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Xenon.
Xenon is a legendary top-down shoot'em up from the godlike (or should
that be, Godslike?) Bitmap Brothers. Quality leaks out of every seam in this game; the music is by Dave Whittaker
of (insert 1,000 game titles here) fame, the graphics and code are by the Bitmap boys, and the game exudes a palpable
aroma of playability from the moment you boot it. This game should have been a coin-op, because it would have made
a fortune in its era.
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The two shapes of your vehicle are shown in the screenshots at left. You
move slightly slower as an airplane, but you can wreak more havoc with certain powerups (laser, for instance).
The tank is immune to airborne attacks, but unfortunately is prone to running into ground-based enemies like the
ladybirds and custard tarts (hey, that's what they look like!) in the screenshot at bottom left. You switch between
shapes by pressing Space or holding the joystick down while pressing fire.
Unfortunately, Xenon is HARD. The first level is mild and gentle (unless you're playing it in PaCifiST, in which
case the keyboard will keep sticking and you'll keep dying), but the second level is completely impossible from
the very start. One of these fine days I will have to sit down with a debugger and put a trainer in my copy.
Like Shadow of the Beast, Xenon loses a point for gameplay because of its unreasonable difficulty. |
Verdict: Definite
must-have game, both for historical and joystick-wiggling reasons.
Ratings (five stars = maximum)
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Graphics
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Sound/Music
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Gameplay
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Overall
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*****
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*****
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****
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*****
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