Producer: Sparklers
Retail Price: £2.99
Author: Mark Rivers

Far away in the constellation of Alpha-Centauri, the Xenon race once lived in peace. Now however, their gentle world has been invaded by the evil armies of Argon. Long ago their planet, Xen, was protected by the Xenon Space Defence Corps, but superior enemy forces have devoured its finest men and arms. Now one crack fighter, Peladus is the sole survivor of that fighting force. If the people of Xen are to avoid permanent enslavement by the Argon dictatorship he is their only hope.

Swarms of enemy space craft come into attack, some faster and more manoeuvrable than others. You have control of Peladus' fighter, which can be moved to the left and right, forwards and back. They attempt to destroy your fighter by using kamikaze tactics, flinging their craft into yours. Contact with them means a loss of one life. Your fighter has three lives, the number of lives remaining to you is registered on the right hand side of the screen. Be careful not to get caught in the blast as an enemy craft explodes, as this can take out your own fighter. Such blasts can be avoided by flying your space tighter backwards. Ten points are awarded for every enemy ship wiped out.

Both ground and spaceborne forces must be defeated before your mission is accomplished. By careful aiming, using the on screen sight, the pink ground based installations of the enemy can be taken out. For each of these destroyed, 100 points are awarded. When six bases have been devastated, the tighter receives an extra life to carry on in battle. The number of bases destroyed is indicated on the left hand side of the screen.

Before your mission is finally accomplished, four zones have to be liberated; the Outer Platforms, the Fields, the Desert, and the Inner Platforms. Only then can the people of Xen truly call themselves free once more.

COMMENTS

Control keys: Defineable, Up, Down Left and Right
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Use of colour: wonderfully colourful but can be slightly confusing
Graphics: detailed and nicely scrolling backgrounds
Sound: funky tune and worthy spot effects
Skill levels: one
Screens: one continuously scrolling playing area

Zap zap, dodge, zap zap, zap zapity-zap (yawn!), dodge KAPAOWW!... Need I say more? (Yes! - Ed)... Xen is a Lightforce clone, and I doff my cap to Sparklers for even attempting one. At first sight this looks as though it could be quite a good one, but the gameplay is severely lacking. A couple of plays should be enough to convince anyone that this isn't a game that'll keep them up half way into the night. The graphics are surprisingly good, but I feel that a little too much colour has been used, making the action confusing at times. On the whole I wouldn't recommend this - pretty, but boring.
BEN

Lightforce immediately came to mind when playing Xen. Though if the idea works, I don't see why they shouldn't copy it a bit graphically. The sound on the title screen is a superb bit of buzz, and it's complemented by some very good spot effects during the game. The backgrounds are very detailed and well drawn. Unfortunately the opposing ships am let down by too much colour being used on them. This results in quite a large amount of flicker when they move about the screen. This is only a small problem though, the game is very addictive and fun to play. Definitely worth the asking price.
PAUL

Well, if it isn't Lightforce - oh, hold on - no it's not. Doesn't half look like it though. So, what has PLAYERS cut price shoot 'em up got to offer that's sparkling with originality? As far as I could see, nothing - except that it has a tendency to place you in some very awkward positions - considered a 'challenge' by some, but just plain unplayable to me. Colour looks as if it has been used well, but when the action hots up it doesn't take much to make everything confusing visually. There's also little idea of depth - it just appears so two dimensional - which isn't the effect that is really needed here. On the plus, side, Xen has a reasonable price tag, but it still didn't do an awful lot for me.
RICHARD

Label: Creative Sparks
Price: £2.99
Joystick: various
Memory: 48K/128K
Reviewer: Gary Rook

V-class space fighters come cheap these days... only £2.99. Gone are the days when you had to save up plenty of your intergalactic credits or interstellar spondoolies or whatever you care to call them. No, nowadays for a mere £2.99 you get the business: photon guns, pink bombs, instant response and thrust. Just as well really, as those evil Argons are at it again, as if not content with controlling half of the Known Universe already, they have decided to pick on the peace loving people of Zenon.

Enter you - last survivor of Xenon Space Defence Corps, whose sole mission is to save the Planet from Argon domination. Very noble of you, it's just a pity that you decided to pick this game to do it, as there are a lot better ones around for a hero of your calibre. Don't get me wrong. It's not all bad, the opening synthesised music is pretty atmospheric, and the explosion graphics are extremely well done, apart from that the sound FX are naff, and for some reason the Argons don't shoot at you at all. they just fly kamikazee-like, hell bent on colliding with you instead. There are four zones to be liberated before you have won, and points are awarded for each enemy craft eliminated with the added bonus of extra lives if you bomb six bases. The game is a vertical scrolling shoot 'em up which lacks a lot of finesse, and quite frankly very little skill is needed to finish it. I would in all honesty think quite hard about the 'highly addictive' tag given it on the inlay cover, more a case of 'highly boring' if you ask me. Which brings us nicely on to the price, at £2.99, considering what you get now for £1.99, this is too much.

Label: Top Ten
Author: In-house
Price: £1.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Tony Dillon

Approach any computer games addict and ask him or her 'What is the most popular type of game?' and he will say 'Arcade'. Baffle that person even more by inquiring 'What is the most popular type of arcade game?' and you'll more than likely get the reply 'Vertical scrollers'. So, a signed photograph of Jonny 'Babyface' Riglar to the first SU reader who can shout out what kind of game Xen is. That's right, it's a vertically scrolling shoot-'em-up. You fly your ship upwards over an alien base, shooting, a la Xevious, whilst dodging the enemy flak and bombing the bases. Gripping stuff. I had a great stuggle gripping my stomach to make sure it stayed under control. The scrolling in Xen is really awful and the main sprite and all the other little bits in the game are jerky end badly animated, though the colour is done quite well. Still, not well enough to make it decent.

Creative Sparks
£2.99

After a number of pretty average budget titles, Creative Sparks have come up with a pretty average budget shoot 'em up called Xen. Apart from the fact that they've probably infringed somebody else's copyright somewhere in the packaging of the game there's not an awful lot to say about the game.

It's one of those games where you control the last surviving craft in the space fleet which defends your home planet, and it's up to you to save the world from the alien fleet. The aliens in this game are called Argons, and they've landed a number of ground installations gathered together in four sectors on the planet's surface. These installations are protected from the air by other alien craft, but you've still got to blast your way through and bomb the lot.

Using reviewer's shorthand I suppose that Xen could best be summed up as a budget Lightforce, unfortunately it isn't in the same league as the original. The prime requisite for any shoot 'em up has to be the speed and responsiveness of control - a shoot 'em up that plods along at a snail's pace is a waste of time and while Xen isn't that slow it isn't really fast enough to build up much excitement. The graphics are all quite blocky, though there is some quite smooth scrolling and animation. There's nothing obviously wrong with Xen, but it's too average to stand out amongst the crowds of other similarly priced titles.