Your thoughts please: Xenon 2 MegaBlast!

[Yakumo]

I thought it was good for an Amiga shooter but that's about it. The OST by Bomb the base (Beat 'Dis) was a classic. I remember playing the Mega Drive version and being very disapointed with the audio on it. They didn't even bother with any speech samples.

yakumo

[Rebelli0n]

I thought it was good for an Amiga shooter but that's about it. The OST by Bomb the base (Beat 'Dis) was a classic. I remember playing the Mega Drive version and being very disapointed with the audio on it. They didn't even bother with any speech samples.

"Ohugahmph Yeahughguel" horrible megadrive sample handling would have made it sound grotty anyway.

I'm sorry to be pedantic, but the OST to Xenon2 is actually called 'megablast (Hiphop on Precinct 13)' (from the album 'into the dragon') Beat Dis is another seperate Bomb the Bass Track, which saw a lot of sampling in the ST demoscene (Union megademo anyone?), but doesn't appear in Xenon 2 at all. I think 'megablast' may have possibly been a b-side on the beat dis single. Theres samples of both here but it's not very helpful as the megablast sample never quite gets to the bit used in the game.

whats the 'hiphop on precinct 13' bit all about?
The classic megablast 'ba badabada' riff, is actually a reworking/remix of John carpenters theme to 'assault on precinct 13'. heres a short sample

Looking back, with stuff like beat dis, Bomb the Bass really did pre-empt what would be called 'new school breaks' in dance music today by about a decade. Pioneering stuff. (i refuse to call it nu-skool)

Getting back to games; Rubbish sound was quite common with Amiga > megadrive ports. One thing the amiga had over the megadrive was much better sound abilties and megadrive always suffered in direct comparison. It was the same with ports like Turrican, Shadow of the Beast and Battlesquadron. It wasn't helped by the fact the megadrive sound usually wasn't done with much care or technique in these ports.

You needed someone like Yuzo Koshiro, or technosoft to really tease out the great sounds on the MD.

[Samurai Matt]

An one thing the Megadrive port had over the amiga verision, was being able to play it with a pad and not having to wait for it to load up

I dont have any old skool computers anyway. So its the megadrive or nothing for me. Pity the oringal xenon was only relesad on them

[Rebelli0n]

An one thing the Megadrive port had over the amiga verision, was being able to play it with a pad and not having to wait for it to load up

Haha, too true, although a megadrive pad plugged into an amiga worked a treat so you could at least have the pad part

[Leon Retro]

Xenon2 was quite impressive back in 1990. The music was the main thing people went on about, which was a bit of gimmick really, and playing it now I would prefer an original videogame style set of tunes instead.

The visuals were pretty impressive back then, but they still suffer from being overly brown and grey. I liked the shop with the Alien, and the weapons upgrades were decent.

Overall... it's not a patch on big name Japanese shooters. There were far better shooters for the Amiga, Hybris and Battle Squadron spring to mind. I often hear people say Xenon1 is better than no2 in all departments, but I can't remember much about it to have an opinion.

In my mind Xenon2 was another Amiga title that impressed technically, but ultimately lacked solid design and imagination. Consoles offer far better shooters!

[jamielemon]

Yeah this is a good example of a game which was done well, considering it was on the Amiga and in a genre at which that machine never really shone.