Xevious

"Xevious is Devious and Mischievious"

For starting words I would like to say ''Oh My God''. I realize this is a very early Nintendo game, but it is horrible. I found this game for a good price and since I am looking for some good NES games, I decided to give this game a try. Big mistake!

Note on Scoring System: The score I gave it is an average of the six categories below, that means they are all equally weighted.

Story-0/10
I didn't get the instruction book and there was really no intro in the beginning. I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to save the world from the alien menace ie. flying O's. The second generation craft I encountered suprisingly looked like space ships. They even hover in place and kill me off generally by suicide.

Controls-10/10
Control wise, it's a great concept move your ship with the arrows. Shoot with the A button and a great feature is that you have a bombing cursor in front of your ship. You pess the B button as that cursor is over a ground target and bomb it away. This is useful for the various turrets and tanks (I think they are tanks...can't really tell).

Game Play-4/10
I liked the bombing feature and when you get really into the game you find yourself dropping bombs while shooting down fighters. I couldn't tell if there was a boss, because it was so freaking hard. I died around 30,000 points.

Difficulty-5/10
For me, it was WAY too difficult. Though I'm sure with practice and memorising a super pattern, I could easily beat the game. Unfortunately the cartridge would start smoking before that happens. This is definitely a tough cookie.

Sound-2/10
There are only four sounds and three of them are different pitched and duration beeps for shooting, destoring an enemy and the enemy shooting. The fourth one is the same explosion sound heard in Galaga. There is a nice start up toon though, but that disappears to make way for the more high tech beeping sounds.

Graphics-3/10
When enemies consist of circles and moving walls, you can't add much detail. The game designers realized this and decided not to. It is difficult to tell objects in the sky from those in the ground.

Average-4/10
I found this game for $2.00 and that's probably all it is worth. This is a poor and difficult shooter with horrible graphics and sound. I suggest you stear clear of this game unless you are a collector and you are obviously collecting and not playing the game. I mean this game is decent, but you could be spending your time on better NES games.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 07/30/03, Updated 07/30/03