Turrican Games Amiga

The first two Turrican games were released on the Commodore 64, Atari ST and Amiga in 1990-91 whereas the third Turrican game was released only on the Amiga and Sega Genesis in 1993-94. The first Turrican game was conceived and designed for the C64 by Manfred Trenz, aka The Master (of the C64).

The Turrican games are high-speed time-limited run and gun games set in a far-flung future of galactic colonization. Some readers may sigh, roll their eyes and state matter-of-factly that "All run and gun games are high-speed," but that simply is not the case. Besides, most pre-Turrican run and gun games play slowly in comparison to Turrican.

In the Turrican games the player assumes the role of a hero who, against all odds, goes up against the alien forces of the evil emperor, Morgul. In Turrican the aliens are referred to as the evil, the shadows and the forces of darkness under command of the Machine, which is Morgul. The object of Turrican is to obliterate the minions of Morgul and save the galaxy from his tyranny.

The hero can be referred to simply as "the hero", "the Turrican" or simply or as "Turrican," though in Turrican 2 and 3 the hero is called Bren McGuire. A one-man-army in the employ of the United Planets Freedom Forces (UPFF), the hero is clad in a Turrican assault suit that grants him a power-up-capable weapons system, smart-bombs, heightened mobility and armors and shields. The suit also transforms into an all-but-invincible gyroscope that wheels its way about the terrain at a rate of knots, firing away or laying down mines as it goes, which are time-based not proximity-based. The gyroscope also allows the hero to access narrow entrances and motor through tunnels, bounce back and forth off walls and plummet down shafts, which is cool.

In each Turrican game the hero explores a dozen or so sprawling stages made up of platforms, passageways, chambers, obstacles and destructible walls. Naturally, the hero blasts through hordes of Morgul minions en route to the end-of-level boss. Various collectables, power-ups and 1-ups are found along the way, often in hard-to-reach locations.

The hero can run and motor left and right, crouch, jump and fire left and right as well as rotate his beam-weapon in arcs of up to 360°, which is also cool. In the third Turrican game the rotating beam-weapon was foolishly replaced with a ridiculous Plasma Rope -- thereby evoking Tarzan.

The height of the hero's jumps can be controlled, and the hero can be controlled in mid-air. For example, jump out from a platform and pull back in to land on the platform directly above. Repeat that action several times to ascend a mineshaft.

On the C64 and Amiga the Turrican games are notable for their precise controls, accurate collision detection and super-fast multi-directional parallax scrolling and sprite-shifting at 50 FPS. The high-energy space-age soundtrack of Turrican is also notable on C64, Amiga and ST: the Turrican games were composed by two of the best computer game composers of the late 80s and early 90s, Chris Hülsbeck and Jochen Hippel.

Turrican 2 has long been popularly regarded as the best Amiga game that actually takes advantage of the Amiga's custom chipset. And while that is indeed a plausible statement it is worth noting that Turrican 2 of 1991 is merely incremental on Turrican of 1990, which is the original.

Moreover, the origin of the Turrican games is the Commodore 64, not the Amiga. And relative to hardware specs the original C64 Turrican should probably be regarded as the best Turrican game even though the Amiga version runs at higher resolution and features more on-screen colors and more complex music. Certainly, C64 Turrican is relatively superior to Amiga Turrican.

Turrican Games Commodore 64 1990-91

Rainbow Arts released Turrican for the Commodore 64 in 1990. The C64 version of Turrican is the original Turrican game. Quite the accomplishment, C64 Turrican was designed, programmed and drawn by Manfred Trenz. C64 Turrican sound effects were composed by Adam Bulka, and the music was composed by Ramiro Vaca, Chris Hülsbeck and Stefan Hartwig.

Turrican is a run and gun game consisting of 13 levels spanning five worlds (5-2 being the last level). Turrican features 8-way parallax scrolling at 50 FPS in 16-color 160x200.

Manfred Trenz of Factor 5 programmed Turrican 2 for the C64 in 1991. Turrican 2 added horizontally-scrolling shoot 'em up segments to Turrican, with accompanying music. Turrican 2 was drawn by Manfred Trenz and Andreas Escher. Manfred Trenz also composed the sound effects whereas the music was composed by Markus Siebold.

The C64 version of Turrican 2 was designed and developed on the Commodore 64. Turrican 2 pixel art was drawn on the Katakis Development System, Koalapainter and Paint Magic.

The original Turrican had a big impact on the C64 scene. In fact, the C64 Turrican games are king-tier. The Amiga versions of Turrican and Turrican 2 only look and sound better than the C64 versions -- they do not play better or faster.

Trenz also coded Katakis/Denaris and Enforcer for the C64 and ported R-Type to the C64.

cf. Commodore 64 Shoot 'em ups Listed in Chronological Order.

Turrican Amiga 1990

Rainbow Arts and Factor 5 released Turrican for the Amiga in 1990. The Amiga version of Turrican was designed by Manfred Trenz; programmed by Holger Schmidt, Manfred Trenz and Achim Moller; drawn by Manfred Trenz, Sebastian Dosch and Andreas Escher; and composed by Chris Hülsbeck.

Turrican scrolls multi-directionally and shifts around a ton of sprites at 50 FPS. There are 13 levels, 1300 screens, 10 weapons, eight bosses and 50 alien-types. Weapons include Multiple, Bounce, Energy Lines and Activate Mine. Turrican can shift into an invincible gyroscope as well.

Turrican's scrolling is mostly avatar-anchored, but there are auto-scrolling segments in which the hero hovers around via jetpack. In the C64 version the jetpack is not shown attached to the hero.

Playing Amiga Turrican games in 1990-91 was like playing arcade games.

Amiga Turrican has a viewport size of 304x216 and an active drawspace of 304x180.

Turrican Atari ST 1990

Rainbow Arts and Factor 5 released Turrican for the Atari ST in 1990. Thomas Engel converted the Amiga version of Turrican to the Atari ST, Jochen Hippel converted the audio and Sven Meier converted the graphics.

Atari ST Turrican has a viewport size of 304x179 and an active drawspace of 288x144.

Turrican 2 Amiga 1991

Factor 5 released Turrican 2: The Final Fight for the Amiga in 1991. The Amiga version of Turrican 2 was programmed by Holder Schmidt, drawn by Andreas Escher and composed by Chris Hülsbeck.

Turrican 2 features five worlds, seven weapons and 1,500 screens. Weapons include Multiple, Lasers, Bounce, Energy Lines and Super Weapon. Turrican 2 features better in-game music than many coinops.

Turrican 2 added sky gradients and the ability to jump onto some aliens, causing them to become flattened and scamper off.

Amiga Turrican 2 has a viewport size of 304x216 and an active drawspace of 304x192.

Turrican 2 Atari ST 1991

Factor 5 released Turrican 2 for the Atari ST in 1991. Thomas Engel converted Turrican 2 to the ST based on Holger Schmidts' original code. Jochen Hippel converted the audio and Sven Meier converted the graphics. Naturally, the ST version has much weaker sound, fewer on-screen colors and jerky screen-scrolling in comparison to the Amiga version, yet the ST version is more than passable.

Atari ST Turrican 2 has a viewport size of 304x179 and an active drawspace of 288x144.

Turrican 3 Amiga 1993

Factor 5 ported the original Sega Genesis version of Turrican 3 to the Amiga in 1993. That's right, Amiga Turrican 3 is a console port. However, the Genesis version was not released until 1994.

Turrican 3 should have been developed for the 14 MHz Amiga 1200 AGA with 2 megs of chip RAM, not A500s and the Genesis.

Turrican 3 was programmed by Peter Thierolf and Thomas Engel. Turrican 3 graphics were drawn by Frank Matzke and Ramiro Vaca, and its audio was composed by Jochen Hippel and Chris Hülsbeck. The music of Amiga Turrican 3 is astonishingly good.

Turrican 3 weapons include Multiple, Rebound and Laser. In Turrican 3 one arm of the Turrican assault suit can fire a Plasma Rope, which basically functions as a grappling hook. When fired upwards at platforms the rope attaches itself to the underside of platforms, allowing Turrican to swing back and forth on the rope like Tarzan as well as extend upwards and downwards. In Energy Wheel form Turrican can also activate the Devastating Gargantuan Bomb.

Turrican 3 features 15 levels, four difficulty levels, 50 FPS multi-layered parallax scrolling and 28 tracks and 88 sound effects outputted in seven-voice Dolby Surround.

However, Turrican 3 is too easy even when playing on the highest difficulty setting.

The Amiga version of Turrican 3 is a solid run and gun game, but it did not have anywhere near the impact on the Amiga scene that the first two Turricans had. Indeed, I am of opinion that Tarzan-Turrican was a downgrade.

Memories of 1990

C64/Amiga titlescreens for the original Turrican of 1990:

Turrican ending / Turrican 2 ending (C64 version):

cf. Platform games:

Indexes:

Amiga Games Reviews (Index to all Amiga game reviews)
Computer Game Reviews (Index to all computer game reviews)
The First REAL Amiga Game
Best Amiga Games
History of Computer Games 1976-2024

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