Xevious

"Stupid shooter fun"

Flash back to last week. I was rummaging through the used bin at my local Funcoland with two dollars in my pocket and the sudden urge to play an old arcade shooter. Wedged between the epic ''Bayou Billy'' and the action-packed ''Gotcha!: The Sport'', I caught sight of this, Namco's NES port of an old arcade game that I'd wasted a couple of quarters on in the past. It was cheap, seemed like it couldn't be too bad, and I took it home. The results were more or less what I expected, a very mediocre experience.

GRAPHICS: 4/10
Do something for me, alright? Look at a screen capture of the Xevious arcade game. Then compare it to the NES version. Notice anything different with the graphics? The game has next to NO TEXTURES. The water is a solid, boring blue, the same holds true for the green grass, even the forests look like a third grader drew them. The enemy ships are repetitive, either spinning walls, circles, or little gray thingies that shoot at you. Your ship features the same amount of quality, it's small, white, and a pain to look at. Even for a game nearly two decades old, Xevious' visuals are, at best, lacking.

SOUND: 5/10
The audio's an improvement over the visuals, but that really isn't saying much. Sound effects are alright, the explosions sound like explosions, the lasers sound like lasers, and the background music is a little on the catchy side. The BGM can get repetitive after awhile of playing, but it never really gets in the way too much, and the intro theme is well above average,. You're not going to be hunting these tunes down on the internet anytime soon, but there's no need to mute the game.

GAMEPLAY: 7/10
I'll be honest with you, I like the way the game plays. It's simple enough, the A button shoots out a pair of fast-paced lasers, designed to shoot down airborne enemies, and bombs. Now, the bombs offer a decent gameplay twist, as they allow you to shoot down enemy land units such as turrets, tanks, and the like. The game's a little on the tough side, it's part of what makes arcade shooters what they are, expect to play a few times through before putting up a high score. The controls are OK, your ship does what you tell it to for the most part. All in all, this is Xevious' strongest point, if you actually find yourself buying buy the game, this is why.

REPLAY: 5/10
The only reason this gets a five is because of the challenge. You don't even have an options menu to screw around with, it's either a one-player or two-player game, that's as much variety as your going to get. Thankfully, the gameplay's compelling enough for one to play the game a couple of times, you'll actually want to improve your score. Still, you'll probably forget this one in a month or two.

OVERALL (not an avarage): 6/10
Xevious is far from perfection, games like 1943, Gradius, and Life Force all tower above this in terms of fun. But if you're looking for a bit of change, by all means, pick this up if you can find it cheap. It'll waste an afternoon, maybe two if your lucky. Diehard shooter fans, go pick this up, you'll thank me for it. The rest of you should keep a fair distance, Xevious may not be bad, but it's still nothing special.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 06/08/03, Updated 06/08/03