Last year saw the release of Turrican - a strange hybrid platform game and progressive shoot-em-up. The plot told of a heroic character who had to travel deep into alien territory to release his world from the oppression of the evil Morgul - the so-called 'three-headed incarnation of evil'.

After a titanic struggle, Turrican's mission was successful. Morgul was defeated and the planet was saved. But Turrican's troubles were far from over.

Mayday!
For many years, a far off race on the planet Landorin have been locked in a deadly battle with a tyrannical force known as the Machine. The rebels managed to destroy their central complex, which was based on an artificial moon orbiting their planet. However, the Machine's robot forces were still left on the planet, gradually taking over the world - even as deep down in the surface as the secret shelters that the Landorins had built to protect themselves underground.

Just before the last remaining Landorins left the planet, they sent out a Mayday message - a message that was picked up by none other than Turrican.

You take control of Turrican as he lands on the outer surface of Landorin. Since his last mission he has been streamlining his abilities and improving his armour. He is still armed with the multi-purpose laser cannon, but a host of 'alternations' have been made:

SURROUND WEAPON - This replaces the 'Lightning Beam' that was present in the original. It fires a stream of laser bolts that can be twirled around him.
PULSE LASER - Fires a large spurt of flame from the rifle. Its size depends on the power level of Turrican's weapon.
MULTIPLE - Can now fire scatter-shots of up to four beams.
BOUNCE - This fires a bolt of electricity which breaks up and bounces around the caverns when hitting an indestructible obstacle (walls, etc).

All the weapons can be charged up or improved by picking up the pods that are left in hidden locations by the Landorins for just the kind of hero that Turrican is (see POD-POWER box).

Deeper and down
To begin with, Turrican must move around the planet's surface destroying any enemies he may come across. Later, secret entrances into further caverns must be found, so that Turrican can make his way deeper into the planet and stamp out the enemy threat, as well as having to find and steal a spaceship to navigate the speed tunnel - a deadly corridor that is packed full with deadly machine guns.

As Turrican works his way deeper and deeper into the planet, the machine guards get tougher and meander, throwing all manner of defences at you to try and stop your advance into their newly-claimed territory.

However, even if you do get stuck in small places with a seriously nasty guard, there is always the 'Death-Blossom' type of weapon which unleashes a few seconds of laser death at any enemies that are in the area.

Mark II
The original Turrican was an enjoyable blast, receiving a pretty healthy 88% in Amiga Format, and the sequel boasts even more of the same. Bigger levels, more powerful armoury and improved effects are just a few improvements the sequel has over the original.

The animation of Turrican himself and his weapons are much smoother, and the robots are far more varied and interesting. Another point is that there is a lot more scenery for you to explore. Whereas the original had you trying to travel to the right of the level as quickly as possible, Turrican II has you searching all manner of blind alleys trying to find the exit!

Despite these impressive changes, the basic game design is very similar toTurrican. The characters may look different and there may be extra weaponry and levels, but the gameplay itself has not been hugely modified or improved. This will come as good news to those who are avid Turrican fans and want to play more of the same kind of stuff, but your average gameplayer may find the sequel game slightly disappointing.

This is a real shame, since the framework of the game is very solid and enjoyable, but simply making a few cosmetic changes and throwing in a couple of extra features just is not QUITE good enough these days. Still it is a fair enough blaster which should appeal best to all those who do not own a copy of the original.

Following up one of the best shoot 'em ups ever to grace the Amiga sounds like a near impossible task, so the team behind the long awaited sequel to Turrican have played it safe and kept the basic gameplay traits whilst tweaking it and smoothing off a few rough edges.

Turrican II picks up several years after the original game, with our hero's home once again under threat from an evil force. Initially, it is believed that Morgul, the dream demon from the first battle, has returned, but it transpires that a giant battle computer has somehow short-circuited and intends to dominate the universe by overrunning it planet by planet. To achieve its evil plan, it has built up a huge force of alien slaves, and this battle force and its massive armies of mutated creatures are currently swarming across the five planets in your system, and are threatening to eradicate the peaceful inhabitants of each. Ever predictably, and after the success of your last mission, you have been deemed the last hope for the system and its people, and armed with an assortment of both old and new weapons, you must battle your way through each of the five planets until you reach the manic computer for a final confrontation.

As soon as Turrican is ready to begin his journey, the new improvements become immediately apparent. The most striking addition is the shaded skyline which changes from level to level, but the enemy sprites are also more varied and have more intelligence than those of the first game. Our hero begins the game equipped with his trusty armoured suit, a single-fire laser, and a collection of smart bombs that clear the screen whenever the spacebar is pressed. In addition, whenever the fire-button is depressed and the joystick pulled down, Turrican can leave mines that will blow up any unfortunate creature that bumps into them or, alternatively, transform into a gyroscope to eave trouble. Finally, holding down the fire-button ignites his manoeuvrable flamethrower which has been revamped and is twice as powerful as the electro-gun he sported in the first game.

Weapons in order, Turrican can then start to pick off the many enemy sprites that litter the route. Once again, the game follows the traditional format of an eight-way scrolling level which is punctuated with all manner of traps and platforms, and if our hero comes into contact with the enemy of their flak, his suit's protective power is reduced until he finally explodes in a shower of sparks. This can be averted, though, by the collection of the many power-ups that appear whenever the eye-shaped aliens are killed or if he stumbles across a bonus-giving hidden block. Collecting the power-ups is the only way you will ever get to confront the manic micro, but, thankfully, there is an ever wider range to collect now, including large balls of electricity and a massive bolt of power which clears all in its way. In addition, all the old favourites, including the extended flame-thrower and extra lives, are back, although the last item you collected will be lost whenever you come to a sticky end.

However, whilst retaining a lot from the original, Turrican II does not fall into the trap of repeating too much. The enhancements to the graphics, whilst playing second fiddle to the gameplay improvements, are excellent, and range from small touches like the rope bridges bending under each step to the dark and atmospheric backdrops of the later stages.

Keeping in with the graphics' high standard, the sound is as loud and raucous as a shoot 'em up fan could wish for. A few speech samples have been thrown in, and every time Turrican collects an extra weapon he shouts out what it is. In addition, the game is supported by a rollicking good tune which suits the hectic action perfectly and is backed up by all manner of suitably explosive sound effects.

It is the gameplay, though, that is the icing on Turrican II's cake. All the addictive shoot 'em up action that made the first game so enjoyable has been retained, yet somehow this new version seems fresh and different. The re-jigged weapons and smarter aliens make for a real challenge, and although the power-ups are spread quite generously through the game, its difficulty level is pitched to make the game challenging without being frustrating or too easy. In all, Turrican II is another fine product from Rainbow Arts and a perfect follow-up to the superb original. It surpasses everything they went out to achieve and is a game that any self-respecting shoot 'em up fan should own.

Remember Turrican? It does not really matter if you don't, because it is easy to sum up - a rather brilliant multiple-direction scrolling shoot 'em up cum maze game. Sort of a 'minor classic' really. So how do you follow an act like that? Well, Rainbow Arts decided that 'more of the same but with better graphics and sound' was the best way to do it. So that's what we've got. And jolly good too. Here is the scenario. ("Oh no!" - about nine billion people).

"Turrican is dead pissed off - somebody has nicked his mountain bike. There he was, in the middle of a lie-in one Saturday, when he heard clanking noises coming from outside. He could have got up and investigated, but as he was in the middle of a brilliant nightmare (in which he was being chased by laser wielding nuns from the twelfth dimension) he went back to sleep again. The clot.

He could have kicked himself. But that was that. His bike was gone, and the really annoying thing was that he could have prevented it. Still, resigning himself to this fact, Turrican made his bed, had breakfast and strade out into the back yard to 'collate the evidence'. The first thing he noticed were the giant footprints - dinosaur-like: "Maybe a Tyrannosaurus Rex or something," he decided, "definitely an end-of-game nasty, anyway". Damn! He knew what that meant. If he wanted his bike back he was going to have to fight to the death for it. And he had a gut feeling that he was going to have to travel to a different planet to have this fight. He was right. The planet was called Landorin - and he'd been there before - in a previous game (Turrican. Ed.)

"Ah," he said, as this fact dawned on him, "that will give me the edge: I know the terrain off by heart". So, strapping himself into his interstellar Austin Maxi, off he set. An hour later he was there. The planet Landorin.

"Oh dear," he remarked, "it looks different". And, indeed, it was different. Very different. (Sort of)."

So there you have it. Turrican's back on Landorin. He runs the same, jumps the same, ducks the same and has the same gun. But there is a difference. New power-ups, a 'mega-weapon' and more colourful backdrops with some rather nifty scrolling. Oh, and the size of the game is sort of 'new' as well: it is much bigger than its predecessor. Massive would be a good word to use - the caverns just seem to go on and on. But will you manage to get Turrican's bike back for him at the end of level 12? Probably not, no, but that is the way these things normally go, isn't it?

Dunc: Hmmm, not so hard this. You have, after all, played the one level demo, haven't you? No? Well, why not? Go and load it up at once. Right, now you have seen it. Did you find those hidden blocks that spew out power-ups? You know what weapons you get then, don't you? Okay, so we have cleared that one up and you know about the power-ups, you know about the space-bar activated 'mega weapons', you know about the flame thrower, you know what Turrican looks and moves like, so what don't you know? Well, for a start, if you thought the demo was hard to complete then let me add that it really is only the tip of an extremely large iceberg. No joking. The game is split into five 'worlds', and they just seem to get bigger and bigger and bigger, while the mazes get increasingly complex. Map or die, basically. The choice is yours.

Something you definitely won't know about, however, is that on later levels Turrican boards a spaceship for a horizontally scrolling shoot 'em up - and it is very fast, believe me, with some rather impressive parallax scrolling going on. And you also won't know what the final level is a vertically scrolling shoot 'em up in the same vein. So, all in all, Turrican II is one hell of a big game, with a fair old rake of diversity flung into it. In fact, this is a dead impressive piece of ST programming overall, with smooth multi-scrolling that puts some Amiga titles to shame. If shoot 'em ups are your bag then Turrican II is well worth checking out. In fact, it is "an essential purchase". Oh, and by the way, he is not really after his mountain bike, er, that was sort of a 'joke'.

Dunc: Turrican II plays exactly the same as its ST counterpart, although, obviously, there is rather more in the colour and sound departments with judicious lashings of multi-layered parallax scrolling dotted about. There is not really a great deal to add, short of repeating the ST review word for word, so, er, that is that basically - an essential purchase. A gigantic game - although some may feel it is a bit on the hard side.

It's the last day of schedule, but we can't miss the conversion of last month's C64 Gold Medal winner. The story obviously remains the same, the planet Landorin has been invaded by the massed forces of The Machine. Turrican answers an SOS and is soon knee-deep in attack robots.

This massive battle takes place over five worlds, each with two levels (apart from worlds Two and Three which have three levels). The basic game consists of multi-directionally scrolling arcade exploration with zillions of baddies to take on, dozens of different types according to the world, and two mega-monsters on most levels. Finding the level exit is the main aim, but dozens of diamonds can be found and if they're all collected, continue-plays can be earned.

Beside his basic laser, Turrican can hold down fire to create a lethal beam which can be swung around in a 360 degrees arc. Pressing 'space' activates a smart bomb, while holding down fire at the same time unleashes a mega-smart bomb. Turrican can also transform into a whirling gyroscope which is useful for getting through small gaps. As you explore extra lives and all sorts of weapons upgrades can be found, including three-way fire, bouncing balls, extra smart bombs, extra energy and so on.

For the three levels of World Three, Turrican climbs into a spaceship for some spectacular shoot 'em up action. Level 3.1 is a simplistic horizontally-scrolling blast 'em up, 3.2 mixes in vertical scrolling while 3.3 is a high velocity test of reactions!