Turrican

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Turrican

Developer(s) Loriciels
Publisher(s) Rainbow Arts
Platform(s) Atari ST, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Sega Mega Drive, PC-Engine, Game Boy
Release date 1990
Genre(s) Action
Mode(s) Single Player

Turrican is a 1990 video game programmed by Manfred Trenz. It was first developed for the Commodore 64 by Rainbow Arts, but was ported to other systems later. In addition to concept design and character creation, Trenz personally programmed Turrican on the Commodore 64. A sequel, Turrican 2, followed 1991 for the Commodore 64 and other platforms.

Contents

[edit] History

The series started in 1990 on the Commodore 64. Turrican became very popular due to its high technical achievements, demonstrating graphics which many did not believe to be possible on a C64.

Turrican was developed mainly by Manfred Trenz and published by Rainbow Arts. A later Amiga conversion was produced by Factor 5. The following people are credited with the C64 version of Turrican:

  • Idea, programming and graphics: Manfred Trenz
  • Producer: Marc A. Ullrich
  • Music: Ramiro Vaca, Stefan Hartwig, Chris Hülsbeck
  • Sound-FX: Adam Bulka
  • Sound-Routines: Chris Hülsbeck, Adam Bulka, Oliver Blasnik
  • Digi-Routines: Jeroen Tel

Turrican was also released for the Atari ST, CDTV, Mega Drive/Genesis, Game Boy, PC Engine, ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC. The console ports were handled by The Code Monkeys and published by Accolade.

"Subsong 2" from Turrican is actually the song "Escape" from The Transformers: The Movie soundtrack.[1] Ramiro Vaca is responsible for the complete C64 score, including the cover of the song Escape in "Subsong 2".[citation needed] Chris Hülsbeck composed for the Amiga conversion of Turrican I, II, III as well as Mega Turrican (Mega Drive/Genesis) & Super Turrican (SNES). Subsongs 4 and 7 of the music in the Amiga version of world 4 were clearly inspired by the sound effects for Aliens in the sequence where the marines enter the colony for the first time.

The title screen for Turrican is said to be based upon the Manowar album cover Kings of Metal.[2]

The name Turrican is based on "Turricano", an Italian name which Trenz found in a phone book. There was a rumour about Turricano being the name of a pizzeria Trenz used to visit regularly, but this has been proven false. However, he did visit a pizzeria called Katakis, which the planet was named after.

The first demo of Turrican (C64) was called Hurrican.

The Turrican series are well known for the high quality of their soundtracks. The most notable is the Turrican 2 soundtrack for Amiga, composed by Chris Hülsbeck. Music from Turrican 2 was performed live by a full orchestra at the second Symphonic Game Music Concert in 2004. The event took place in Leipzig, Germany.

[edit] Gameplay

Turrican can be described as a cross between Metroid and Psycho-Nics Oscar[3]. While the huge detailed labyrinth levels and the morph-ball function were inspired by Metroid, the overall graphics design and weapons were inspired by Psycho-Nics Oscar. Unlike many other action games of its time, Turrican didn't just force the player to complete a linear level. Instead, the real thrill for the player was to fully explore each level and uncover every secret spot, hidden room, and invisible passage.

[edit] Sequels

Turrican 2 was released in 1991. The Amiga version, done by Factor 5, was finished before the C64 version, but Manfred Trenz cites the C64 version as the original design.

Turrican 2 was also released for the CDTV, Atari ST, PC, Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum. The 256 Colors version for PC targets the MS-DOS operating system but can be run under Dosbox in Microsoft Windows or Linux.

A conversion for the Mega Drive/Genesis and Game Boy was produced by Accolade, who had kept the rights for the console ports of the franchise. But at a late stage, they also acquired rights to produce a game spin-off of the Jean-Claude Van Damme movie Universal Soldier and decided to rebrand the game. Turrican's sprite was changed into a marine and several other substitutions were made. Amongst other changes, the eyeballs-walking-on-fingers became mini tanks, and instead of a large mech/steel dragon in the first stage, the player now faces a large representation of Dolph Lundgren's character in the movie.

The three "shoot'em up" stages would have probably been cut out from the port so the developers replaced them with three original stages (a Vietnam jungle, a fortress, and a motel/car junkyard) that in theory should link the game to the movie's atmosphere. The game was not very well received, and is generally considered to be a mistake to "butcher" a Turrican game in this way.

There also exists a Super Nintendo version that was almost finished, but it never reached a commercial release and nowadays can only be found as a beta. The Mega Drive/Genesis and Game Boy versions were the only console ports that were finally released.

Mega Turrican/Turrican 3
Main article: Mega Turrican

Mega Turrican was an original Factor 5 game initially designed for the Mega Drive/Genesis, and later followed by an Amiga port under the title of Turrican 3.

Turrican 3 for the C64 is a fan-game and was released on August 28th 2004 at the Demoparty Evoke by the group Smash Designs.

Super Turrican 1 and 2
Image:Split-arrows.svg
  It has been suggested that this article be split into multiple articles accessible from a disambiguation page. (Discuss)

The Super Turrican games were independent developments for the SNES, both of them done by Factor 5, the first being published by Seika and the second one by Ocean Games.

Super Turrican plays similarly to Mega Turrican and shares a similar visual style. The game has a different set of levels, however, and features a freeze beam in place of the original lightning whip. The major addition is a grappling arm, similar to that used in Bionic Commando, which can be used to swing between platforms and grab power-ups.

Super Turrican 2 featured more action than the first part and used many "Mode 7" effects but sacrificed the big levels of the original Turrican games.

There is also an unrelated Super Turrican for the NES, which was created by Manfred Trenz alone. It is based roughly on the levels of the first two Turrican games.

Super Turrican was released on the Virtual Console in Europe and Australia on February 29, 2008, and in North America on March 3.

Turrican 3D (never released)

Turrican 3D was intended to bring Turrican into the third dimension, but was never released because publisher THQ stopped development. Screenshots and videos show how the world of Turrican would have looked. [4]

In an interview, Manfred Trenz (creator of Turrican I & II and co-developer of Turrican 3D), stated that many members of the project were far too profit-oriented, and the project failed as a result

[edit] Thornado (never released)

This never released Turrican spin-off by Factor 5 did not use the name Turrican because of legal issues. It was developed first for the Nintendo 64 and later for the GameCube. All that is available from this game is a piece of preliminary music composed by Chris Hülsbeck and some art assets that were reused in Star Wars: Rebel Strike, such as the Golden Gate-like looking bridge. The "Thornado Demo" track which was released as a teaser for the upcoming GameCube game, was in fact running on the older Nintendo 64 sound hardware using Factor5's new proprietary MusyX software sound engine. The Thornado Demo, although not available on Factor5's website anymore, can still be found on Chris Hülsbeck's page at GarageBand.com.

[edit] Next-gen

In April 2007, a Gamasutra article revealed that Factor 5 is working on concepts for a new Turrican game.[5]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Facts about Turrican at Turrican SETA
  2. ^ Facts about Turrican at Turrican SETA
  3. ^ Interview about games that inspired Turrican (German)
  4. ^ Screenshots and videos of Turrican 3D
  5. ^ Gamasutra Story about Next-gen Turrican

[edit] External links