XENON-2

Xenon 2 Megablast is a computer game for the Amiga and Atari ST computer platforms. It was developed by the Bitmap Brothers and is one of their earliest and most famous games. It is the sequel to their earlier game Xenon. Xenon 2 Megablast is a vertically scrolling shoot'em-up. Its gameplay essentially follows the normal pattern for such shooting games, with the added feature that your spaceship is able to backtrack the scrolling a little bit, which can be useful in situations where you realise you've gone into a dead end. The theme in Xenon 2 Megablast is a generic sci-fi theme where you have to pilot your spaceship on an alien planet. The game has next to none plot, focusing instead on presentation and gameplay. What made the game famous are its good-quality graphics and music. The graphics follow the established "Bitmap Brothers theme", with realistic, detailed renditions of rock and metal objects. The enemies mainly come in forms of various nondescript organic creatures. For the music of the game, the Bitmap Brothers co-operated with the British musician Bomb the Bass to include his hip hop track "Megablast" as the game's theme music, which is also where the "Megablast" in the game's name comes from. The track comes in two versions in the game - a nearly faithful (only missing a few spoken lines) rendition as the loading music, and a significantly simplified version as the in-game background music.