Xenon 2 - Megablast review - Sega Megadrive

Those evil Xenites are back, and this time they're twice as deadly! After having their baboon asses well and truly dusted in Xenon I (which never appeared on the consoles in any form at all), they retreated and regrouped, coming up with an even more dastardly plan for universal domination!

And what a plan it is! Their new blueprint for cosmic domination involves striking at the heart of the Earth Empire by blowing up massive bombs throughout the planet's history, thus making it an easy target in the future. To give their dangerous scheme an ever bigger chance of success, they've also deposited massive laser-spewing forces to guard the bombs, along with gargantuan end-of-level bosses!

As you may have gathered, behind the scenario lies a vertically scrolling shoot 'em up, boasting three levels of explosive blasting mayhem all backed by a Master System version of Megablast - the ball-bouncingly brill Bomb The Bass theme tune!

What the Mean Machines staff thought

The unusual, but superb graphic style puts this a cut above most Megadrive up-the-screen scrollers. Just a swift glimpse of the screenshots is enough to show you that it's a veritable eyeball feast, with excellent backgrounds and some outstanding sprites, particularly the end-of-level bosses. The game runs along at a fair lick, with plenty of baddies whizzing around and the Xenon ship pumping out a barrage of laser and missile death, and on higher difficulty levels the action provides enough challenge to test your blasting skills but is still enjoyable enough to keep you playing without getting frustrated. The only disappointment is the slightly juddery scrolling, but since the action is of such good quality I think most Megadrive shoot 'em up fans will happily overlook that flaw.

I enjoyed the Amiga version of this game a great deal when it first came out two years ago, and this Megadrive version is just like a speeded-up version of the 16-bit classic. Perhaps the best things about the game are the distinctive graphics (no other Megadrive game has a style to match these classy visuals) and the vast amounts of weapons the game offers. On the minus side, there's nothing here in the gameplay stakes that hasn't been done on the Megadrive before - and the jerky scrolling just can't be forgiven. I was hoping that Mirrorsoft were going to jazz up Xenon II a tad with more levels and smoother gameplay - after all this is almost exactly the same as the Amiga version and far more expensive! Shoot 'em up fiends will get plenty of enjoyment out of this, but I was hoping for a little more.