Xevious

"It's Dangerous! It's Devious! It's...Crap!"

You Just Bought the Atari 7800, Now What?
When a shooter fan rips open the Atari 7800 box and wants to take the system out for the ultimate shooter test drive, Xevious must be in the cartridge slot. No other shooter arcade game for the Atari 7800 displays the system's power as good as Xevious.

Background Story
Xevious puts you in the role of fighter pilot of a sleek nuclear powered jet. Earth is relying on you to save the people from an invading barbarian army from deep space who claim to be the original inhabitants of earth (called Xevious) and want to take it back, by any means necessary. The ending of this perilous tale is left for you to write. Do you save earth or do you fail and have all earthlings enslaved to the Xevious?

Xevious Game Mechanics
Xevious plays as any other 8 bit shooter out at the time. The screen is an overhead view of your ship. The two fire buttons work separately. One fires the gun as the other drops bombs. You acquire power-ups along the way to battle the numerous enemy ships. You scroll along weaving and dodging enemy fire trying to destroy ground bases and Xevious fighters. The game is quite difficult as one hit destroys your ship and you start from the beginning of the level. The game does show your highest score from the current game but once you turn the power off it is erased. The game does not end. You reach the mother ship and once it is destroyed you are told there is another one. Xevious was designed with the shooter fan in mind.

What Will I See?
Xevious' graphics are good in comparison to other Atari 7800 games of the time; Junkyard Dog, Super Huey, etc. You are a blue triangle with ridges. The screen is also full of colorful enemies that are uniquely designed and give the illusion of animation. The enemies are round, square, and any other simple shape you can think of.

What Will I Hear?
The sound of Xevious is bad. The music is there (unlike other 7800 games) and sucks. Maybe the good 'ol suits at Atari should have let this game slide by without music also. Xevious is best when played with music cds from the same era. I would suggest Van Halen (though they suck) it just makes you want to save the earth. The sound effects are normal shooter fare, blips and bleeps.

Ratings (in comparison with Atari 7800 and NES shooters)
Graphics: 7/10
Spaceships are designed to make full use of the 7800 hardware. Ships are plentiful and vary in shapes so that the game does not get boring.

Sound: 4/10
Xevious music is crap at best and 3 day old crap at worst. Like I said this game should have been like the other 7800 carts and stuck with no music. So a suggestion would be to crank up old 80s bands.

Story: 6/10
Saving current earthlings from past earthlings, what more could you want from a story.

Replay Value: 5/10
The game is exciting the first time through, but after you finish the game I doubt you will want to play through it again and again and again...

I would highly recommend this game to any Atari 7800 owner
Total Score: 6/10

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 12/29/01, Updated 12/29/01