Xenon 2 Megablast 1989
The Bitmap Brothers of the U.K. released Xenon 2: Megablast for the Atari ST and Amiga in September of 1989. Xenon 2 is a vertcially-scrolling shoot 'em up most notable for its prime pixel art, weapons system and Swop Shop.
Xenon 2 is the sequel to Xenon of 1988.
Xenon 2 is set one millennium after the Galactic Conflict of Xenon. In Xenon 2 the Xenites have set a time bomb in each of the epochs of evolutionary history. Only a squadron of Megablasters can wipe out the hostile waves of lifeforms that have been irradiated by the time bombs, and defuse the timb bombs by destroying their guardians.
Developed by The Assembly Line, Xenon 2 was programmed by Martin Day, drawn by Mark Coleman and composed by David Whittaker. Xenon 2 was coded on an IBM PC but its graphics were drawn using Degas Elite of 1986 on an ST.
During its intro Xenon 2 displays sprite-scaled logos and demo-quality text over a swirling starfield while playing Whittaker's sampled rendition of Megablast by Bomb the Bass.
Mark Coleman's Xenon 2 pixel art is stunning on ST, Amiga and MS-DOS. Xenon 2's levels range from pre-historic to metallic space-age themes.
Xenon 2 displays in 320x200 and has an active drawspace of 320x192.
Xenon 2 consists of five levels each of which represents an evolutionary epoch. Each level is packed with hostile waves of lifeforms and culminates in an end-level guardian. The scrolling playfield dimensions for each level are 320x4800 pixels.
Vanquished enemies leave behind cash-bubbles that can be collected: at the end of each round players can refit their Megablaster via the Swop Shop buy/sell interface.
Xenon 2 does not run at full frames due to the number of sprites and the size of the sprites that it shifts around its five-layer parallax-scrolling playfield. Xenon 2 is one of the few shoot 'em ups in which players have (limited) reverse-scrolling control by pulling back on the joystick. Xenon 2 reverse scrolling is also dual-speed.
However, Xenon 2 collision detection is off and some waves cheaply flank and home-in. You can also get stuck on walls (jittering); thus, the auto-scrolling can kill you. Along with the abysmal framerate, this is the worst aspect of Xenon 2.
An odd shooter to be sure -- some may even deem it "an abomination" -- Xenon 2 was advertised as having "coinop-quality action," but it only looks like a coinop in static screencaps. When you actually play Xenon 2, when you see it moving, you will realize that it does not play like a coinop because it lacks smooth scrolling and sprite-shifting. In fact, dating back to 1986 there are C64 shooters that play more like coinops than Xenon 2 does.
All the Assembly Line had to do was reduce the sprite-count and get rid of the parallax to put Xenon 2 on a whole other level. I'd even sacrifice in-game music in pursuit of that end.
Xenon 2 Weapons System for Megablaster:
- Front Shot, Double Shot, Side Shot, Rear Shot, Cannons, Lasers
- Super Nashwan Power, Electroball, Mines
- Dive, Zapper, Speed-up, Power-up, Heart
Xenon 2 is much easier when you know when to buy/sell side shot/rear shot. Cash does not carry over from shop to shop. It is best to power-up double shot, twin-laser and side shot/rear shot to power level 3.
The Amiga version of Xenon 2 was distributed on 2x 3.5" 880kB DD diskettes. It was not installable to hard disk drive.
Xenon of 1988 is better than Xenon 2 because you can switch between Fighter Jet and Tank. I defeated both Xenon games when they came out and without an auto-fire joystick (you can buy an auto-fire upgrade in Xenon 2). Xenon is also much harder than Xenon 2.
Note that auto-fire is not always beneficial because you may kill enemies too early and not be able to collect the cash-bubble before they float out of reach.
Xenon 2 IBM PC 1990
The Assembly Line / Bitmap Brothers ported ST/Amiga Xenon 2: Megablast of 1989 to IBM PC MS-DOS in 1990. PC Xenon 2 displays in 256-color VGA 320x200, but its graphics were not redrawn to employ 256 colors. Indeed, PC Xenon 2 lacks the background layer.
PC Xenon 2 supports keyboard and joystick controls. PC Xenon 2 lacks the Megablast / Bomb the Bass intro of the ST/Amiga versions as well as the cool electrocuting white-strobe Zapper effect. However, the screen-scrolling is smoother than the ST/Amiga versions.
The PC version of Xenon 2 was distributed on 1x 3.5" 720 kB DD diskette. The hard disk drive install size is 836 kbytes and consists of 36 files.
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