Turok (series)



Turok is a video game franchise based on the Turok comic book series published by Valiant Comics.

The first Turok video game, titled Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, was released in 1997 for the Nintendo 64 console. It followed Tal'Set Fireseed, the eldest male in his family chosen to become Turok: The protector of the boundary between this dimension and the others; a series of parallel universes held together by "The Lost Lands": a world where "Time Has No Meaning"-In other words, things like robots, cyborgs and aliens from the distant future, Demons from the darkest pits of Hell, and Dinosaurs from primeval jungles ran rampant; and where various people from different dimensions were at war for its control. The job of the current Turok was to keep balance in this world and close the portals to the other dimensions that were bound the The Lost Lands (this was also a good excuse to give a Native American warrior things like Nuclear Fission Cannons and Radioactive Death Rays). The game was well received by gamers and critics alike, and paved the way for the even more popular sequel: Turok 2: Seeds of Evil (1998), which was lauded for its excellent AI, graphics and long, sprawling levels. It followed the life of a modern-day eighteen-year-old boy chosen to become the next Turok: Joshua Fireseed, as he slaughtered his way through hordes of enemies to stop the evil Primagen from destroying his universe. A PC and Gameboy Color version were released in the wake of the game's success, but both were poorly received.

The following title, Turok: Rage Wars (1999), was a pure multi-player game along the lines of Quake III Arena or Unreal Tournament, which was situated outside the main chronology. Despite this (and a so-so reception from reviewers) Rage Wars was well received by fans.

The third canonical entry to the franchise was Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion (2000), which took a more story oriented path than its prequels, and more-or-less picked up where Seeds of Evil left off. The Hero of the previous game dies, leaving his two remaining family members - younger brother Joseph and older sister Danielle - to carry on the family tradition of blowing up dinosaurs with big guns... And to also stop the Cosmic Horror known as Oblivion from devouring all life in the universe. The game was sadly mired by programming errors and annoying bugs, as well as poor voice acting. A common fan criticism is that it didn't have the feel of a Turok game.

The final game to appear as part of the original story-line was Turok: Evolution (2002), a prequel game revolving around the early exploits of the first game's protagonist, Tal Set, as he battles the tyrannical Slegs (a race of Snake/Lizard/Dinosaur people) and their commander, a genetically-engineered T-Rex named Tyrannus.

A Continuity Reboot simply titled Turok was released in 2008 for PlayStation 3, PC and Xbox 360, with the titular hero as a Space Marine. While not a terrible game, it was "simply another generic FPS" and received predictably poor reviews.


 * Abnormal Ammo: Becomes more ubiquitous the more powerful your guns get.
 * AKA-47: "Assault Rifle", "Pistol", "Shotgun", etc.
 * Anachronism Stew: Averted, as the Dinosaurs, Demons and Aliens were all interdimensional travelers (albeit involuntary ones); and not simply different things from different time periods together for no reason.
 * Anticlimax Boss: The mighty Tobias Bruckner, who could actually be killed from outside his reaction range, resulting in a final boss that consisted of shooting at a stationary man sat on a dinosaur. Heck, if you wanted to be really anti-climatic, just get a tree to fall on Bruckner for a one-hit kill. Yeah, a final boss being killed in one hit.
 * Awesome but Impractical: The Nuke Weapon did nothing to the penultimate or final bosses, though firing it at the ceiling took care of the latter's Mooks. Also the Scorpion Launcher's bugged damage meaning it sometimes did nothing but knock an enemy into the air without damaging them.
 * Back Tracking
 * Badass: You have to be, to bear the mantle of Turok.
 * Badass Native: Tal'Set Fireseed.
 * Bag of Holding: The Light Burden, the small bag the Turoks carry, is explained to be one of these, and stores all their weaponry...
 * Bag of Spilling: ...Though only from the game you're currently in.
 * Bee People: The Mantids.
 * Black Blood: See Banned In Germany.
 * Black Speech: Heard while approaching a temple in 3. Warping to the level boss and going to the temple from there lets it be heard properly; it's actually just a bunch of sinister voices repeating the words 'Foreign chanting' over and over!
 * Bloody Murder
 * Blown Across the Room: Hilariously invoked in Turok 1, soul-crushingly averted in Turok 2; In 1, an enemy's body could be knocked about endlessly with explosives, all the while spewing endless torrents of blood. In Turok 2, no matter how much explosive power you launch at an enemy, their body WILL NOT MOVE from its spot. Ever. It WILL fly upwards, perfectly vertical, and fall back down to its anchored spot, but it will not be moved horizontally.
 * Boss Battle
 * Braids, Beads, and Buckskins: Every protagonist up until the 2008 version.
 * Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: The defeat of the Primagen causes a chain reaction that results in the end of the universe as we know it, as well as bringing forth an even worse Eldritch Abomination, Oblivion. Joshua is killed by Oblivion's spawn at the beginning of the third game.
 * Classic Cheat Code: "bewareoblivionisathand" "NTHGHTHDGDCRTDTRK"
 * Cool but Inefficient: The Cerebral Bore. Despite being the most iconic weapon of the series, and for a damn good reason, has an almost non-existent fire rate and limited ammo, and sometimes left the enemy alive after the bore detonated.
 * Cool Gate: The Warp Portals.
 * The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: If you attempt to use anything more powerful than the minigun (apart from the Chronoscepter) on the Campaigner in Dinosaur Hunter's final battle, the Campaigner activates a magnetic shield that not only protects him from harm for some time, it actually removes the weapon from your arsenal. Oh, and he counters your puny efforts with an attack that knocks HALF of your health off and sends you flying across the arena.
 * Creepy Child: In Shadow of Oblivion.
 * Critical Existence Failure
 * Cutscene: Averted in the first game, played straight from the second onwards.
 * Cruel Mercy: In Evolution, where
 * Crystal Spires and Togas: What Galyanna is implied to be.
 * Cut and Paste Environments: Turok 2 suffered severely from recycling identical areas, to the point it was entirely possible to walk from the middle of Lair of the Blind Ones to the entrance without realizing. Those sprawling levels? Sprawl a little too much.
 * Cut Song: This piece was supposed to be used for the Primagen battle, but they ended up using the Mantid Queen music instead.
 * Darker and Edgier: The comic books were produced in the ultra-politically correct 50s, and come with a seal from Dell comics that promises "only clean and wholesome entertainment", pledging to eliminate objectionable material entirely. The videogames, on the other hand wholeheartedly earn their M rating
 * Damage Discrimination
 * Death Is a Slap on The Wrist: "11 lives remaining!"
 * Defrosting Ice Queen: Slade in the 2008 version is a male, non-romantic example. He starts out as a complete asshole towards Turok (he does have a reason, namely ), but gradually softens and respects him, especially after Turok saves him from a giant eel/octopus thing.
 * Eldritch Abomination: Primagen and Oblivion.
 * The Elevator From Ipanema: See Soundtrack Dissonance.
 * Elite Mooks: At least one different kind each level.
 * Everything's Better with Dinosaurs: The main storyline has to do with the job of an ancient warrior trying to keep The Omniverse from collapsing; using his ancient wisdom to survive in a dark, alien land. They could just have easily have come up with some pretty strange creatures for the Lost Lands; but Bio-mechanical Dinosaurs were apparently better fitting.
 * Exactly What It Says on the Tin: In Japan, the games were called "Violence Killer: Turok".
 * Excuse Plot: Almost every game: "Some jackass is trying to conquer the Multiverse... or something of that variety. Here's some kick-ass weaponry. Now go kill."
 * Explosive Overclocking
 * Fackler Scale of FPS Realism: The earlier games are very much on the "not" end of the scale, with Hammerspace inventories, the ability to jump in mid-air and healing by picking up plus signs. Even the most recent one let you dual-wield shotguns and stab giant dinosaurs to death with a knife.
 * Fetch Quest: The first two games are all about finding keys. Extended with 2's objectives, which often included fetching things like explosive charges and crystals that you were never actually told about.
 * First-Person Shooter
 * Flat Character: Both protagonists in Dinosaur Hunter and Seeds of Evil. The latter gets some Character Development in the third game, right before he dies. In Evolution, while Tal'set is given a reason for his rage, it's never really expanded upon and he only talks in cutscenes between levels - if there are cutscenes.
 * Gameplay Ally Immortality
 * Gatling Good:
 * Fire. Storm. Cannon.
 * Flechette Gun. Secondary fire. DAKKA. DAKKA. DAKKA.
 * Gorn:
 * Turok: Human poachers will shoot a glorious fountain of sweet crimson from their necks; gagging while trying to hold it in and keep from collapsing; before choking to death and ceasing to live. Raptors and Demons shot in the face drag their heads along on broken necks before flopping around like fish and giving a soul-chilling death rattle; all while kicking the air in a futile attempt to keep alive.
 * Turok II: Seeds of Evil
 * Shoot a monster through the chest and its heart will be blown out; still beating, it will crawl away while its former body collapses.
 * Blow the head off a Raptor or Raptoid and it does a "headless chicken" death spasm where it will continue to attack you before realizing it no longer has a head, then falls down dead. During this spasm it will no longer make noise but will continue to spill blood all over the floor.
 * Shoot the Cerebral Bore at something with a brain in it's head, and pinkish-green goo will be spit out of its liquified brain before blood jets out; and finally its head EXPLODES. Note that the drilling noise the weapon makes while drilling into it's victim is chill inducing, as is the way the victim will writhe in pain. Though it is hilarious to see enemies try to run from the heat seeking weapon. Please note that it will NOT work on the undead. Hence the 'something with a brain comment'.
 * Insectoids can be roasted to nothing but exoskeleton before its rotting remains spill out of its abdomen.
 * Use explosive shotgun shells on the dinosoids and you can literally blow them in half, exposing their spines and a few surviving ribs.
 * Explosive shotgun shells (well, the regular ones can do it too, but with less occurrence mind you) when used on the Purr-Linn that aren't wearing chest armor, can literally blow a hole in them so large you can see through it, count surviving ribs, and supposedly even shoot through it at enemies behind them. Granted Purr-Linns killed in this manner only stay up for a short time so it's not a wise tactic to try, since if you miss when shooting them they can melee you to death, very fast.
 * The Nuke Weapon, fires a bolt of energy that draws in more energy, then lets out a blinding flash. Any enemies caught in any of these flashes will be turned into a statue that will then explode if not touched for a few seconds.
 * Sunfire Pods, when used against the Blind Ones, will set them on fire and send them running to try and stop the searing pain. Also it's an instant kill to spiders caught in the flash.
 * Dead soldiers line the walls of the Port of Adia and River of Souls levels. Such bodies usually have spears embedded in them, holding them up against the wall. If the player is so inclined, they can shoot regular arrows at the dead soldier and they will embed themselves. More than 20 arrows can be fired into any one soldier and they will all remain in place so you can see them from another angle, which is more No Kill Like Overkill than anything. Said arrows can then be reclaimed and reused.
 * Firing an arrow at an enemy will cause them to stick in place.
 * Explosive shotgun shells (aren't they fun?) when used on the lava dinosoids in the Lair of the Blind Ones level can blow them up in such a way that all that remains are their legs, and their thigh bone which will protrude out of the remaining leg, all the while spilling blood over the floor.
 * Turok III: Shadows of Oblivion: bloodied bodies litter the streets of cities overcome by Hellish Demons that seek to bring about absolute rule of their Eldritch God, Oblivion; disembowelment and skinnings of screaming children becomes reasonably commonplace.
 * Turok 2008: CQC knife kills are introduced, that allow you to kill dinos by stabbing them in the head with your knife. And as one of the loading screens says, "What's a meat fountain? Try hitting a dino with a well-placed grenade." Explosives let you blow some dinos to bloody pieces, which then twitch around on the ground. And guess how you defeat the T.rex?.
 * Heal Thyself
 * Heart Container
 * Hit Points
 * Horde of Alien Locusts: The Mantids.
 * HUD
 * Hyperspace Arsenal: An aversion was attempted in the first game, since you could only hold a limited amount of ammo unless you had a backpack equipped,. It didn't do much to improve realism since its own capacity was unlimited, so the bag (or rather, not having one) was a hindrance more than anything and wasn't included in later games.
 * Turok 2 takes it to the extreme with the ability to carry over 20 weapons. Not to mention ammunition and artifacts needing to be carried.
 * And Evolution overkills it.
 * In Name Only: The 2008 game has barely anything in common with either the comic or the previous games, beyond starring a guy called Turok who kills a lot of dinosaurs.
 * Infinity+1 Sword: In every game, there is a BFG that must be assembled, piece by piece, throughout the entire game. Except for the most recent two.
 * Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence: Fairly frequent in the older games would be finding your way blocked by a grating or arbitrary wooden barrier.
 * Invincible Minor Minion: S.W.A.T. Officers in the 3rd game. They open fire on you if you try to get past them, and are completely unkillable. They pretty much serve as a Border Patrol to push you down the pre-scripted game path.
 * Jerkass: Slade in the 2008 version, who constantly complains and makes snide remarks toward Turok at the drop of a hat. Though he does soften over time.
 * Large Ham: The Campaigner.
 * "THE UNIVERSE IS MIIIIIIIINE!!!"
 * Life Meter
 * Ludicrous Gibs
 * The Metaverse
 * More Dakka:
 * Mooks not dying fast enough? FIND BIGGER GUN.
 * Penultimate weapon: THE MINIGUN IN EVOLUTION. It was able to gib the huge minibosses, literally in seconds. The drawback was that it had very little ammo in store.
 * Multiple Endings: Turok 2 has two endings.
 * Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Dimension-hopping Navajo Warrior trying to stop an Omnicidal maniac's army of genetically engineered Dinosaurs, shape-shifting Demons and Vicious biomechanical Extraterrestrials with future-weapons that skull-fuck enemies to death on an Alternate version of Earth where "Time has no meaning". How freakin' epic is that?
 * Nonstandard Game Over:
 * The first would have different Game over animation if you died against some of the bosses. The Mantis and T-Rex would eat you and the Campaigner bludgeoned Turok to death.
 * The T-Rex had a Nonstandard Nonstandard Game Over animation on top of this. Normally the animation ends with the T-Rex burping after eating Turok, but if you enable the "Disco Mode" cheat (which normally causes enemies to dance, but just screws around with the bosses' timing), then the T-Rex eats Turok faster than normal, burps, and then watches a feather from Turok's headdress floating by its head.
 * The Omniscient Council of Vagueness: The Lazarus Concordance.
 * Oxygen Meter
 * Recycled Title: Turok 2008.
 * Reptiles Are Abhorrent: The Slegs. They torture for fun. A lot.
 * Retcon:
 * The series' very favorite thing; Turoks 2 and 3 are the only ones to not totally ignore the events of every preceding game. 2 didn't bother to pick up on 1's 'Campaigner is actually an Android' ending or explain how Joshua became Turok (this is because the Turok in 1 was supposed to be Joshua as per the cover and manual comic, but for some reason was shown as Tal'Set instead). Rage Wars barely had a plot at all and claimed the first Turok was the bad guy, leading to Acclaim making the insane claim in the Extreme G strategy guide that Tal'Set had never been Turok and the Turok in 1 was Joshua. Evolution ignored the entire preceding series, and Turok 2008 ignored that.
 * Evolution was a prequel to the original Dinosaur Hunter; explaining how Tal'Set took about becoming Turok and defending The Lost Lands.
 * Ribcage Ridge: Early in Turok a ridiculously huge carnivore skeleton is seen; the skull alone is the size of a house. The player might think this is foreshadowing. It isn't.
 * Rule of Cool: Dinosaur Hunter had raptors with horned skullcaps, Death-rays and Rocket boosters, Triceratops with mounted machine-gunners, rocket-launchers and grenade-launchers, a freaking fire-breathing bio-mechanical Tyrannosaurus Rex with laser beam on its eye, flame-throwers on its face, death-rays and rocket launchers and freaking intestine-rending claws, all of that with you being an dimension-traveling Navajo behind a scorpion missile launcher that fires 4 rockets at the time and a ruby-powered fission cannon. Now those were brain storming sessions.
 * Sand Worm: The "Subterraneans" in the first game were Hideous, Snake-worm animals with Eyes on Stalks and acid-spitting abilities.
 * Sealed Evil in a Can: The Primagen.
 * Shout-Out: Dinosaur Hunter had a railgun very obviously cribbed from Eraser and Extraterrestrials similar to the ones in Independence Day. 2 had the Cerebral Bore, referencing The Tall Man's orbs in the Phantasm series, a disc weapon straight out of Xena. And the Firestorm Cannon, a Gatling Good shout-out to Predator.
 * Sorting Algorithm of Evil: Usually averted. Mooks and Elite Mooks appear throughout the whole game, but generally aren't any tougher than the ones from the last level.
 * Soundtrack Dissonance: The Elevator music "Girl from Galyanna" from Shadow of Oblivion.
 * Sprite Polygon Mix: Turok 2 featured an interesting graphical glitch that showed how the sprites were scaled; the game measured the distance from player object to sprite to figure out how large the sprite should be on-screen. Unfortunately, it had no way to compensate for the sniper zoom, meaning a 2D effect will appear to shrink as you zoom in and grow as you zoom out.
 * Standard FPS Guns: Depending on the game, this is either played straight, averted or subverted with some creative inclusions.
 * Stealth Based Mission: Evolution went there. And lo, it was terrible.
 * Stock Dinosaurs: 'Procompsognathus', 'Triceratops', 'Tyrannosaurus Rex', 'Velociraptor'
 * The Straight and Arrow Path: Bows are a starter weapon in every game.
 * There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The staple of the series.
 * Trouser Space: The first two Turoks were only ever seen wearing pants and a few small accessories (probably why they got damaged so much, come to think of it).
 * Video Game Cruelty Potential:
 * Two words: Cerebral. Bore.
 * Holy shit, is it very bad in Evolution. Let's see - The bore. Then you get to the flamethrower, where you could burn them until they gibbed. You had poison arrows, which caused them to puke their guts out until they died. You had the black hole grenades, which stretched the enemies as they were sucked into the hole. You could fire darts or arrows into their throats and watch them choke on their own blood. And so on...
 * For its time, Seeds of Evil was considered pretty bad, though it pales in comparison to the gore in Evolution. The PFM Layer (Personal Fragmentation Mine Layer) could amputate the legs of most enemies, causing them to roll around on the ground in agony until they bled to death (and you could sometimes shoot legs off with your other weapons). You could blow off heads and arms from just about every enemy. Zombies could be blown in half, reduced to an upper torso crawling along and dragging its naked spine. Purr-Linn Warclubs could have holes blown clear through their upper torso (the Magnum, Shotgun and Shredder were best at this), resulting in blood fountaining down both sides of their bodies and a ghastly gurgling sound before they keeled over.
 * Even the original had its moment. In the tutorial. Shooting Tek Arrows at the pillars enemies were situated on rather than the enemies themselves would (somehow) cause them to launch into the air, bleeding and screaming. And you could juggle them this way.
 * Video Game Settings:
 * Port Town: The Port of Adia
 * Big Boo's Haunt / Temple of Doom: The River of Souls
 * Bubblegloop Swamp: The Death Marshes
 * Underground Level / Lethal Lava Land: The Lair of the Blind Ones
 * Hornet Hole: The Hive of the Mantids
 * Eternal Engine: Primagen's Lightship, and the Oblivion Portals
 * The Walls Have Eyes: Turok 2 has a giant eye protected by smaller eyes stuck on the wall.
 * Who's on First?: The short comic included with Turok 1 ends with Joshua stumping The Campaigner (!) with this very problem.
 * World Half Empty:
 * The Lost Lands.
 * Then you had the GBC version of Seeds of Evil.