Xevious

"Apparently about ruthless alien invaders, this game's just too bland and *nice*."

Quite a few games had X in them in order to stand out--Zaxxon and Qix were two of the better ones. Xevious, another such game, actually starts with an X. However, this is indicative of the game as a whole--strong first impression, but bland stuff after that. The introductory tune is engaging, but the background music afterwards simpers. Overall it is a very pleasant game, and your first game will take a while, but it is neither memorable nor engaging. Basically you are a ship fighting off aliens on Planet Earth. There are aliens in the air and on the ground, and your ship(a ''solvalou,'' surely not quite as cool a word as Xevious) must fire lasers or use bombs to wipe them out. At first they do not even fire back, but after a while, you will find yourself attacked by alien forces on land and in the air. There is the obligatory battle with the big ship before you go and do things all over again. Airborne ships dart in and out and snipe at you, which gets a bit bothersome after a while. With details like this there doesn't seem to be a fight to the death and hence there isn't any urgency.

The gameplay is straightforward, as the monsters and scenery scroll down toward you. You have a rectangle your machine can move inside(yes, you can move diagonally,) and you can fire lasers or drop a bomb directly forward. There are crosshairs which line up where a bomb will drop and may also help with shooting down airships. You will want to bomb ahead of a stationary target instead of behind it.

As for the graphics, the scenery is much more interesting than the enemies. You start off each life flying over forest where you cannot be attacked. Then you leave it, and there are streets of a sort, sea, bridges, and so forth. The problem is that the background is inevitably angular, so there is not a lot of variety. There is, however, more variety than in the opponents, which seem either square(to be fair, some look like pyramids,) octagonal, or circular(the missiles are always circular, too!) The resolution on the game is good, but not good enough to make these opponents look far too similar. About the only variety you'll see is in the circular ships that spin to a line and back, and the weird panels that sometimes appear in waves and rotate about a horizontal line(which will kill you on touch) seem like too trite an attempt at variety. Even the big ships that you encounter are octagonal--the ports that fire are circular and symmetric, though. Your ship is the only interesting part of the game.

Getting good at this game is essentially the same as replaying it--you'll see the same thing over and over. The only really original things to try is to bomb two ground targets with one shot. Overall it is a pleasant game, and perhaps that is the problem. Even getting a rather long mulligan after dying(you fly over the forest for a bit) seems like the sort of sportsmanlike gesture that can potentially diffuse a competitive match. The aliens seem too laid-back, and eventually you wind up wondering if they are so bad...and then you're blown up and killed, by which time you feel little reason to avenge your loss.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 11/01/00, Updated 11/01/00