Version - Amiga with C64 version references
(although many others were similarly good eg PC Engine, Megadrive/Genesis)
Released by - Rainbow Arts
Written by - Factor 5
Available from - www.factor5.com for UAE/WINUAE only in ADF format - not Fellow
Main Coding - Holger Shmidt
Graphics/Design and additional coding - Manfred Trenz
Additional Graphics - Achim Moller
Main Music writing - Chris Heulsbeck - his music demo is at www.factor5.com also
Other versions - Megadrive/Genesis, PC Engine, Gameboy, SNES (Super Turrican I+II) Spectrum, C64, Amstrad, Atari ST along with god knows what else!!

Up until the release of this, the Amiga had had some pretty decent games but for the main part they had all been simple ports of Atari ST games. This was one of the first popular Amiga games which wasn't initially released on the ST. Instead Factor 5 developed this game alongside an also awesome C64 version (so good was this version that the reviewer of C&VG magazine actually went to play the Amiga when he saw it running!).

The game is a smooth 8-way scrolling platform shoot-em-up which had all the classic arcade features of the time. Fast paced with hectic and brilliant music, power ups aplenty, in game and end of level bosses, different sections (vert-scrolling SEU in two points - three on the C64!) and the all important at the time, destructable blocks and secret bonusses. Gameplay is at a constant full frame rate with very little slowdown.

Turrican was one of the first games which a little group of us knew where every single bonus and extra life was. We would often complete the game with over 30 lives left. That didn't matter, this game was so good you could play it for hours even though you had seen all it had to offer.

The game spawned three sequels, Turrican II was more of the same but with even more sprawling levels than before making it very easy to get lost. This had a very impressive horizontal SEU section which, rather surprisingly, was better on the C64 than the Amiga. Turrican III was the first non-Manfred Trenz version which was actually a conversion of the Megadrive Mega-Turrican (or Snes Super-Turrican). This was a very good game which still played very well. It wasn't as good as the first two.

If you've never played Turrican at least once, you haven't played a computer game.

Rob