Xenon 2

The Bitmap Brothers had already scored rave reviews for Xenon and Speedball which had been published through ImageWorks. Now, with the collapse of Robert Maxwell’s media empire (who owned ImageWorks) the Bitmaps found themselves without a publisher.

Soon they joined forces with Rhythm King, a popular independent music label who allowed their spotlight hunger to grow even more as they marketed themselves more and more as game-stars.

As well they should really, since every game they released was covered in huge detail by the gaming press of the time and hundreds of interviews and screenshots later, the game was released and did not disappoint.

“The best vertically scrolling
shoot’ em up ever written.”
THE ONE.

Sound

Their ties to Rhythm King allowed them access to the dance music publisher’s great catalogue. Later games would include music by Betty Boo and S’Express.

Xenon 2 though included the seminal sounds of Britain’s Bomb the Bass, an up and coming DJ on the dance music scene. The track was Megablast and thus Xenon 2 – Megablast was born.

The music was some of the highest quality sampling performed so far on the Amiga and as the game loaded and the music boomed out from the 1084S Monitor, it was the first time any of us had really been tempted to hook up our Amigas through our stereos.

Graphics

The Bitmaps developed a graphical style through the efforts of their resident graphic artist, Mark Coleman. A metallic ‘sheen’ was added to most of the tiles used to create their games and Xenon 2 is perhaps the pinnacle of the form. The organic theme of the game’s first half had turrets growing out of the walls and giant insectoid bosses, making amazing use of the 32 colours available. The second half was more futuristic but no less brilliantly produced.

Gameplay

The game itself was a great vertically-scrolling shoot-em-up, with some of the most screen-filling, frame-rate choking power-ups ever seen.

Enemies attacked in set patterns and en-masse. The creatures were varied enough to make learning their attack patterns interesting and dangerous enough to keep you on your toes. Each destroyed ‘wave’ of attackers earned you credits which could be exchanged for power-ups from Crispin’s Bargain Basement belonging to an alien who enjoyed the soundtrack through headphones.

Crispin's Bargain Basement

Power-up design was well-balanced with tactical expenditure often split between health, defensive and offensive upgrades. Side and rear shot, electroball and a ‘hide’ option that, perhaps in homage to 1942, allowed you to dive beneath the parallax scrolling for ten seconds. Best of all was the time-limited glimpse of what your ship looked like when fully-powered up – Super-Nashwan Power – with screen-clearing results.

Xenon 2 was not original, like other Bitmap games it was unashamedly derivative. The Bitmap Brothers simply brought together the ‘best bits’ of the genre and combined them into an awesome, beautiful whole.