Xenon 2 (Amiga) - A Playguide and Review - by LemonAmiga.com
71Xenon 2 was originally released in 1989, and is an Arcade-style progressive shoot em up. The game was also ported to the CDTV in 1992, and this is the version in this review. We played it in the SuperLeague competition in 2023, and one of the best players from the compo, Pasquale, shares some tips at the end.
Thank You Pasquale @amigagamespro9414
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au5AIlnnEXg
Please support this channel, and get early access to everything!
https://www.patreon.com/lemontubeamiga
Our Backers!
1. ๐ฅ Kim Lemon
2. ๐ฅ Sepp
3. ๐ฅ Predseda
4. ๐ฅ Paul Henderson (Loki)
5. ๐ฅ Bloxyman22
6. ๐ฅ๐ฅ Ed Heaton
7. ๐ฅ๐ฅ Mahen
8. ๐ฅ๐ฅ Michael Nicholson*
9. ๐ฅ Eric Johnson
10. ๐ฅ Bernhard Lukas
11. ๐ฅ Ramon Schmitt
12.๐ฅ Glenn Main
13.๐ฅ Paolo Mirabella
14.๐ฅ Martin Roeleveld
* Note, the first few videos were rendered before these people joined. They appear in the credits of later videos.
Production Notes:
Captured: 15th January 2023 (compo Jan 8th - 28th)
Narrated: 26 Sept 2023
Completed: 1 October 2023 (V1)
Xenon 2 by the Bitmap Brothers was an attempt to revamp the rather limited Xenon engine, in the same way that Speedball 2 was a huge improvement over Speedball 1. The title was a big success, although it was always daunting for me, as I never seemed to get anywhere with it. In fact, I never owned this game back in the day, as it wasn't a game that I was ever in to. But in 2023, we play it in the Lemon and EAB SuperLeague, where I learned quite a few tips, and reached level 3 for the first time (with autofire enabled). I recorded this play in the middle of the round, where I knew enough to get to level 3, but I wasted at least 2 lives by making basic rookie mistakes. In an attempt to make up for this, I borrowed a video by a one of the other players, and added this to the end of the footage. This wasn't a very good play considering I could sometimes get to level 3 on one credit, but it should be enough to demonstrate some of the games quirks.
Danscore:
Xenon 2 is quite an immersive shoot em up, released in 1989, at a time when the best SEU's on the Amiga (Hybris?) were starting to appear. The game developed a cult status, and was praised for it's style and gameplay. When this CDTV version was released, it was aimed at a 1991 concept which had already failed by the time the game came out. They remixed the music, so that every level sounded musically different. They added voice sound effects to cover the shop keeper, and a few more intro screens to give the player a heads up on the icons etc. They didn't spend 1.2Million on a new fancy ray-traced intro. They didn't even update the graphics with CD images or cut scenes. In fact, the code was shoved onto a disc without much idea of how to utilise such a vast amount of media space. This CD version also works on the CD32, so they never bothered to update it further. Gameplay itself mostly depends on the number of times a player can hammer a fire button to kill something, while trying to navigate an unforgiving landscape - which is supposed to be safe, but players can get stuck. With auto-fire, it becomes a lot more enjoyable, but even then, it can be a huge task to get through it. Even veterans often complain about the difficulty, where everything must to be done by the book. After so many years the game is still impressive, and also still very difficult. If there had been an easy mode, where players can kill enemies with one shot, then the game would get a higher score. The fact that only the very best players will get to see the last levels means longevity suffers. I'll give this 7 out of 10, mostly for the atmosphere rather than the gameplay - although level 2 is very fun - and is still worth a blast!