Xenon 2 Megablast 1989
The Assembly Line released Xenon 2: Megablast for the Atari ST and Amiga in 1989. An IBM PC version was released in 1990. Xenon 2 is a vertcially-scrolling shoot 'em up.
The predecessor to Xenon 2 is Xenon 1988.
Xenon 2 does not run at full frames due to the number of sprites it shifts around its five-layer parallax 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.
However, collision detection is off and some waves cheaply flank. You can also get stuck on walls (jittering); thus, the auto-scrolling can kill you.
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 consists of five levels. The scrolling playfield dimensions for each level are 320x4800 pixels.
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 tone down the sprite-count and get rid of the parallax to put Xenon 2 on a whole other level. I'd sacrifice in-game music in pursuit of full-frames action as well.
Xenon 2 audio by David Whittaker.
Xenon 2 Weapons System for Megablaster ("Capsule" pick-ups):
- Front Shot, Side Shot, Rear Shot, Cannons, Lasers
- Super Nashwan Power, Electroball, Mines
- Dive, Zapper, Speed-up, Power-up, Heart
The MS-DOS version lacks the digitized aka sampled Bomb the Bass soundtrack whereas the ST version has its own rendition.
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 2 IBM PC 1990
The Assembly Line / Bitmap Brothers ported their own ST/Amiga Xenon 2 Megablast of 1989 to IBM PC MS-DOS in 1990. IBM PC Xenon 2 displays in 256-color VGA 320x200. Supports keyboard and joystick controls. Doesn't have the Megablast / Bomb the Bass intro of the ST/Amiga versions. Doesn't have the cool electrocuting white-strobe Zapper effect. However, the screen-scrolling is smoother than the ST/Amiga versions.
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