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Usually, conclusions in a review appear near the end, but this time I 'm going to start with one. Turrican represents a milestone in C64 gaming history. It appeared at a time when 16-bits home computers were getting stronger and stronger, and software developers were mainly concentrating on them. Turrican proved that with good programming, the C64 could cope perfectly well with the Amigas and the STs. It set new limits for C64 games, it reinforced the 8-bit market, and it proved to be quite a challenge for programmers to try and make something better (or just as good).
Plot-wise, the game doesn't break any new ground. It's the standard good guy vs bad guy stuff, with an evil demon, Morgul, who has returned from another dimension to haunt humankind. Your mission is to destroy him. In order to do that, you will travel through five worlds, armed with many super-weapons, and confront various perils.
Turrican is a platform shoot-em-up. Which means that most of the time, you jump around platforms shooting things. It's not as boring as it sounds though. Each level (and there are 13 overall) is simply huge, so there is a lot of exploration to do. Later levels particularly, are more like vast labyrinths than normal levels. There's a huge variety of enemies to deal with, each one with different weapons and capabilities. End-of-level guardians are perhaps the most impressive aspect of the game, with them being simply huge, yet greatly designed and with smooth movement. In order to defeat them, you can use a lot of weapons. There are multiple-shot guns, lasers, mines to activate, energy lines, grenades, flashes of lightning, while you can also transform yourself into a gyroscope destroying enemies on touch.
However, enemies are not your only trouble. There's also a time-limit in each level, and while in early levels it might seem too generous, in the later ones it becomes perhaps the biggest obstacle of all. So hurry up ! There are also many power-ups to collect, including extra-lives and force-shields.
The graphics are great, colourful, varied, and with various parallax effects. The sound is very inspired too, with nice FX and some quite good tunes along the way. One could argue that Turrican doesn't offer anything really new in terms of game-design. While this is true, it is the way the game is made that makes it so good. When it appeared back in 1990, no other C64 game could touch it. The sheer hugeness of the levels, the amazing and varied graphics, impressive enemies and loads of weapons, made it look more like an arcade game than a C64 one. It was amazing and it made quite an impact. The great thing is that it played well too, the shoot-em-up action it offered was frantic and fluid. It was a delight, you could sit down for hours and play it. It still plays good, and like I explained at the beginning, it represents a milestone in C64 games. So download it..
Downloads: Music, Speech, Advert
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| GRAPHICS - 9/10 |
Very very good, particularly varied, huge enemies,
parallax effects, smooth scrolling, what more could you possibly want ?
| | SOUND - 8/10 |
Some nice tunes, loads of fx, pretty good overall.
| | PLAYABILITY - 8/10 |
Frantic platform shoot-em-up action.
| | OVERALL - 8/10 |
A milestone in C64 gaming history, and a great game too.
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| COVER |
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