"The unsung hero"

Child's play.

Turrican 2 was the first 16 bit game I ever played on our old Amiga, and I was absolutely amazed. Even after I'd plaid many 16 bit games, Turrican 2 stood out above the others in it's supreme game play and music. As a wee lad of eight, I could still employ enough logic to know that if I liked Turrican 2, I was likely to appreciate the previous game in the series. A few months later Turrican duly arrived, and I was once more hurled into a spectacular alien world.

Of course that world wasn't quite as spectacular as the world of Turrican 2, but as Turrican 2 was one of the most amazingly spectacular things I'd ever seen, I didn't mind too much. Of course now I can make a more reasonable judgment about the game.

The course of my rambling, tortuous reasoning and my eventual judgment is all written down nicely here for you to gaze at.

When nightmare throttles peaceful sleep, three grenades shall come again!

It wasn't until the second game that the Turrican series started including long, complex comic style intros, all of the first game's plot was contained in a few paragraphs on one page of the game manual.

Morgul, the source of all the world's nightmares was long ago kicked into an unknown dimension by the hero Develon. Like every single unknown dimension known to gamer-kind, this one's easily escapable given a few millennia. Now of course Morgul's back, and people are suffering the worst nightmares since they watched those old Nightmare on Elm street films. As the one man not terrified into submission, Turrican must journey into Morgul's Kingdome and blow him into very very small pieces. So there you are kids, no more hiding under the blankets, next time you have a nightmare just find a three headed monster and blast seven shades out of it with the most powerful gun to hand.

while the mention of the hero Develon is sort of intriguing, the plot in general is pretty standard, even for the late 80's (I only thank God there's no kidnapped girl in this one). Sometimes I feel the plot is almost totally unrelated to the game as it could have equally belonged to a Medieval dungeon crawl as a semi-sci-fi platform shooter. As I said before, more complex back stories have been a part of the later Turrican games, but that doesn't stop the original from lacking a bit in this respect. If we ever see a remake, we can hope this is on the list of things to be fixed.

Scenic spots in Morgul's kingdom.

The graphics in the original Turrican are a slight step down from the second game, but are still pretty good for an Amiga. The waterfalls, the teaming enemies, the explosions and menacing bosses can still impress, though not quite as much as in the Amiga's hay day. some of the lighting effects are extremely nice, such as when descending into one of the caves on the first level. My only big problem with the graphics is that in some worlds (particularly world one and four), the colors can seem monotonous as the same background is used for three levels in a row. The backgrounds are of course static, and seeing the same color again after you've struggle through a couple of stages can be a bit disappointing. This is probably just my training to the variety of environments seen in games like Super Metroid and the Mega Man series, and it's certainly something that was fixed in later Turrican games.

Where's the voices?

there are a number of things in sound which Turrican is famous for, such as the game loudly declaring what weapon you have collected. This was lacking in the original, the sound effects just take the form of the usual robotic clumps and explosions with sounds for your various weapons. While the sounds are still appropriate to the game and do a good job of showing you intense action, they can sometimes feel a bit sparse by the standards of later turricans.

Tunes.

This is an area where the Turrican series has always excelled, and Turrican one began that trend. The Amiga's sound pallet is stretched to capacity with a variety of themes and styles, from the intends pumping theme of the jet pack stages, to the slow, emotional final stage music. Boss fights are enhanced with a unique theme for each battle, something not often seen in even later platform games such as Mega Man X or super return of the Jedi. Even when the graphics dictate you seen yet another blue screen back drop, you do feel as if your in a different place simply from the variety of music you here. I downloaded the soundtrack to this game recently and was frankly amazed, not just that it was as I remember it, but also that it still stands up today as music of the highest caliber. Perhaps my only complaint in this field is what happens in one stage. The developers decided to field one world as a seriously creepy rotting environment back grounded with sinister wind and occasional frightening screeching sounds. While this is extremely atmospheric and quite able to freak you out nicely, the music is so good it's almost a disappointment.

Shoot or die.

Another area of supreme wonder inn this game is the game play. Even though the only goal in each stage is to find the exit (sometimes fighting a boss en route), the game manages to make this a more than difficult task. The levels are truly huge and extremely complex, even in the first stage there are several opportunities for exploration. Exploring the levels often rewards you with bonuses such as extra lives or the ability to gain more continues, so it's often worth while. As with other Turrican games however, it would have been nice to reward the player more fully for his or her exploration of the game with extra weapons or plot twists, as someone familiar with the lay out of the levels can waltz through them very quickly with no real need for side trips. But becoming that familiar will certainly take a lot of time and exploring. Some of the levels feature hard plat forming sections, particularly difficult as today most gamers (including me), aren't used to using up on a joystick to jump, but these are simply a matter of good level design rather than sloppy controls. While several plat forming sections, particularly the dreaded circular jump are extremely taxing, patience is usually rewarded, and as I've stated in other game reviews, I don't mind games that require a bit of thinking and patience to get through.

You have an array of weaponry at your disposal which you can use on Morgul's many mechanically monstrous minions. You have two power ups for your gun, a laser shot that passes through enemies and a multiple shot that can be powered up to cover an extremely wide area. It is slightly annoying that the laser isn't really able to be powered up, but still the guns provide some variety in game play. You are then equipped with the famous Turrican surround laser, an electric spark which you can whirl around yourself to destroy a wide variety of enemies. While the fact that you don't actually raise and move your gun around in this game is a bit off putting, the weapon is still the useful enervative laser we know from other Turrican games. With the ability to turn into a wheel, throw grenades, drop mines and fire the screen attacking power line, there are enough weapons to keep even a Mega Man player happy with the variety.

while by no means easy, Turrican is not impossible. The huge frequency of enemies and the fact that there is no knock back or invincibility when hit can often be daunting at first, but this is the reason the game provides so many chances to find hidden stores of power ups throughout the levels. Though why Morgul allows his kingdom to be so rife with the weapons that destroy his army so effectively is slightly beyond me.

The bosses in the game are also fun to fight against, though in some ways they suffer from the usual repeating pattern weakness of many foes in games of this time and type. They do show a degree of diversity in design though that is extremely refreshing, from the giant robotic fist that attempts to pummel you to the huge floating spike creature that can spew out shots like there's no tomorrow, each boss will require a deal of strategy before you can get their pattern and attacks down pat. While there are certainly fewer bosses than in Turrican 2 or 3, they are still fun to destroy (and being a vandal where evil alien robots are concerned is a good thing in most games).

though the game is frenetic and often difficult, Turrican is at least unique in the series in providing you with three continues at the start, unlike it's sequel where you had to earn continues from collecting gems. This makes the game easier, and will help new players who aren't as familiar with the series. Of course the game features no save function, but we can assume that with the common use of battery back up today a Gba port of Turrican would save to each level, though I'm sure the old school purists would complain on it making the game too easy.

One ability all Turrican games share is the ability of totally absorbing the player into the game. the frenetic enemies, the complex level design and the sublime musical score all make Turrican a completely atmospheric experience.

summation.

the Amiga Turrican (along with it's C64 counterpart), was the first of a great series of games known by few. Though it's often overshadowed by the leaps that Turrican 2 made in graphics and game play, the elements that made Turrican good are still there, though in some cases not expanded. It's still well worth playing for the casual gamer, the Turrican enthusiast and the music lover!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/17/05