Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2014/03/19/antique_code_show_xenon/

Xenon: Bitmap Brothers' (mega)blast from the past

Classic Amiga and ST scroll-play gaming

By Giles Hill

Posted in Personal Tech, 19th March 2014 10:35 GMT

Antique Code Show Xenon marked the beginning of a distinguished career for The Bitmap Brothers, legendary developers of the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST era. Overhead, vertically scrolling shooters were doing great trade in arcades across the land, and with its exposure on Saturday morning kids’ show Get Fresh (you don’t remember Gaz Top and Gilbert the alien?) Xenon was always going to do well.

Xenon Amiga, open for fighting business

Xenon Amiga, open for fighting business

The game tells a predictable, futuristic tale of antagonistic aliens – the Xenites – attacking Earthlings, with the players’ task being, of course, to take on their multitudinous onslaught and send them back to whence they came.

You pilot an innocuous enough spaceship flying in the upwards direction, an archetypal pop-down-the-shops runaround, with a few tasty guns welded on for good measure. Power-ups have a hint of R-Type, Irem’s Japanese classic, about them, with beady eyed drones that mirror your ship’s movements while increasing firepower.

Xenon Amiga, big boss number 1

Xenon Amiga, big boss number 1

Players need every bit of additional power they can possibly grab – Xenon was not the easiest game to master – and dodging the glut of incoming enemy fire was a key skill, especially when boss characters loom into view at the climax of each level.

This vertical shooter did have a novelty to distinguish it from the crowd: the ability to transform your vehicle majestically into an eight-direction manoeuvrable tank-like craft. Thus, air-borne enemy fire couldn’t touch you once sat safely in the grounded tank, and similarly, foes stuck on the ground were useless with the spaceship re-deployed.

Deploy the tank to sort out that rear attack

Deploy the tank to sort out that rear attack

Furthermore, driving the tank would also halt the vertical scrolling, allowing ground-based enemies to be cleared up from any angle possible, even using walls and other scenery as a defence, before switching back to the spacecraft and carrying on upwards. All quite innovative gameplay mechanics really, lending the title a tactical edge.

All your Bass are belong to us

Xenon was actually released in arcades as part of the ill-fated Arcadia game system – a subsidiary of Mastertronic games in the US. The Spectrum and Amstrad CPC received decent enough versions – while the Commodore 64 and DOS attempts were a bit ropey – yet it was, of course, the Amiga and Atari ST that would gather the loyal following needed to make a follow-up pretty much inevitable.

Speccy Xenon in all its glory

Speccy Xenon in all its glory

So just as with Speedball 2, The Bitmap Brothers’ other notorious sequel, Xenon the second followed in 1989 to rapturous applause. One gets the feeling that The Bitmap Brothers were keen to get this second title out there as soon as possible – striking while the iron was hot, as it were – for while game design was handled by themselves, programming duties were commissioned out to contacts at fellow British development house The Assembly Line.

The Megablast effect

Not only that, but a shrewd, mutually beneficial deal with up and coming samples and beats aficionado Tim Simenon – who has just begun releasing music under the moniker Bomb the Bass – meant that soundtrack duties could be sewn up pretty swiftly too. A faithful rendition of his hit single Megablast (Hip Hop on Precinct 13) accompanied the game’s opening credits, with a slimmed down loop section providing a background theme for the in-game action.

Xenon 2 Amiga, power-upped to the eyeballs

Xenon 2 on the Amiga: power-upped to the eyeballs

Simenon would go on to produce records for Neneh Cherry, Sinead O'Connor and Depeche Mode, among others. And while the publicity he gained from this game release probably shouldn’t be overstated, it would have circulated his music within a certain strata of British youth that might have been hard to reach otherwise, and certainly didn’t do his notoriety any harm.

For The Bitmap Brothers, on the other hand, the game was instantly given a layer of cool, not to mention hard to attain publicity. Xenon 2 was catapulted out of the geeks-only domain and into a more mainstream audience – it gave the title a buzz, a novelty, a selling point – with ‘Megablast’ proudly emblazoned all over its psychedelic cover.

Youtube Video

Thus, way before the MP3 format had blitzed music into all corners of the digital universe, here was the Amiga audio hardware doing a darn good impression of what was to come more than a decade later. The ‘Paula’ sound chip of the Amiga supported four PCM sample-based channels, and a clever trick allowed two of those channels to be combined, producing the equivalent of 14-bit audio.

Unfortunately, all this sample-based audio prowess did show up the inferior beeps and squeaks of the Atari ST’s sound chip, though of course that platform had musical strengths of its own with its in-built MIDI capabilities – don’t hate me, ST fans!

The Weapon Shops of Crispin

Xenon 2 Atari ST - a forbidable boss in action

Xenon 2 on the Atari ST: a formidable boss in action

Still, both platforms shared Xenon 2’s glorious visuals, which had taken a large step forward and resembled even more of the arcade look every home gamer was after. The Bitmap’s distinctive line of gradient-shaded, realistic looking rocks and gleaming machinery were trademark touches shown off in full force here, alongside five layers of parallax scrolling. End of level bosses had that lavish, imposing size of the arcade screen that many home games found hard to replicate – huge alien frogs, reptiles and squids with laser-shooting googly eyes.

In terms of gameplay, some considered Xenon 2 to be a retrograde step, as it ditched its predecessor’s innovative dual vehicle approach for the more traditional solo flying machine. Yet what it lost there, it gained in more sophisticated power-ups, and a weapons shop that could be visited mid-way and at the end of each stage. Here, a nasty looking, headphone-wearing alien called Crispin trades your fiercely collected bubble-shaped credits for all manner of crazy and wild enhancements.

Xenon 2 Amiga, pop by the shops for some treats with this pleasant chap

Xenon 2 Amiga style: pop by the shops for some treats with this pleasant chap

Often, tactical choices needed to be made when purchasing weapons, so as to defeat the upcoming waves of enemies. Levels also featured somewhat maze-like rock structures – sometimes leading your ship down a ‘dead end’ – so it was handy to be able to kick your spaceship into reverse gear and actually send the scrolling backwards for a change. More innovative game-design work, for sure.

The Bitmap Brothers will always be remembered dearly by the Amiga and ST faithful. The graphical and sonic accomplishments are clear, but what really cemented the company’s success was its understanding of how home computer games often required more detail, more complexity and nuances, than their arcade counterparts. Those interchangeable power-ups and little puzzling sections lead to great replay value that hooked gamers in for the long haul.

Xenon 2 Amiga, dead end street - remember to sling it into reverse

Dead end street: remember to sling it into reverse

Mike Montgomery of The Bitmap Brothers is still operating, and indeed owns the company’s entire intellectual property. You’ll find links to lots of his re-released and re-hashed Bitmap Brothers classics here.

There’s no sign of the Xenon games yet, though Xenon 2 did manage to sneak out onto Blackberry, of all places, in 2013. That version got some negative feedback for its on-screen controls, so perhaps there’s a bit of re-thinking to be done before we get the iOS and Android releases. Nevertheless, it’s surely only a matter of time before commuter trains are subjected to an early morning smartphone Megablast. Be warned, those pesky Xenites will return once again. ®

Released Xenon 1988, Xenon 2 1989
Developer The Bitmap Brothers, The Assembly Line
Publisher Melbourne House, Image Works
Platforms Arcade + most home platforms