Once peaceful and considered the height of humanity's technological progress, the planet known as Alterra was host to a great human population living within its four bio-engineered colonies. Each colony was created and controlled by a powerful ecosystem generation network known as a Multiple ORGanism Unit Link, or MORGUL. Early colonists used this seemingly harmless network to render Alterra's surface inhabitable, until one day when chaos struck…

A cataclysmic earthquake shook the planet, damaging MORGUL to the point of severing all outside interfaces, rendering it inaccessible to the users. MORGUL became self-aware and sought to destroy its very creators, including the inhabitants of the planet. A battle ensued, many attempted to flee, few did. The ones who did manage to escape told a grim tale of a higher intelligence gone berserk, leading to great bloodshed and genocide.

Years passed and during this time humanity has sought a way to reclaim the planet, while MORGUL has slowly twisted the Alterran life forms and machinery to his own purposes, ensuring no one would ever return to reclaim the planet, much less survive ten minutes on its surface. Humanity had a solution and savior. A genetically altered warrior created for the planet's reclamation, Turrican is a one-man army encased in Chromidium armor capable of eradicating this technological monstrosity and reclaiming the planet.

Turrican's creators were well aware of the impending battle's dangers, so in addition to his protective armor, they've armed him with a powerful, multi-function laser assault rifle. Capable of firing standard laser bullets, this firearm can also discharge a lightning whip capable of rotating 360 degrees, fire powerful laser blasts, and launch grenades capable of taking out every ground based hostile within a close proximity of their impact.

In addition, Turrican came prepared with a stock of land mines, possesses the ability to transform into a rotating saw blade capable of tearing through foes and his armor can fire a Power Line discharging ionizing bolts in both directions, wiping the screen cleaner than using Windex.

Lying in Turrican's path to MORGUL are spanning across the four worlds of Alterra. The exterior world of Alterra's now barren civilization makes up the first, with abandoned outpost towers and large pits littering the landscape. World two is a subterranean environment with waste disposal unit capable of turning Turrican into mulch. World three is an underground environment filled with pools of toxic waste and caverns created by mutated insect colonies, while the labyrinths of circuits and network of defense mechanisms guard the path to MORGUL in world four.

Each world is nearly a maze in its construction and may cause you to become lost, which could result in you stumbling upon hidden areas containing treasure, power-ups and plenty of dangers. Special hidden blocks will reward the finder with items when shot, including tokens raising the power of your fire, yielding extra mines and grenades to replenish your supply or changing the current weapon setting.

Eventually, you'll also come to meet the boss lording over each world who won't make for pleasant company, ranging from a hovering metallic fist ten times the size of Turrican (aptly named The Gauntlet) guarding world one, to the giant stone Monolith guarding the caverns of world three, pulverizing any who enter his abode.

MORGUL's not counting on Turrican reaching him with everything standing in his way, so do us a favor and surprise him by sneaking up, tapping him on the back and giving each of his three faces a heapin' helping of laser blasts courtesy of the human race.

Turrican features:

• 13 massive levels
• Roughly 1,300 screens
• Massive firepower
• Blood-sucking enemies
• One-player action