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Turrican II: The Final Fight

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This page details pre-release information and/or media for Turrican II: The Final Fight (Atari ST).

This page details pre-release information and/or media for Turrican II: The Final Fight (ZX Spectrum).

This page details pre-release information and/or media for Universal Soldier (SNES).

This page details pre-release information and/or media for Universal Soldier (Genesis).

This page details pre-release information and/or media for Universal Soldier (Game Boy).

This page details pre-release information and/or media for Turrican II: The Final Fight (DOS).

To do:
Any prerelease screenshots that differ from final? Also there's apparently an artbook for the Collector's Edition of Anthology, anything from there matter?

Development Timeline#

1990

  • May - The game's development begins.1
  • September - Amiga Action issue 12 reports that the game's launch is aiming for "near Christmas".2
  • September 13-163 - The game appears at ECES 1990 in London.4
  • November 15 - Rainbow Arts shows the game at a press conference at Leader Distribution's headquarters.5

1991

  • January - Issue 28 of TheOne magazine provides behind-the-scenes development details in a preview for the game.
  • February - Turrican II: The Final Fight is released for Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST, Amstrad CPC, and ZX Spectrum in Europe.
  • December 9 - The date on the files within the CDTV version.
  • Turrican II: The Final Fight is released for CDTV in Europe.6

1992

  • January 9-137 - Accolade reveals their console ports of Turrican II: The Final Fight at Winter CES.89
  • Mid-year - Accolade announces their acquiring of the license to Universal Soldier10, which is utilized to reskin their port of Turrican II.11
  • August 26 - Scene group PONG leaks a build of the ultimately-cancelled SNES version of Universal Soldier.12
  • November - Universal Soldier is released for Genesis in North America and Europe.13
  • December - Universal Soldier is released for Game Boy in North America and Europe.14

1993

  • May - This month's issue of PC Joker says that a DOS port of Turrican II is being developed by a largely young group of programmers called "SUN", better known as Sun-Project.15

1994

  • May - An early build of the DOS version is in some peoples' hands by this point.1617
  • June 11 - Arjan Brussee of Epic Megagames says that the DOS version is undergoing "heavy beta testing".18

1995

  • January - PC Joker reports that a DOS version demo should be circulating by now, and the full release should be out by March.19
  • January 7 - Sun-Project projects a February 10th release date for a demo of the DOS version on this day.20
  • October 13 - The "last changes" date in the DOS version's readme.
  • October 27 - The date on the ISO filesystem containing the DOS version.
  • November 10-1221 - Computer 95 in Cologne takes place. Shortly afterwards, Turrican II: The Final Fight is released for DOS in Europe.22
  • November 23 - The "last changes date" in a later revision of the DOS version's readme.

Development Overview#

Turrican II started development on Rainbow Arts's Pegasus development system quite shortly after its prequel launched. It began in May 1990, and ended up being released by February 1991. Like the prior game, the C64 version was the basis for all the other ports. Ideas for the first game that didn't make it in were reused for this entry, as were ideas from feedback by players of the first game. Amiga version programmer Holger Schmidt rewrote/optimized everything except the scroll routines to get more processing time.

One priority in developing the game was playability over presentation. This led to World Two's parallax being simplified in comparison to One and Three, as the framerate was halved by leaving it as-is.

(Source: TheOne Magazine Issue 28, pgs. 40-42)

References#

  1. TheOne Magazine Issue 28, pgs. 40-42.↩︎
  2. Amiga Action - Issue 12 (1990-09)(Interactive Publishing)(GB), pg. 4. "[...] the evil demo [sic] will be making a welcome comeback near Christmas in Turrican II."↩︎
  3. ECES 1990 - Sega Retro. "Date: 1990-09-13 – 1990-09-16"↩︎
  4. Commodore Revue 27, pg. 31. "Présents également sur le stand sous le label Innerprise Sword of Sodan II, Turrican II et Aviator (Hybris II) qui promettent d’être aussi réussis que leurs grands frères."↩︎
  5. Commodore Gazette anno 5 n° 6, pgs. 44-45. "Presso la sede della Leader Distribuzione, il 15 novembre si è svolta una conferenza stampa della software house le cui “abitudini sono dure a morire...”" "Il terzo gioco presentato segna un record assoluto: è il primo caso registrato di autoclonazione. Turrican II non è altro che una variazione sul tema del primo gioco: cambiano le mappe da attraversare, ma a parte questo l’azione è assolutamente identica, con l’unica aggiunta di sprite animati particolarmente grandi per i mostri di fine livello e una sezione apparentemente di shoot ‘em up a scorrimento orizzontale (“apparentemente”, perché l'abbiamo notata solo dopo essere tornati in redazione, in una delle diapositive fornite nel press pack). "↩︎
  6. Turrican 2 CDTV↩︎
  7. Winter CES 1992 - Sega Retro. "Date: 1992-01-09 – 1992-01-13"↩︎
  8. Game Informer Issue 3 -- January-February 1992, pg. 14. "Accolade will be following up their success with Turrican for Game Boy (see pgs. 58-59) with the NES version and Turrican II, for Genesis."↩︎
  9. Nintendo Power 1988 - 2004, Issue 34, March 1992, pg. 113. "Creating Turrican II for all three systems is the big project at Accolade"↩︎
  10. GamePro Issue 036 July 1992, pg. 107. "Accolade has announced that they’ve inked a deal with TriStar to create games based on Universal Soldier - Tri-Star’s sci-fi, action thriller flick released this summer. "↩︎
  11. Unedited Scans of UK Gaming Magazines, Sega Pro #8, June 1992 pg. 27. "Accolade acquired the licence while converting the code for Turrican II to the Mega Drive, but instead of devising a whole new game around the film, and thus slowing up its release, they have adapted the original Turrican II."↩︎
  12. Snes Central: Universal Soldier↩︎
  13. Universal Soldier, Sega Retro↩︎
  14. Universal Soldier USA (21113) - Informations - Game Boy Database↩︎
  15. PC Joker 1993-05/06, pg. 8. "Obwohl sie bereits über zwei Jahre am Buckel hat, gilt die furiose PlattformBallerei um einen heldenhaften Roboter auch heute noch als Höhepunkt des Genres am diesbezüglich ohnehin verwöhnten Amiga. Und weil das Spiel nicht zuletzt vom astreinen Scrolling lebt, hieß es lange, daß eine vernünftige PC-Konvertierung schlicht unmöglich sei — bis eine Gruppe überwiegend jugendlicher Computerkids den deutschen Vertrieb Rainbow Arts eines Besseren belehrte! Die Jungs nennen sich so, wie auch ihr neues Entwicklungssystem für ruckelfreies DOSen-Scrolling heißt: SUN."↩︎
  16. TURRICAN II. "Leute ich hab den TFMX-Player von Sun Projects fuer PC, sowie die TFMX Sounds zu Turrican III und last not least eine spielbare Version von Turrican II PC."↩︎
  17. TURRICAN NEWS. "o TURRICAN II Prerelease ist fertig und debugged. Ich kriegs diese Woche."↩︎
  18. Re: Apogee's Hocus Pocus (parallax scrolling in 256 colors). "To really establish the concept of smooth scrolling on the PC's check out Jazz Jackrabbit from Epic Megagames (coincidentally programmed by me) and Turrican 2 from Rainbow Arts. Both are not out yet, but in heavy beta testing."↩︎
  19. Full text of "PC Joker Archiv 1991 - 2001". "Gute Neuigkeiten aus Kaarst: Ab März soll tatsächlich doch noch eine PC-Version von TURRICAN II die Regale der Händler zieren — und wenn diese Zeilen erscheinen, sollte der legendäre Baller-Hüpfer bereits in einer Demoversion durch den Shareware-Pool paddeln!"↩︎
  20. Re: Turrican. "Turrican II PC Demo a jump'n'run, shoot'em up game with cool gfx, smooth scrolling TFMX sounds and great gameplay. Code: All programmers. Gfx: Brainbug. Music: Chris Huelsbeck. Producer: Thomas Brockhage/Softgold (To be released in 10. Febuary)"↩︎
  21. 1. "Acorn RISC Computer auf der Computer 95 in Kvln vom 10.-12.11.95!"↩︎
  22. Computer 95 in Koeln. "JM> Damit hab ich wirklich nicht gerechnet. Bsonders weil
    JM> sie ja eigentlich sehr viele Spiele kurz nach der
    JM> Messe veroeffentlicht haben (Rebel Assault 2, The Dig,
    JM> Turrican 2 etc.)"↩︎