Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion

Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion closes out the trilogy of first-person action shooters that were among the technological showcases of the Nintendo 64's early years. Instead of a single hero, this time you control the siblings Joshua and Danielle Fireseed, who face an entity called Oblivion that threatens the boundaries between past, present and future. The story is darker and more mature than in the series' earlier entries, and its environments mix prehistoric jungles with technological fortresses and cities of the future that the heroes gradually fight their way through toward a final confrontation.

The game was released exclusively for the Nintendo 64 and makes full use of its hardware, including support for the Expansion Pak for higher resolution and a smoother image, at the cost of a somewhat lower frame rate in more demanding sections. The newly introduced weapon-select wheel replaced the slow inventory scrolling of earlier entries and later became a standard across the whole genre on both consoles and computers. The two playable heroes have different abilities, and part of their equipment belongs to them alone — Joshua relies on a heavier arsenal and direct confrontation, while Danielle uses speed and stealth to get past tougher enemies, which, compared to its more linear predecessors, enriches the game with a tactical choice of approach to the same section. Four-player split screen for deathmatch and other competitive modes was among what kept players coming back to the cartridge long after finishing the story campaign, and the level design, in the form of sprawling, partly open levels, stayed true to earlier entries, even though individual chapters are somewhat shorter and flow into one another more smoothly. As the final entry of the original N64 trilogy, Turok 3 also closes a chapter before the series moved on, two years later, to PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube with Turok: Evolution.

Why play it: For fans of nineties shooters who appreciate the Nintendo 64's late era, a weapon-select wheel system that was ahead of its time, and the option of split screen for battles with a friend on one TV.