XEVIOUS - Copyright 1982 by NAMCO Ltd. 
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Overview

Xevious is one of those rare games that is able to combine excellent
graphics and sound with fun and challenging game play. The graphics
are as good as Zaxxon's or Tron's, but the game play is much better.
The basic concept is simple, as in all shoot-em-up games - try to stay
alive as long as possible, while ranking up points by blasting anything
that gets in your way. But Xevious adds a few new twists that make it
far more interesting than a simple shoot-em-up.
The basic premise of Xevious is to fly a Solvalou spacecraft over various
landscapes while 32 different enemies try to destroy you from the ground
and air. The Solvalou can fly anywhere on the bottom half of the screen,
an advantage when dodging enemy shots. Your spacecraft is equipped with
two weapons: a fire button, which shoots missiles straight ahead to hit
air targets, and a bomb button, which drops powerful bombs on the ground
targets. A bombsight moving across the screen in front of your ship shows
where each bomb will land. If the cross hairs are over a ground target,
the radar glows bright red.
 

Flying Enemies

Several types of metallic enemy crafts will attack from the air, each with
its own method. The first to appear are the rings, your weakest enemy.
Often, they won't even shoot at you, making them easy targets for your
missiles. The evasive stingray shaped ships are the most difficult to hit
and they fire several shots at a time.
There is one type of flying obstacle that can't be destroyed by any weapon.
The flying shields, rotating mirror-like walls that float through the air by
the dozens, create a mobile obstacle course for your ship and deflect your
shots away. Ships flying around the shields can be very dangerous; they will
be protected from your shots.

 
Ground Targets

The ground targets are pyramids or circular domes that attack by shooting up
at you. They always appear in the same places, so anticipating their location
is very helpful. Destroying them is important because ground targets are
worth much more than air targets.
There are two types of moving ground targets: Mobile Ground Bases and Tanks.
Mobile Ground Bases always appear in the same places and always move in
patterns. They can and will shoot at you, so destroy them as soon as
possible. Just place your bombing target slightly ahead of them in the
pattern and drop a bomb.
Tanks behave a little more intelligently than Mobile Ground Bases. They
only move north and south across the screen, but they sense your bomb
dropping and react to it. They won't shoot at you, so they're nothing
more than a distraction and cheap points. If you must destroy them, use
two bombs. They react only to one bomb at a time, and will move right into
the second one.

 
Sol Citadels (Domes)

The last type of ground target is underground domes. They are completely
hidden from your view, and can only be destroyed by two bombs. The first
brings the dome to the surface, and the second destroys it. Underground
domes don't fire at you, but destroying them is worthwhile - you get 2000
points for bringing one up, and 2000 more for destroying it.

 
Andor Genesis Mothership

The most awesome of the Xevious forces is the immense Mother Ship. A low
hum warns you of its approach. The Mother Ship flies at a lower altitude
than your Solvalou, so firing at it is useless. Only a direct bomb hit on
one of its glowing hatches will do any damage.

 
Black Balls

Black balls are the last - and perhaps the most annoying -Xevious adversary.
There are three different types and they appear on the screen and then
explode into bullets if you don't destroy them quickly enough. The first
type is the smallest and most troublesome. These appear out of nowhere and
then disappear quickly, leaving bullets all across the screen. The larger
black balls appear later in the game. One type stops near the bottom of the
screen and explodes into a semicircle of shots, which are hard to avoid
because they appear so suddenly. The other type of black ball is the largest
and most devastating. It stops higher up on the screen and then explodes,
spraying shots in a complete circle. The only effective way to deal with
any black balls is to shoot them before they explode.

 
Snowstorm

In addition to all of these various types of opponents, you have one other
concern in Xevious - the weather. Periodically, you will encounter a
snowstorm, where small crystals fly diagonally through the air. These
crystals can destroy your ship, so stay near the bottom of the screen and
shoot any crystals that come toward you. The storm never lasts long, so
just try to survive it, rather than chasing down the crystals.

 
Hidden Flags

Some of the best - and most important - features of Xevious are carefully
hidden in the game. Secret targets hidden at certain points in the terrain
can earn you extra turns or thousands of points. These targets always occur
in the same places, but the only clue you'll have to their position is a
red glow in your bombing sights when you're directly over them.
One type of hidden target is the flags. Each flag lies along a horizontal
line across the terrain, and can only be uncovered by dropping a bomb
directly on it. Since the flags are not always at the same points on the
lines, you must drop bombs all across the screen to find them.
When a bomb hits a hidden flag, the flag will suddenly appear with a small
"S" next to it. Exposing the flag earns you 1000 points, but the real value
of the flags comes when you pass over one - an extra turn is awarded for
each flag you pass over.
 
 
After the end of the terrain (arround 400,000 points), the game starts over
again with all of the hidden targets in the same locations again. But before
you can go back to the beginning, you must pass through the biggest challenge
in the game - four sets of defense sites and domes that will attack you with
a barrage of shots that is almost impossible to survive. Although the folks
at Atari probably thought this section was so hard that players would never
get through it, it is possible to survive if you plan everything out.

Start with your Solvalou all the way forward on the screen, so that you can
drop back and continue firing when the defense sites come on the screen. This
will give you extra time to hit all of the ground enemies that are attacking.

It's best to move through each set of ground enemies in a sweeping motion
that brings you to the right edge of the screen and then back to the left.
You must slip in between many of the shots fired by ground enemies while you
do this, and at the same time you must destroy enough of them to allow you
to continue moving forward. The sets are a little over one screen length
apart, so there is just enough time to get back in position and move
forward after each set.


 
Thanks to TAD PERRY & ERIC GINNER 
Copyright by JoyStik - the Arcade Magazine