Xeno Crisis

Xeno Crisis is a top-down retro shooter, the action of which takes place in closed arenas. The British independent studio Bitmap Bureau, creators of 88 Heroes, is responsible for it. Initially, the project, which was founded on the Kickstarter platform, was designed for the SEGA Mega Drive console, then it was ported to Dreamcast and Neo Geo, and finally appeared on modern hardware platforms.

Plot

The action of the game takes place in Outpost 88. We play the role of battle-hardened soldiers who are sent on a dangerous mission to a research colony. The goal is precise: they must stop the alien invasion, find those who managed to get out of the attack and get to the truth about what really happened in Outpost 88.

Mechanics

The gameplay mechanics in Xeno Crisis is not particularly complicated - the main goal is to stay in motion and eliminate the host of enemies in seven randomly generated locations, as well as to collect dog tags from the dead bodies. The dog tags are extremely important because they are exchanged for character enhancements (e.g. additional life points) and power-ups for weapons that give temporary boost.

A set of ten weapons, each of which has unique properties and limited ammunition, helps to exterminate the overwhelming number of aliens. Their choice should be dictated by who we are dealing with. As the game progresses, new enemies appear, who may require a different approach (e.g. flanking or firing only at a certain time). There are also more powerful bosses in Xeno Crisis.

Game modes

Xeno Crisis offers single player mode and local cooperation with a friend (controller required). There are two difficulty levels to choose from in the game.

Technical aspects

The graphics in Xeno Crisis are two-dimensional and kept in a pixelart style, reminiscent of classic 16-bit games from the 90s. The graphic design was created by Henk Nieborg, a specialist in retro games, creator of such games as The Misadventures of Flink and Battle Axe.