Monday 30 January 2012

This week: Talon Torque Thrust: Justicator Sega Mega Drive 1994

Talon Torque Thrust: Justicator, was a game released by games producer Cyril in 1994.

The game followed ex Special Forces Talon Torque Thrust, who has to battle the crime ridden streets of Talamus City. The flying elements of the game are taken from a cockpit, first person, view of the Knight Falcon. The Falcon is a multi million pound "Chopper-Jet" hybrid, armed to the teeth with state of the art weaponry.
There are two elements to the game, one consisting of flying the Falcon and engaging enemy "Glider Hoards". And taking on the enemy at ground level in game play that is viewed as a side on scroller. At any time Talon is flying the Falcon, he may receive communications from various characters. These include Mayor Brian Tyler, a man trying to get Talon "onside" to help him clear the streets. Police Chief Henry Martland, a tough cop who doesn't trust Talon. And Seegus Raynard, a crazy, criminal, master mind. Hell bent on ruining both Tyler and Martland, through criminal acts and unearthing secrets about their past

When Talon is contacted, a speech bubble appears showing an image of the caller and what they want. Talon is offered money or "knowledge" for missions that pay for his weaponry. The money can be spent at Cuboid Industries, where Professor Kelvin produces strange weapons behind the companies back. The knowledge given to Talon, will give him the information to know who to trust and which missions to take. As the game progresses, we see Talon find more clues to the Cities problems and also shows Talon double crossed on occasion.

The game was largely overlooked on release, but has a cult following now. It had a small release quantity compared to other games, and was never released in Japan. Copies can now fetch many hundreds of pounds to collectors and is highly sought after in it's full release packaging: Box, game, instructions, map, and sunglasses. The sunglasses are the very same that Talon is wearing in game. Many didn't realise, that to finish the game by opening the safe and stealing the microfilm, one had to copy the code imprinted on the glasses arms.


3 comments:

  1. Holy crapola, it's the game of my dreams. I got to the end and realised I'd given away the glasses (which work with modern 3DTVs, honest) to the kid across the street... who moved out 2 years ago. I still haven't completed the thing, mostly because my cart resides in 2,013 pieces at the bottom of a very deep well.

    Couldn't help but think, however, that TTT must have been in league with the Conservative Party to afford such expensive spacecraft.

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    1. Fairly easy to see that this was a combination of every shmup crossed with Escape from New York and Batman. I liked what happened back then with these type of games. The effort you put in to read seems ridiculous now. But you felt the story was stronger for it

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    2. I guess that might have been fallout from the whole text adventure 'scene' bleeding into console action games. Or maybe the game programmers were all frustrated film script writers?

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