Recent reviews by Diagmato

Shadowman wasn't one of my favourite games on the N64, though I put many hours into it and completed it a few times (including the PC version), so the remastered one shouldn't bring any surprises...

Well, in theory. The remastered version contains new content, and despite seeing mention of this before playing, I was expecting the odd extra room, or an unfinished "optional" map. You can imagine the surprise of seeing Yort where once there was no boss, or the confusion of using the tram in Asylum and ending up in Experimentation rooms. Each of "The Five" also now get their own dedicated level - previously Marco and Pike felt like sub-bosses due to being crammed in Gardelle.

There was something different about this playthrough which felt more engaging. I knew where most of the items were from previous playthroughs so there was much less of getting stuck hoping to find any clue of what to do next, and more making mental notes of "I can get another few dark souls here once I get the Marcher gad".

The new music makes a lot of difference too - Playrooms used to be the one track that stood out because of its calm-but-horrific contrast, but now Engine Block is far more considered and actually had me turning the volume down hoping the neighbours didn't get alarmed.

As atmospheric as the game is, some of the level design is still a little off. There are particularly unrealistic areas in some of the Asylum maps where it's just long, winding, sloping corridors which make little architectural sense, but seem to be there to quickly tie parts of the overall level together. There are many times where I'd assume one path is the "main path" of the level and would first branch off on what looks like a side-door to perhaps a small room, only to find it's now branching into 4 other routes and a more likely critical path. Of note, was trying to find the Temple of Life, which is a vital part of the early game, only to find it is up a hard to see and unassuming cave path. Whilst I wouldn't expect a "modern" map complete with radar and markers - perhaps in one of the in-game journals there could have been static maps so at least there's a mental picture of the layout, however rough.

Being critical with this remaster in particular - there is one point which I did find disappointing. On the original - I would always play it so that I had enough dark souls to get all the retractors, then I would take on all of "The Five" one-by-one in one play session. This version seems designed (or overlooked) so that you cannot get the last retractor without taking on one of "The Five", or at least I couldn't find enough dark souls to do this. This meant doing the Jack the Ripper level, to get soul level 9, to then detour through Undercity (now called "Fogometers") and then coming back to do the other four main bosses. Nothing game-breaking, but it did spoil the pace of this section, particularly as Fogometers just feels like a filler level.

These are mild critisisms (and only one really relates to the remaster) but ultimately I completed the game feeling like I wanted more. The Shadowman franchise has only seen 2 main releases, but hopefully something will inspire that to change. As for Nightdive, they've proven again they are the masters of remastering.

This is an excellent version of the N64 classic which feels 'exact' to the original, though with the advantage of keyboard and mouse. Truth is it's not exact - the fog is much further away, and the textures are better (though I didn't really notice this until looking back at the N64 version).

Whilst I struggled through the levels on the N64 game, I was now able to whip through them, slowed down primarily by the maziness of some of the levels which Turok 1 and 2 are known for. The AI definitely feels somewhat nerfed to cater for the expected N64 controls and pace, though I did lose a few lives here and there regardless.

The final level feels a bit too big for the sake of being big, but at least it didn't involve monotonously getting lost for hours. Some of the plasma weapons felt useless too compared to the other options, though these are critisisms of Turok 1 itself, and not this release.

The map editor is a fantastic bonus, though custom-made maps are few and far between. Shame, because there's some good potential with the objects provided by this game (as opposed to other options, such as Duke3D).

Overall I am very pleased with this. It was nice to run through the game and to spend an hour or two afterwards with the big cheat enabled, playing with slow motion enemies and way over-powerful weapons.