Description
Xenophobe Atari 2600
Xenophobe is a video game developed Bally Midway and released in arcades in 1987. Starbases, moons, ships, and space cities are infested with aliens, and the players have to kill the aliens before each is completely overrun. The screen is split into three horizontally-scrolling windows, one for each of up to three players, yet all players are in the same game world.
The goal of each level is to defeat all the aliens before time runs out. Some rooms routinely display the percentage of alien infection and time remaining until self-destruct when the level ends (but a nearby button can temporarily deactivate the count-down). Levels may contain more than one floor, and players use elevators (and sometimes holes in the floor) to move between floors to defeat all of the aliens. Players can also pick up more powerful weapons and other items to help in their eradication of the aliens.
Xenophobe Atari 2600
The hostile aliens (known as “Xenos”) come in different forms. There are “Eggs”, which if hatches, creates a “Critter” which can attach itself to the player and drain health. If a Critter is not killed, it eventually matures into a “Roller”. Rollers are one of the tougher enemies, as they can ball themselves up and roll around while impervious to the players’ guns. Rollers sometimes grow into the “Warrior” form, which attacks by leaping and requires multiple hits to kill from most weapons. Warriors are able to spit damaging acid across rooms. This acid also drips from the ceiling in some rooms.
Xenophobe Atari 2600
They also have a devastating leap attack that will knock down and disarm. One of the more insidious attacks in a Warrior’s arsenal is its ability to disarm a player. Simply walking past a Warrior can cause the player’s gun to drop to the floor. Other Xenos include “Tentacles” that randomly appear from the deck or ceiling, and trap or strangle the player respectively, and the “Queen” which appears either in doorways or behind certain backgrounds and throws proto-eggs at the players and shoots hypnotic eye beams which trap players and drain their health. If the proto-egg lands on a screen with a player, it grows into another Egg.
Xenophobe Atari 2600
As players go through the various maps, they encounter various items to be picked up. Some are only for bonus points at the end of the level, while others are immediately useful to the players. Still other items are useful in the right room. Items collected are counted, and bonus points awarded for each collected. The player collects “credits”, each of which gives the player a certain amount of health, which counts down even without combat. Food and some rooms replenish a player’s health. The game cycles through levels, increasing the difficulty each cycle, until all players die and no one continues. It is entirely possible to do well enough to continue playing without adding more credits.
Another great retro game available at Escapist Gamer – Space War (Atari 2600)
