Here we go with the legendary Xenon II - Mega
Blast.
Now is it only legendary because of the Bomb
The base soundtrack?
Released first on the Amiga in August 1989,
Xenon II was something special.
The beautifully drawn graphics coupled with
the thumping music really made it stand out.
David Whittaker was responsible for converting
Tim Simenon's aka; Bomb the Base's Mega Blast
to the Amiga and what a great job he did.
The game starts with a pretty cool remake
of the song.
It's far from perfect and so much lower in
fidelity to the original song but it is all
there for the most part and mighty impressing.
The actual in-game music though is a much
simpler version of the Mega Blast track.
It may as well not be present at all though
due to the sound effects basically taking
priority over the music as they battle for
use of the Amiga's sound channels.
Still, at least the effort was made.
Sadly, besides the music Xenon II doesn't
have much going for it.
As a shooter it's severely flawed.
The pace is slow, level design is terrible
with shit flying all over the place.
Enemies are too strong and it's difficult
to know where their hit boxes are in many
cases.
Add in the fact that every stage looks similar
to the previous one and we have a very tedious
and dull shooter.
I know many people love this game as I did
back in 1989 but once we take off those rose
tinted glasses and look at Xenon II with our
own eyes we see a game that was defiantly
a victim of style over substance.
Next up is the Atari ST version.
It's nice to see the ST get some sampled playback
of the Amiga loading music even if it is a
lot shorter despite the weaker sound hardware.
The in-game music is reasonable too or it
would be if you could hear it.
The Atari ST port of Xenon II is basically
the same as the Amiga version in terms of
looks.
There's nothing that really stands out between
the two versions.
The gameplay is also the same.
Nothing has changed there.
So you could say that the ST version is just
as good as the Amiga version if you played
both with the sound off.
Poor old MS Dos players.
Now, I'm not sure if there was a CDRom version
of this game for DOS but I can tell you that
the audio of the floppy version is terrible.
PC Speaker only it would seem.
It's also funny that the default setting for
the music is set to off.
The developers of this port knew it was bad.
In game graphics are quite nice.
They look sharper than the Amiga and ST but
the play areas are missing the parallax layer
of ....err.... weeds I guess I could call
them?
That's what they look like to me.
Space weeds.
So yeah, the MS DOS port sounds really bad
and is missing graphical features (No zooming
text for instance) but it's over all appearance
seems to be sharper.
 
Here's a nice surprise, Xenon II was also
ported to the Acorn Archimedes and it's better
than the original!
Yes, it's true.
It has the higher resolution graphics from
the PC version but now complete with the correct
parallax scrolling.
It has music that doesn't disappear when playing
the game and most importantly the playability
has been improved by making the enemy's hit
boxes easier to hit or at least it seems that
way.
Even little touches such as the zooming text
is smoother.
Sadly for the life of me I couldn't get the
up direction to work.
This isn't a problem with the game but one
with my set up.
Now I bet you never expected Xenon II to be
ported to the Sharp X68000.
I know I sure didn't expect that but I can
say that I'm really loving the FM recreation
of Mega Blast.
While it's not as full with samples it is
really cool.
But that's not the coolest point, Oh No, The
Sharp version is faster and what would you
know, this actually makes the game more fun.
Seriously, that little boost in speed makes
all the difference.
The X68000 port also comes with a special
mode.
As far as I can tell it's exactly the same
as the original mode but now with an original
soundtrack which while good, just doesn't
fit this game.
Time to move on to the consoles with the Mega
Drive port.
This piss poor effort was programmed by Delvin
Sorrell and apparently the original developers,
The Assembly Line.
All I can say is neither of them know how
to program the Mega Drive's Yamaha FM Sound
Chip.
This game sounds ear piercingly bad.
Harsh instruments, poor sound effects and
no voice samples at all.
The looks aren't much better.
The graphics should have looked as good as
the Amiga but instead look washed out, lack
animation and squashed.
The only saving grace this port has is the
difficulty setting allowing the game to be
played on easy or hard for the hardcore players
out there.
Xenon II also made its way on to the Sega
Master System.
I think you have to admit that it does look
pretty good considering the limitations of
the Master System's colour pallet and amount
of sprites it can move about without flicker.
I'd even say that the music is more pleasant
than the Mega Drive version.
There are things missing from this Master
System port, most noticeably being the lack
of currency pick ups.
This also means there is no shop in this version.
Still, it's not the end of the world.
And let's end with the Game Boy port.
We were never going to get Xenon II looking
right on the Game Boy due to the monochrome
screen and low resolution so I take my hat
off to Teeny Weeny games for even attempting
this port, let alone producing a reasonable
version of Xenon II for Nintendo's classic
handheld.
Man, they even managed to keep in the shop
and Mega Power Up.
Something the Master System was lacking.
