Wireframe - #33 - 2020

wfmag.cc \ 59

Review

Rated

Review

Remember: short, controlled bursts

ou enter a room, doors open, and

hordes of shrieking enemies charge

at you like frenzied shoppers at

a January sale. It’s a loop that has

served action games well since the

days of Smash TV (plus its predecessor Robotron:

2084 – except that game didn’t have any doors),

and it’s employed to scintillating effect in Xeno Crisis.

In fact, Bitmap Bureau’s top-down arena shooter is

so good, it’s difficult to believe that such a fast, fluid

game could even run on the Mega Drive’s antique

16-bit hardware.

A broad menagerie of alien critters barge their

way onto the screen in impressive numbers and

panic-inducing speed, while your beleaguered

space marine scoots around, fending off attacks

with volleys of machine gun fire. It’s intense, it’s

absorbing, and enlivened enormously by veteran

artist Henk Nieborg’s detailed sprite work and

some gloriously gritty chiptune music.

The core game’s retro simplicity is complemented

by some welcome ideas that add a bit more

complexity to all the dodging and shooting:

randomly generated networks of rooms mean

you’re never quite sure what will attack you next;

limited ammo means you’ll have to ration your rifle

bursts to avoid running out just as an alien horde

boxes you into a corner; meanwhile, collectable dog

tags can be spent on upgrades for your character’s

abilities. You’ll need those upgrades, too, because

Xeno Crisis offers a pretty stern challenge – it’s not

off-puttingly difficult or unfair, but it will punish

you harshly if you’re slow to master the art of, say,

rolling to evade clusters of enemies.

If I had a bone to pick with the balancing, it’s in

small things like the spawn rate of extra weapons;

some of these are fun to play around with –

shotguns and rocket launchers are particularly

meaty – but run out so quickly, and appear so

rarely, that it’s easy to forget they even exist.

Similarly, your marine’s melee attack is useful in

theory, but its range is so short that it feels too risky

to consider using unless you have no other choice.

These are minor niggles when weighed against

the precision and sheer polish of Xeno Crisis as a

whole; I’d even say it deserves to be mentioned in

the same breath as some of the Mega Drive’s very

best action titles from the eighties and nineties.

One final word of advice, though: while the

game functions perfectly well with a three-button

Mega Drive pad, the process of holding down a

button to fix your direction of fire feels like a bit of

a compromise. Switching to a six-button pad allows

the game to approximate a twin-stick shooter,

with the X, Y, A, and B buttons each mapped to a

cardinal direction. Play it like this, and Xeno Crisis

really bursts into frenzied, bullet-strewn life.

Xeno Crisis

Y

VERDICT

Proof that the Mega

Drive still has it where it

counts, Xeno Crisis is a

cracking shooter.

81%

GENRE

Arena shooter

FORMAT

Mega Drive (tested)

/ Neo Geo /

Dreamcast / Switch

/ PS4 / XBO / PC /

Mac / Linux

DEVELOPER

Bitmap Bureau

PUBLISHER

Bitmap Bureau

PRICE

£55.00

RELEASE

Out now

Info

Review

Rated

REVIEWED BY

Ryan Lambie

HIGHLIGHT

Henk Nieborg’s sprite work is

an obvious standout, but it’s

arguably matched by Savaged

Regime’s soundtrack. A mix

of driving heavy metal beats

and catchy synth melodies, it’s

as addictive as the core game

it underpins. Area 2’s theme

tune – a pounding melange of

drums and noodling keyboards

• is an absolute banger.

 ťouԇll definitely need these upgrades in

the gameԇs ferociously busy late areas.

 Ťeno :risis looks superb, particularly when

compared to Smash ěřԇs Ãega Drive port.