Speaking as a guy who played Turok 2 again a year or two ago and didn't really like it that much primarily due to the game's overly confusing level design, I enjoyed Turok 3's more straightforward level design by comparison.
The thing I liked about the Turok games were the weapon variety, weapon feedback and damage animations, and Turok 3 was basically that minus the part where you had to item hunt to get to the next level.I love how shooting different parts of the body will have you dismember an enemy, the game does encourage to shoot at different enemy body parts more like the sword wielding laiens need you to aim in the body or legs to kill it or how soliders might be easy to kill if you shoot them in the arm or leg, this game came out the same year as Soldier of Fortune so its cool that this system existed on the N64 even though Turok 2 also had it but I appreciate it more here due to the more straightforward level design.
The level design in Turok 3 is more traditional shooter fare, all though the game gets compared to Half-Life, it's more like Quake 2 where you have level objectives and you can explore the levels that are separated into different zones since and the game uses a chapter system where you have one big area to explore, beat the level boss and then that area gets blocked off and then you got a new area to explore. I prefer Quake 2's level design over Turok 2's so I certainly welcome the change. There is some similarities with Half-Life with some of the puzzles you have to solve.
Some of the levels did get me stuck a few times but for the most part I was able to navigate the levels with no issues. The life force chips do a decent job at guiding the player. It's very 90s shooter in the way Quake 2 and even other 90s shooters with how mazelike the level were and the backtracking the required.
Some isssues with the game is that it's way too short, I don't mind short games but I wouldn't mind 2 more levels before the game ended, I know there is a 2nd character, Joeseph Fireseed but his levels play out too similarly to Danielle from what I have seen for me to warrant a second playthrough.
That and some of the enemy projecticles homed in on you a little too fast, but this is something I can tolerate since there were always medkits around and the remaster of the game autosaves from the last level you loaded in from so there isn't too much progress lost when you do die and you respawn with 50 out of the 120 hp to help out so you are never in any unwinnable situations.
I am not a big fan of having multiple weapons and them sharing ammo since I will most likely use the preffered weapon variant that I like. I will always use the weapon that packs a punch and consumes less ammo for example, I will use the pistol over the mag 60 since it packs a punch and drains ammo less, same goes for the assault rifle and the chaingun respectively.
The game is also more cinematic than previously Turoks and the cutscene composition and production values are decent for their time. The story itself was already hard to take seriously when Joshua Fireseed dies in the opening of the game and I am never a fan of a trope like that since I would rather have a build up to a death of an established character rather than it just randomly happening.
Overall, while short and could've had a campaign with more actual meat, Turok 3 is a good time and probably the only Turok I like from the ones I played. If you don't like Turok 1 and 2, you might like this game too much like I did. It's not going to blow your socks off, but compared to other shooters on the N64 that came out on the same system, I do prefer it over Perfect Dark especially now both games have gotten superior remasters and aren't shackled to the N64 anymore.
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