Xybots

Xybots borrows a themethat goes all the way back to such classic titles as Berzerk (and its sequel, Frenzy): a humanoid who wanders through a maze of corridors and blasts mechanical enemies with a laser gun. The twist is that the screen shows a pseudo-first person view from behind your character as he walks.

The coin-op Xybots used a clever control control configuration in which the joystick moved your character around, but you could actually twist the joystick to the left and right in order to change the direction you were facing. The Lynx uses a different method to accomplish a similar effect: You use the control pad to move, and to turn around you simply hold the B button down and tap the control pad left or right. The transition between viewpoints is unfortunately abrupt, but, if you pick up some of the coins you'll find scattered on the ground, you can use them to buy maps and tracking devices that make it easy to find your place if you get disoriented from turning around too quickly.

The arcade game was set up for two players on a split screen, and, because the top half of each player's display showed an information window similar to the one that is called up by the Option 2 button in the Lynx version, the actual playfield screen was only one quarter the size of the entire monitor. Since the entire Lynx screen is devoted to this part of the original display (a two-player ComLynx game obviously shows the other character's viewpoint on the other person's Lynx), this is one portable game that really doesn't seem much smaller than the coin-op original!

Though it seems to be much easier than the arcade version, Xybots is a good translation of a truly enjoyable game.