 SNES DRUG One negative about Contra 3 is that it was so freaking short. It's such a great game It looks and sounds awesome, and it's so satisfying to play, but it's only six levels. Come on! Thankfully, there's games like the Super Turrican series to pick up the slack. Do you enjoy being comically overpowered and making anything and everything go boom? These are the games for you. The Super Turrican games are primarily side scrollers But with a much more open level design similar to something like Cybernator or Metal Warriors So each level is a huge area to explore to find various power-ups and believe me There's a seemingly endless number of them. There's the spread that looks like something out of the Raiden series There's a Gemini Man style weapon that bounces off the walls There's a straight ahead laser, a freeze beam, a clear all-screen attack You can morph into a Metroid ball and lay bombs. Jeez, what didn't they think of? It gets to the point where you collect so much shit that I have no idea what power-up is what and I don't even care One oddity in the Turrican series is that you can't aim anywhere other than horizontally I kind of get what they were going for here It sort of gives the game a shoot-em-up feel instead of a Contra clone and that's cool, but it's still frustrating Hey, at least you can duck and thankfully your jump range is pretty substantial So it's still pretty easy to reach every enemy. It just takes a bit to get used to. I will say for comparison's sake There isn't as much carnage here as there is in Contra 3 or in Contra Hardcore for Genesis The Turrican world is a lot brighter and more cartoony if that makes sense I'm not saying that's a bad thing at all Just saying there's a distinct aesthetic difference here The music is especially brighter and decidedly bouncy sounding I gotta admit it puts me in a good mood like, yay, destroying aliens If there's a flaw in Super Turrican, the jumping can be a bit problematic in cramped areas That's frustrating for the wrong reasons there But other than that, this game is as fun as it gets Super Turrican 2 does exactly what a good sequel should Which in this case is more Super Turrican The graphics here really stand out as something special, especially the backgrounds All the power-ups are back, the music is still great And you get vehicles to drive around and create even more mayhem You also get a Bionic Commando-like grappling arm, that's very cool However, there's something just a little off about the controls It's like they're too loose Too many times I felt like I was just flailing around out of control Especially when in control of a vehicle I felt like I was just barely keeping it together That's a shame because Super Turrican 2 is much harder than the first game It's way more like a shoot-em-up where you really need to concentrate on not getting hit So there's a greater emphasis on precision if you want to progress in the game Also the open-ended levels are pretty much gone This game is entirely a side-scroller, and that also adds to a shoot-em-up feel to it Anyway, the Turrican series originally started out on the Commodore 64 Before it and its subsequent sequel were ported to about a million systems It also spawned an NES game as well as two Genesis titles The NES game is also titled Super Turrican, but it's modeled after the first two Turrican games The Super Nintendo Super Turrican games are entirely new games So yeah, the Super Turrican games are tremendous fun Run and Gun gaming at its finest Reminiscent of Gunstar Heroes, the Metal Slug series, and even Rendering Ranger R2 for the Super Famicom If I had to pick between the two, Super Turrican 2 is definitely better looking, better sounding, and more of a challenge But I think I'd go for the first Super Turrican because of its more wide-open level design and tighter controls Also, Super Turrican and Megaturrican are listed on the virtual console, so go check them out