RoboCop: Rogue City

RoboCop: Rogue City recreates the atmosphere of the classic 80s action flick while adding dollops of actual police work, like investigating crime scenes and patrolling around. However, its combat is straightforward. Walk towards the enemies, blast them to smithereens with a range of weaponry, get some upgrades, and repeat. It’s fun though, and fairly compelling as you evolve into a nigh-unstoppable killing – er, law enforcement machine.

Everspace 2

For all the talk about its multiple systems and extensive side content, Everspace 2 is a space shooter, first and foremost. There are several ship types suited for different needs, and the range of weapons, including EMP missiles, mines, gauss cannons, and much more, can get pretty ridiculous. Still, coupled with how natural the movement feels, it’s easy to jump in and destroy with impunity. Just don’t wander into a system with higher-level enemies by accident.

Resident Evil 4

The original Resident Evil 4 is already a masterpiece in terms of combat, and while the remake doesn’t fundamentally alter the formula, it does enhance it. With QTEs removed, you can now parry at will, making for some awesome moments like stopping an enemy’s chainsaw with a knife. Otherwise, the feedback from popping heads and kicking enemies into each other feels better than ever, and weapons get new Exclusive Upgrades to further enhance their capabilities.

Dead Space

Motive Studios put in significant work to revamp Dead Space’s graphics and exploration, and it’s certainly one of the most stunning games of the year. However, it went even further with the gameplay, introducing the Peeling system. This gave enemies layers, with different weapons having unique effects when targeting limbs, making combat more visceral. Of course, the improvements to the Zero-G sections, new rooms, and puzzles also didn’t hurt.

Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon

FromSoftware’s latest has an involving story, but if you’re in it just for the action, there’s plenty to go around. There is a plethora of weapons to choose from, including shotguns, missile launchers, beam rifles and plasma, and it can get somewhat overwhelming to fit it all into a single build. Still, the extensive customization helps, so if you want to be a glass cannon with insane damage or hover endlessly and rain fire down, you can do that. It also helps that there are so many bosses to test your builds on and provide a worthy challenge.

Quake 2: Enhanced Edition

The surprise release, developed in collaboration with Nightdive Studios, turned a classic into one of the more underrated shooters of the year. Along with enhanced visuals, it sported quality-of-life features like the Compass to more easily navigate levels, accessibility options and new attacks for enemies like the Berserker. With the base game, The Reckoning and Ground Zero, Quake 2 64, a new episode, Call of the Machine by MachineGames, and the id Vault, Quake 2: Enhanced Edition is an absurd amount of value and recommended for the id faithful.

Metroid Prime Remastered

After numerous rumors, a remaster of Retro Studios’ classic finally arrived for the Nintendo Switch. Shock of shocks, it’s still incredible, with the exploration, level design, puzzle solving and combat on point over two decades later. The revamped visuals garnered the most attention since they went beyond a simple remaster. However, the new dual-stick control scheme and narration options also make this a worthy revisit for fans. Even if you’re not a twitchy shooter fan, Metroid Prime Remastered is worth playing.

Starfield

There are a few things awkward about Starfield, but admittedly, its gunplay can be pretty fun. Iterating further on Fallout 4, the shooting – especially from first-person – feels more fluid and responsive. More weapon types are welcome, but taking threats down with old-school ballistic weapons or flooding them with Microgun fire is equally enjoyable. If you’re more about space shooting, shipbuilding can be fun, and taking your creation into space to obliterate anything and everything is cathartic.

Remnant 2

One of my personal favorites, Remnant 2 is everything about the first game turned up to 11. Its build-crafting is expanded thanks to the new Archetypes. The biome generation is also phenomenal, presenting wholly different worlds, bosses and enemies to fight in each run. Above all else, the shooting and movement are fantastic, mixing the tense Souls-like dodge-rolling with unique weapons that feel amazing.

THE FINALS

THE FINALS is more than just a gun game, mixing all-out environmental destruction and fast-paced movement with strategy and teamwork. Nevertheless, scoring a triple-kill with the pump-action grenade launcher or three-tapping someone with the revolver feels great. It’s this mix of free-flowing gunplay, seamless traversal and more unmitigated chaos, whether you’re chasing down a vault or guarding a bank with all the random nonsense you can muster, that makes THE FINALS so addictive.

Trepang2

Monolith Productions may never revisit the F.E.A.R. franchise, but thankfully, there’s Trepang2. Don’t let the cliché premise stop you – it boasts fast-paced action with all the slow-mo and brutality you could want. Sliding, using enemies as shields before tossing them, melee combat, and much more enhance the experience further, and the presentation is on point throughout.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora

It’s weird to put Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora on a list of best shooters, given its focus on gathering, exploration, investigation, and peacefully co-existing with nature. However, when it’s time to hunt, the bows and spears feel great to use and are all the more effective on RDA AMPs and soldiers. The shotgun also feels nice and hefty, and chaining together slides and leaps to reposition and effectively slaughter your enemies is fun.

Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion Remastered

Turok 3 is far from the best game in the series, focusing more on a linear campaign with underwhelming dialogue and little replay value. However, it’s still fun, thanks to Nightdive Studios’ remaster, with the environment, characters and weapons receiving hefty visual updates. The feeling of sniping enemies from afar or unleashing hell with the Cerebral Bore is also intact.

System Shock

Nightdive Studios had a much bigger shooter release this year with System Shock, a remake of Looking Glass’s 1993 classic. Everything about it is sublime, from the revamped visuals to the feedback from the weapons. It’s not your average run-and-gun shooter thanks to the scarcity of ammo, but that’s part of the appeal, and all the little improvements, including the revamped cyberspace, make for an immersive experience.

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty

CD Projekt RED leaned in with the decision-making and consequences for Phantom Liberty, conjuring a memorably tragic tale. However, it also cooked well with the combat, partly thanks to the changes in Update 2.0 – from slide reloads and air dashes to finishers – but also due to the new Relic tree abilities. There’s nothing like launching an enemy into space with overpowered Gorilla Arms or launching multiple explosive shots from the arm cannon. With movement feeling more fluid than ever and new threats to tackle, Phantom Liberty represents the peak of the title’s combat.

It’s still interesting to think that Turok 3 that came out more than two decades ago can still hold up this well when it comes to gameplay, and this is in no small part thanks to how Nightdive Studios managed to reimagine the game’s entire control scheme for modern systems. Gone are the days when we had to rely on lock-ons and a toggle between aiming and moving while playing shooters on controllers; we have two analogue sticks now, after all.

Back when it came out, Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion was considered by many to be something of a misfit within the franchise. While its predecessors were generally fun games about killing dinosaurs and other monsters with unique weapons, Turok 3 placed its emphasis on its story, and even went as far as featuring two distinctly playable characters. However, at the time, the game was criticized for, among other things, numerous bugs and terrible voice acting. Despite all of this, however, it was still looked upon quite fondly by many players.

"Back when it came out, Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion was considered by many to be something of a misfit within the franchise."

Looking at it through a more modern lens, Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion is still an incredibly fun shooter. While there are some interesting choices when it comes to translating a classic control scheme for modern controllers—L2 for jump comes to mind—the game still feels incredibly intuitive to play just like any other shooter would, despite its age. The gameplay doesn’t really get more complicated than running around and shooting things. Levels are fairly linear, and there aren’t a lot of unique mechanics introduced in the game. Much like other shooters of the era, what makes Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion special is its arsenal.

Sure, it has the weapons you would expect in a standard shooter, like a pistol, an assault rifle and a shotgun. It wouldn’t be Turok if there weren’t some strange weapons and Turok 3 certainly doesn’t disappoint on that end. Among other things, you eventually start getting access to heavier weaponry, ranging from the standard grenade launcher, the iconic Cerebral Bore, and even a weapon with a name as incredible as Personal Singularity Generator. The fun thing about that last one is that you don’t just get it in the usual course of play; you have to assemble the weapon with parts hidden throughout the game’s five chapters.

For those that may not know about some of the more exotic weapons you get to play around with in Turok games, the Cerebral Bore lets you shoot bores that latch on to an enemy’s head and drill into its skull until the enemy explodes. Sure, you may not be able to use it on bosses, but it’s still one of the coolest weapons out there. There’s also the Vampire Gun, which drains enemy health but doesn’t use any ammo. The most powerful weapon in the game, the Personal Singularity Generator, is essentially a weapon of mass destruction that, while incredibly powerful, has a long cooldown before you can use it again.

"It wouldn’t be Turok if there weren’t some strange weapons and Turok 3 certainly doesn’t disappoint on that end."

The creativity that went into these weapons is one of the things that makes Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion an incredibly fun shooter even today. Of course, its standard weapons are also a lot of fun to use, especially if you can get your hands on character-specific upgrades. Turok 3 has you pick a character that you’ll play as for the rest of the campaign—Danielle and Joseph. While Danielle focuses on explosive firepower, Joseph instead opts for stealth and precision kills. Each weapon has an upgrade for one of the characters. For example, the Shotgun can be upgraded by Danielle into the Fireswarm, which sets enemies on fire with its shots. Joseph, on the other hand, can upgrade it to the Shredder, which stuns enemies with its bouncy ammo.

While the story is ostensibly the weakest part of the entire Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion package, it’s still quite charming thanks to its age. The plot isn’t really more complicated than: “They killed your father. Go and get revenge.” This simple premise is wrapped up in an overarching narrative extending all the way from the original Turok release, revolving around a chosen Turok that is tasked with keeping the balance between dimensions by making sure monsters don’t cross into different worlds. There’s even a mysterious council that’s possibly linked to a greater conspiracy. Turok 3’s story is incredibly dumb, and true to its era, doesn’t waste too much time on exposition between its levels.

Along with the core gameplay, Nightdive Studios has also done an incredible job in making the game look visually great. Don’t get me wrong; it’s still an incredibly old game with dated visuals. The studio, however, has touched things up in a subtle ways, improving the its clarity and the general quality of its models and environments, while still maintaining the classic look. You won’t be confusing the Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion remaster for a modern game by any stretch, but you also don’t have to worry about it looking like a bare bones port, since things look much sharper and clearer.

"You won’t be confusing the Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion remaster for a modern game by any stretch."

The biggest problem with the remaster is the fact that it doesn’t include the original’s multiplayer. Sure, maybe adding an entire online multiplayer mode, complete with matchmaking infrastructure would have been well out of scope for what was meant to be a remaster of a classic shooter, but at least including the local multiplayer options would have been a great way to spend some time with friends. The original had the option for 4-player split-screen multiplayer, after all.

In conclusion, Nightdive’s work on the remaster has been excellent; not only does the game play incredibly well thanks to a modern control scheme, it also has a few neat options, like the ability to increase your field of view, and even support for higher frame rates. Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion still features all of the things you might expect if you’ve played the original, and for new players, the remaster is essentially the definitive way to experience the game. The only real drawback is the lack of local multiplayer—a feature that was present in the original—and the game’s story. It’s goofy, campy and fun, but you’re better off just skipping the cutscenes to get right into the gameplay. At least that way you won’t have to tolerate the terrible voice acting.

On the other hand, fans of single-player shooters will find plenty to love here, since the game offers a host of secrets and unlockable cheats, as well as the ability to play as two distinct characters, each with their own choice in weapon upgrades.

This PS4 version of this game was reviewed on the PS5 through backwards compatibility.

Based on the Nintendo 64 shooter from 2000, the remaster supports resolutions up to 4K and 120 FPS on PC, Xbox Series X/S and PS5. It offers high-resolution textures, gamepad support, motion blur, ambient occlusion, anti-aliasing and improved lighting. Utilizing the latest version of KEX Engine (Nightdive’s proprietary engine), it also provides higher fidelity 3D models, effects and textures thanks to an improved renderer.

If that weren’t enough, it also features support for Trophies and Achievements and motion/gyro controls on the Nintendo Switch. With Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion Remastered’s launch, the entire trilogy has been remastered for contemporary gaming platforms. You can pick up all three titles in a bundle for $59.99.

Previously set to launch on November 14, Turok 3: Shadows of Oblivion has been hit with a short delay, and will now long a couple of weeks later than originally expected, on November 30.

As previously confirmed, the remaster is set to feature support for 4K and 60 FPS, enhanced lighting, redone art and assets for environments, characters, and weapons, and graphical options for ambient occlusion, dynamic shadows, motion blur, bloom, and anti-aliasing. It will also feature support for Trophies and Achievements, and on Switch, for motion controls and gyro.

When it launches, Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion Remastered will be available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

Utilizing the latest version of the KEX Engine for 4K resolution and 120 FPS support, the remaster offers enhancements to lighting and rendering, high-resolution textures, modern game support (with gyro and motion control support on Switch) and “upgraded gameplay.” Other graphical options include ambient occlusion, dynamic shadows, motion blur, bloom and anti-aliasing.

Character models, environments, weapon models, textures and effects benefit from an improved renderer, offering even more detail. Of course, there’s also support for Trophies and Achievements.

In a press release, Nightdive Studios director of business development Larry Kuperman said, “The Turok series is one of the classic touchstones of gaming and being able to provide the newest and improved version of Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion is a great feeling. It makes full use of the latest version of our KEX engine, and we’re excited to share the game with players later this year.”

Stay tuned for more details in the meantime, and check out our reviews for Quake 2 Enhanced Edition and System Shock Remake, both handled by Nightdive.