Turrican

STORY / GAMEPLAY
A gigantic, mean and powerful 3-headed demon-monster called Morgul is interfering with people's dreams, turning them into nightmares. Nightmares? Well there would be no reason for our hero Turrican to arm himself and begin his task in saving the planet for some nightmares, but it seems that some of these dark dreams become real. So Turrican must fight, shoot, walk across traps and confront a variety of alien species of different potential and size. Here's where the challenging story begins. Turrican must jump across many platforms, kill the enemies and gather all tokens available to refill his energy levels and gain extra bombs and new weapons. His main weapons are a rapid-fire assault rifle, an electro-sweeper plus the ability of becoming a rolling sharp razor (which can kill anything in its path). There are literally hundreds of hidden bonuses and features, thanks to the game's large maps and these make the game even more interesting! The power-ups are numerous and at times you can see some hints from other known games. Turrican is a combination of details taken from a whole host of platform shooters games. Within each stage there are dozens of places to go as well as hordes of robots, spiked pits and natural hazards to encounter! The different planets within the game are made up of various shoot 'em up and action adventure ideas, ranging from the exploration of the first level to the jet-pack based action as you fly towards Mongul's lair! But be careful, because Mongul has placed a massive guardian on each planet's exit. Turrican (and its successors) is one of the best platform shooters released on the 16bit home computers and consoles.

GRAPHICS / SOUND
Turrican is one of the games that made their own history in the video games industry due to their fantastic technical details (a la Shadow of the Beast). The graphics are beautiful, colorful and vivid. Although the first stage looks rather "empty" in terms of background details, the next stages are made brilliantly for an early 90s game. The sprites move smooth and fast on screen while the screen scrolls like charm, especially on the Amiga version. As for the game's sound, only two words come in mind to describe it: "almost perfect". The sound effects are amazing and the intro and in-game music scores (written by the famous Chris Hülsbeck) are among the best scores ever composed for the 16bits gaming era. Along with the great tunes, the sound backs the gameplay up in an arcade-quality way, with an array of brilliant sampled SFX.