double sequel bait that goes nowhere!

...

I don't know guys, I miss the simpler times. Back when our adversaries were just bad men and big dinosaurs, y'know? I wonder if there are any more Turok games like that... Hmmm...