Xeno Assault 2 Review

A non-stop roller-coaster ride of fast pace space-shooter action. Your old school style arcade games don't come better then href="http://deprice.com/xenoassault.htm">Xeno Assault 2. It's pretty common to visit free-game-websites and find these types of arcade spaceship games, but Xeno Assault is more then an arcade game.

The game hosts a variety of good and bad features, all of which balance out to produce a good game. However, with every good product there is always room for improvement. Let me start off with the positives. First of all, the creators did some serious thinking into the resolution-system of the game, and have produced a system that I would love to see in some future games. You start the game, and you're prompted with a box allowing you to choose three standard resolutions and a windowed mode. Not only does this allow a majority of people to get a good resolution, but windowed mode is made to fit your screen size as well.

With the resolution chosen, you are put straight into the game and presented with a selection menu. This is where I have to give the game a stroke in the "negative" field. Quite frankly, the music just doesn't cut it. It's the kind of music you'd expect to hear in the first ever release of Duke Nukem 3D. However, apart from this, the menu is presented to you clearly and easy to navigate. You can easily view the instructions and rankings, and jump right into the action.

Into the actual game. Upon first glance, the game looks like it was whipped up in a few minutes by some no-lifer with some game-construction knowledge. However, once the ball starts rolling we see some more action.

The graphics are the best I have seen in an arcade-style game like this. The ship is 3D, as are the enemies and even the asteroids. We are given a clear interface to manage our weaponry and amount of lives. There is definitely some room for improvement on the graphical side of the interface. To me, it looks like it was whipped up in a free image editing program.

The controls are quite advanced. We are given two options: keyboard or mouse. Now, I'm not sure about some people, but whenever I go to an arcade and play on these types of games, I always end up losing as a result of getting confused on what buttons to push. With Xeno Assault 2, the mouse controls give us a new level of control. It's simple: move with the mouse, fire with the left click, fire bonus weapons with right click. We don't have to remember what color buttons do what, and no sweaty joysticks! Just clear, easy-to-use controls. For those who would prefer the keyboard-style then I say: the keyboard controls may take some getting used to. I say this because a lot of people would rather use a button such as Ctrl to fire, opposed to space bar which Xeno Assault 2 uses. The arrow keys control the ship, and Alt GR fires special weapons. Perhaps some more thinking in the keyboard controls could go a long way.

The general lay-out of the game is acceptable. Basically, you have the main-game to the left and down the right side is the interface telling you your ammo, lives and so on. I would really love to see an "Exit" or "Return to Menu" button, although it is fairly easy to figure out how to leave the game. The smoothness of the ships movement is superb, allowing no clutter. We are presented with a lag free game.

To top things off, we are given the option to play harder difficulties in order to gain World Rankings. We can also keep local rankings, which most know is a great feature. I've lost count of the number of times me and my friends have sat down and tried to beat each others records, or perhaps smash past personal-bests.

It is unfortunate that I have to add one last negative comment here. There was one major thing I didn't like, and that was how some menu options opened pages in the website browser. For example, when I clicked the 'Instructions' option, the Xeno Assault 2 manual opens in the browser. This is the same with a few other links, some of which actually close the game down.