NG Dev Team announce GunLord for Neo-Geo and Dreamcast

[Friendly]

LOL! I just watched the trailer and wow, what a shameless Turrican clone. Gameplay and all weapons are identical, including the screen-wide blast and the transformation (wheel). Even the music is, erm, "inspired" by Turrican, just not as good. Several of the levels (style,coloring) are directly lifted from the Turrican series.
In a move that could be intrerpreted as an apology for so brazenly stealing from Turrican, they called the evil overlord in Gun Lord "The Master" (nickname of Manfred Trenz, creator of Turrican); the boss in Turrican was called "The Machine".

At what point does something stop being an "homage" and starts being a rip off? I think we just found out.

[JBC]

It's a celebration of what made Turrican such a great series, much like Pulstar was to R-Type and Last Hope was to both. We'll not likely ever see another true Turrican game, so I'm certain the intent is to fill the void.

[Friendly]

You know, there are games like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B-6Yce7Io4

And like most fanmade clones, it's actually freeware.

[JBC]

Yeah, I mentioned Hurrican earlier in the thread. It's okay, but doesn't have a genuine feel since it wasn't developed for the old school systems.

[louisg]

Yeah, Hurrican look OK but the production values in GunLord seem a bit better. I see a lot of variety in the trailer, so hopefully that'll be the case throughout the game. Personally, I prefer the way things generally run on consoles a little more as well. But, we'll see how GunLord is when it arrives!

[system11]

You know, there are games like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B-6Yce7Io4

And like most fanmade clones, it's actually freeware.

All your criticisms of GunLord can be levelled at Hurrican equally - if not more so.

So really, you're complaining about is it being something you have to pay for. I have no problem paying for peoples time spent making things, if Hurrican was on XBLA I would probably buy it too despite the floaty jumping, but I can't stand playing games on PCs.

Honestly they could call it "Turrican 3rd party level pack" and I'd buy it, because I loved the originals and was let down by the second being so easy to finish - I saw everything inside of a weekend.

[Friendly]

All your criticisms of GunLord can be levelled at Hurrican equally - if not more so.

Not really. One is a commercial product created in order to earn money, the other is a free fanmade game that is supposed to be a remake of Turrican, it's advertised as such.

Hurrican is a freeware jump and shoot game created by Poke53280 that is based on the Turrican game series.

When deciding if something constitutes a rip off, the applicable unit of measurement really is not the same for commercial products.
Gun Lord is a rather shameless Turrican clone, plain and simple. It doesn't appear to add anything new to the mix.

That doesn't mean it's going to be a bad game. And it doesn't mean I won't buy it if it turns out to be good. I'm just calling a spade a spade.

[louisg]

When deciding if something constitutes a rip off, the applicable unit of measurement really is not the same for commercial products.
Gun Lord is a rather shameless Turrican clone, plain and simple. It doesn't appear to add anything new to the mix.

That's not how it works. Whether or not something is free often has to do with the amount of time and money sunk into production, not whether or not the company thinks it'll get C&D'd. Like I said, we'll see when it gets here, but from what I've seen so far GunLord looks well put-together in terms of graphics, music, and physics. The bosses also seem like they'll probably wind up being a lot more interesting than what was in the original Turricans.

That said, the devs probably could have charged money for Hurrican had they wanted to.

[Friendly]

I disagree. In my opinion there is a big difference between a fan-game that uses characters, settings and music from a commercial game (in order to pay homage to it) and a commercial game that copies another commercial game.
Gun Lord isn't just inspired by Turrican in the way Turrican was inspired by other games. Gun Lord is Turrican, minus the player sprite.

[louisg]

I disagree. In my opinion there is a big difference between a fan-game that uses characters, settings and music from a commercial game (in order to pay homage to it) and a commercial game that copies another commercial game.
Gun Lord isn't just inspired by Turrican in the way Turrican was inspired by other games. Gun Lord is Turrican, minus the player sprite.

So you wouldn't care if it were just reskinned? Seems like that wouldn't change a whole lot.

[TLB]

I disagree. In my opinion there is a big difference between a fan-game that uses characters, settings and music from a commercial game (in order to pay homage to it) and a commercial game that copies another commercial game.
Gun Lord isn't just inspired by Turrican in the way Turrican was inspired by other games. Gun Lord is Turrican, minus the player sprite.

So you wouldn't care if it were just reskinned? Seems like that wouldn't change a whole lot.

It seems more like a compliment.

[Friendly]

Well, and minus the great soundtrack by Huelsbeck. Other reservations may apply, but we won't know until after it's released.

[Marc]

I worshipped the first two Turrican games on C64/Amiga, but the console games came nowhere close, and even the first two feel a little aimless and dated these days. Quite inteigued by this but will wait for some impressions first.

[Genesis Knight]

Wasn't the trailer + release date set for this week? I'm impatient!

NG:DEV.TEAM ‏ @ngdevteam
We will release next week the final trailer and the release date of Gunlord MVS.

[system11]

Indeed - this week is running out.

[gameoverDude]

I've got a preorder in on the DC one with NCSX, but the Neo-Geo MVS cart is looking tempting to me. Hell, I might buy both. What NGDT says about in-system updates via USB on the cart version has my interest piqued. Since we never got a 32-bit Super Turrican 3 and most likely never will see one, this is something that will be either as good or maybe even better.

Rafael Dyll does a good job of filling in on soundtrack duty here if what I heard in the trailer is any indication.

I doubted that Fast Striker would happen on Neo CD given that it's a 1560 Meg game. I heard that the Dreamcast FS has a couple minor animation cuts, but adds true transparencies.

[mrsmiley381]

Just got an e-mail and there's a new trailer up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b1h41hVg_8

[TransatlanticFoe]

Dear customers,

finally the release Trailer is up.

You can find it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b1h41hVg_8

Current release date schedule:

- Gunlord MVS: 26th March

- Gunlord DC: 14th June

- Gunlord AES: 2nd quarter 2012

Main reason for the late AES release are the shells and snap cases. As soon as we have those in stock a release only takes 14 days. We are currently working on a deal using original SNKP manufactured shells and snap cases (no sacc. carts). These kind of deals are always slow and expensive. But the progress is very good. We will keep you updated. If the deal works out as planned there will be unlimited supplies of new AES snap cases/shells for future projects.

For people not on Facebook/Twitter here are a few links of cool stuff we recently posted:

Gunlord MVS on an Egret 2 arcade cabinet:
http://www.ngdevteam.com/images/stories ... _small.jpg

Some pixelart stills from the attract mode:
http://www.gun-lord.com/intro.png

Best regards,
NG: DEV.TEAM

June??? I wonder if it'll still make it out before Sturmwind...

[louisg]

Haha that opening is ridiculous. I hope it's tongue-in-cheek, though if it isn't that wouldn't surprise me either.

[mrsmiley381]

Haha that opening is ridiculous. I hope it's tongue-in-cheek, though if it isn't that wouldn't surprise me either.

YOU HAVE NO GUN

DIE IN HELL

It's almost sig-worthy.

[Ghegs]

Awesome. The new trailer looks spiffy and I'll be playing the game in two weeks, and that particular week happens to be my week off from work. Good stuff.

[Stormwatch]

I have to complain about the music of the shmup level.

It is FAST! EXCITING! BOMBASTIC! ROCKING! PUMPING! That's what I was talking about!

So, my complaint is that the rest of the game should also have that kind of soundtrack.

[system11]

It really does look very good, and March for the MVS is happily sooner than I thought

[JBC]

Haha! Not what I was expecting

"Bitches! Die in Hell!"

[TLB]

One of the most interesting attract demos I have ever seen. Thank you for sharing, NG:DEV. I look forward to your future work in directing. (Seriously.)

[RaidenViper]

Does Gunlord MVS LE come with a soundtrack CD like Fast Striker did?

[system11]

I wish it would, but it's not listed in the features.

[RaidenViper]

I wish it would, but it's not listed in the features.

Oh I see I wonder why this cost 20 euro more than Fast Striker and Last Hope

[Estebang]

This has probably been explained already, but what limitation does the invincible "morph ball" transformation have on its use? The player in the newest trailer just keeps using it to blaze past tough enemies and traps. I see a counter for the bomb, but nothing for this.

[Herr Schatten]

This has probably been explained already, but what limitation does the invincible "morph ball" transformation have on its use?

If it works like Turrican II, there is none. You're supposed to use it to mow through certain spots.