| ★ AMSTRAD CPC ★ GAMESLIST ★ XYBOTS (c) DOMARK/TENGEN ★ |
| A100% | Amstrad Action | Amstrad Sinclair Ocio | GEN4 |
The air is charged with burnt ozone, the blaster cannon is red hot in your hands, while in front of you lies a twisted smouldering xybot. Major Hardy casts a wry smile at you 'The only good xybot is a dead xybot. The mutters. No time to rest though, there's too much metal to melt. And so off you charge into the smoke filled corridor. 'Do you feel lucky 'bot? Go ahead, make our day!"
Captain Ace Gunn and Major Rock Hardy - daft names, or what? - are raiding a xybot base. The mission is to kill the master xybot, and wreak as much havoc as possible along the way. A straight firefight is out of the question. since xybotland is a confused mass of mazes and teleport systems. Stealth and tactics are more effective than brute force, but you've got to be ready to stand and blast in critical situations. The fust few levels of xybotsville are mapped out for you at the top of the screen to help you find the tin men and the exit. Later this map is drawn as you venture around vapourizing 'bots, which only really helps in retreat. Alongside sit status boxes constantly flashing news to you of imminent demise and weapons info. The maze feel is enhanced by using splitscreen perspective graphics. Your guy chases off down the corridor and the whole room. moves past him. He can easily (except in combat) be turned to look around corners and on unknown levels both parties can split up and share their information. It's really confusing to watch as your mate steams past and you catch a glimpse of yourself from his angle. Remember, you too can be hurt by the other guys shots and not just the bots. Xybots does have a few twists to justify wholesale destruction. Firstly you've got to collect the various items left lying around the place to improve your chances of a long and happy life, secondly to beat increasingly nasty Master Xybots every three or four levels. Most importantly you need to find the energy capsules vital to life. The energy limit (effectively your time and hits counter) runs down real quick, and it's necessary to pick up supplies along the way on the larger levels just to cover the ground. Some bots are more difficult to kill than others, armoured up and only exposing themselves (?) when shooting you. Huge blue 'hots roam about and while easily killed they've powerful cannon. Some xybots come at you oh suicide runs wiping out vast amounts of life energy if successful. Sundry other surprises include walls which open when unlocked to reveal large numbers of trigger-happy androids breathing oil fumes in your face.
The two player option confuses matters but also adds a new dimension to play with the ability to outflank enemies - but of course the same is also true for the boys in tin. Things get mean out there in 'bot country and you can never just take things easy. Lasers arc always screaming in from distant "bots and new style machines constantly rear their ugly bonces, forcing you to discover how on earth to go blow it to pieces! An exceptional arcade conversion in its accuracy Xybots falls short of the mark. No programmer can convert a coin-op and make it brilliant if the coin-op falls short in the originality deépartment. Xybots in either form -CPC or arcade - is exciting for twenty minutes but dull after an hour. Running round and roasting robots is passable fun. but it doesnt hold up well for long, even with tight time/energy limits to inject tension. Xybots does have one saving grace: when the game gets dull you can always turn rogue and surprise your partner with a few stray shots! FIRST DAY TARGET SCORE : 70.000 TW, AA |
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Page créée en 278 millisecondes et consultée 5967 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. |
