| ★ AMSTRAD CPC ★ GAMESLIST ★ XENON (c) MELBOURNE HOUSE/VIRGIN GAMES ★ |
Amstrad Action |
Somewhere across the bounds of space and time a great adventure is taking place. A lone fighter is battling to survive against awesome odds, his only weapon a fantastic craft that can transform from a tank to a plane at the couch of a button. Enemies are massing, though, for one final assault. This is the world of Xenon, and a battle's coming down.
The aim of the game is simple: victory by the complete obliteration of the enemy. Your tank/plane is a tough armour plated beast that can rip up the opposition easily on a one to one basis. But of course, like buses, they only even arrive in threes. This forces you to be constantly switching trom shape to shape to maximise kill power and minimise the risk factor. On the ground you're immune to aircraft shots, but are slow and attract fire from enemy armour and gun emplacements. When you're a fighter piano, speed and range improve but you're vulnerable to shots from everybody and can't pick up the extra power packs dropped by retreating tanks, so a balance muse be struck. You scroll up this hi-tech tiled corridor, with turrets protruding out of the floor. One quick shot (or even a near miss) soon has them exploding beautifully, and the trip continues. Next, gun emplacements on a higher level require quick change to plane mods, or avoiding the shells they send crashing down around you. Thats just about it; differing formations oi tanks, planes and fortifications getting ever more dangerous until big bad end of level beasties come out of hiding and gjve you a shore sharp lesson in the art of dying. The side effect is that you are returned right back to the beginning and the whole battle starts again, amid much gnashing of teeth. The whole point of a shoot'em up is chat you don't even have time to think, and it's instinct and reaction speed that see you through On this score. Xenon fails to deliver The whole game moves at the speed of a slug with a sprained ankle. Even in plane mode, which allows you a modicum more pace, everything's in slow motion. In a way the slowness is a relief, because if everything was at normal blasting speed the survival time would be measured in microseconds: it's tough enough as it is! The graphics and sound are both excellent conversions from their 16 bit cousins and the scrolling is smooth if slow. The blasting, however, isn't enough to sustain any lasting interest. Tough it may be, interesting it ain't. Xenon just, doesn't set the blood on {ire the way Silkworm did, there's not the mad and confused scramble that makes shoot'em ups so exciting. It's a shame, a crime even, that such good work has been squandered in. such a game. Apart bom speed it's got everything: good graphics, sounds, smooth scrolling arid even a reasonable plot premise for a shoot out. But it is just not enjoyable enough to warrant spending £10 on! In years gone by scientists thought the element xenon was inert. I think they were probably right. TW, AA |
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Page créée en 510 millisecondes et consultée 4373 fois L'Amstrad CPC est une machine 8 bits à base d'un Z80 à 4MHz. Le premier de la gamme fut le CPC 464 en 1984, équipé d'un lecteur de cassettes intégré il se plaçait en concurrent du Commodore C64 beaucoup plus compliqué à utiliser et plus cher. Ce fut un réel succès et sorti cette même années le CPC 664 équipé d'un lecteur de disquettes trois pouces intégré. Sa vie fut de courte durée puisqu'en 1985 il fut remplacé par le CPC 6128 qui était plus compact, plus soigné et surtout qui avait 128Ko de RAM au lieu de 64Ko. |
