Taking a departure from the usual single-player focused Turok games, Rage Wars is focused entirely on multiplayer, with a large amount of deathmatch arenas and multiple game modes. And in this game, you can finally be the raptor and claw up your enemies. There’s also a giant bug creature that you can play as, swiping or using a long distance acid attack.

In terms of singleplayer, there’s no proper campaign, however there is still an immense amount of stuff you can do, as long as you’re fine with fighting bots. Each character has their own set of scenarios to fight through, leading up to unlocking a new character (until you have them all). It’s a lot like Unreal Tournament.

The bots are passable, but limited in options. Higher difficulty bots just have more guns and ammo, and they’ll ignore some stuff (like mines). The real meat of the game is the multiplayer, but there’s still a good amount of fun to have on your own.

Rage Wars did end up being very lucky in a way: it was originally going to compete with Perfect Dark (which had a more sophisticated multiplayer, deathmatch scenarios, and a singleplayer campaign), so it ended up getting a Christmas period as the main multiplayer shooter.

One other interesting thing about Rage Wars was that it initially released with a bug that made one of the models impossible to collect, however, a revision was released and Acclaim offered the opportunity to send the game back for a replacement.

Fun

So it’s in the multiplayer game that Rage Wars really comes alive. For all the side-stepping, missile-ducking ability of the bots, they can never match the conniving brilliance of a fellow human, and the amount of time spent on Rage Wars’ controls and level layouts means it lends itself perfectly to countless hours of enjoyable deathmatching. The Monkey Tag, in particular, is hilarious, with longs periods of silent, tension-fille monkey hunting tempered by chaotic, all-out battles for his hide. And until you’ve watched a monkey’s body parts fountain into the air, you haven’t lived.

Mark Green, N64 Magazine #35. Review Score: 87%

Remake or remaster?

Nightdive allowing their Turok engine to be used for a remaster would be nice.

Official ways to get the game.

There’s no official way to get Turok: Rage Wars