Does anyone remember Super Turrican for the SNES? When people usually think about great 2D action-platform games, the mind tends to linger on Mega Man, Contra or Super Metroid. But Super Turrican really deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as those untouchable classics.

Turrican is actually a long running franchise. There are tons of different Turrican games on lots of different platforms, ranging from the Amiga to the PC Engine to the Sega Medadrive to the Super Nintendo. Other really notable entries in the franchise include the hard-as-nails sequel Turrican 2 and, bizarrely, the movie tie-in Universal Solider (aka; Turrican reskinned).

Let’s face it; any game with a laser spreader weapon must be awesome!

The best entry in the franchise, however, is the first SNES title Super Turrican. The game has a lot going for it; Bright graphics, a memorable theme tune, awesome power-ups (lasers, bullet spreaders, rebounding shots) and some intimidating bosses. The controls are about as tight as they can get and there’s even a bit of innovation thrown into the mix via the game’s subsidiary laser-whip weapon.  You can swing this badboy around your character at any time to momentarily stun enemies. This adds a touch more strategy and variety to the proceedings. So too, you have an offensive version of Samus’s morphball attack (offensive in that it causes damage and not that it spouts racist propaganda or anything) and a limited supply of powerbombs that wipe all the weaker enemies off the screen.

His vacation to Hawaii went a little pear shaped.

As you can probably tell, Super Turrican is packed full of great mechanics and is an absolute blast to play. Better still, with it’s strict life / continue policy, high score system and time limit, Super Turrican feels like a fantastic old school arcade game that you can play at home. Man… I miss these types of games in the arcade. Now it’s all racing games, plastic musical instruments and UFO catchers. Bring back the good old days of playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Final Fight and Space Harrier in dingy sea-side hovels while searching for dropped coins on the sticky floor and avoiding scary biker-looking types. Yosh!