Turrican By Rainbow Arts on Amiga
My brother was playing on the Amiga way back in the early 1990’s, and when I went in to see his latest game purchase this was another of those games which made me want a Commodore Amiga. The music and sound effects coming from that game were really something. Of course we knew the Amiga could do amazing sounds already but additionally Turrican was looking just terrific on the screen. Being the bigger brother I muscled my way in and grabbed the joystick (no joypads on the Amiga back then, at least in our house) and had a go.
Turrican has you battling your way through an alien landscape using a laser blaster which can also shoot a continuous beam. The gameplay is classic platform shooter but done to perfection, the usual pixel perfect jumps, and shooting ahead can get you a long way but learning the terrain and enemies is the key as always to making progress. There are a huge variety of enemies trying to kill you from the ground, and flying in from above. From robot sentinels, to bats and flying drones all taking pot shots at you, you need to shoot fast and often to make it through.
Just to hinder you a bit more though Rainbow Arts also added blades in some of the stuff you need to jump on and over adding a crucial timing element to the mix. In some places the whole floor pops up spikes to skewer your spacesuit and kill you. Add to that the platformer staple of a drop to doom and there are plenty of ways to end the life of your well drawn character.
The game is immediately playable as it’s simple walk and jump is the same as any platformer, but add in the numerous enemies and frantic fun results. Pick up the powerups to make your weapon all the more deadly (oo err missus) or to get shields to help you avoid the loss of life bar from an enemy hit. It sounds tough and it is but it’s also a hell of a good game to play even now which is why I’m awarding Turrican 9/10.
