Xenophobe

What's in a name?

Xenophobe: (n) A person unduly fearful or contemptuous of that which is foreign, especially of strangers or foreign peoples.

Well, looks like that fits the bill for this game. Xenophobe is a port of an arcade classic in which you must eliminate an alien threat; God forbid aliens ever come to earth. This game amazingly stays true to the original arcade classic which used a much larger and different aspect ratio then the small Lynx screen.

The first thing I noticed about this game was the music which would make a great bass line to any rap song. The music is surprisingly very catchy and fun to listen too, even though it is pretty much the same thing through all 23 space stations. While listening to the bass line I decided to select a character and start the game up. Xenophobe features quite an interesting line up, ranging from a duck man named Dr. Kwak to the vivacious babe by the name of Dr. Pink. I then immediately grabbed the most random character I could find and started my mission of riding space of all other life forms.

When I started the game up I was amazed at how easy I could kill the enemy, all I did was duck down and shot at what ever came towards me. I really thought it would be a quick shot to the end, but then came level two in which I found my self shooting more than things on the ground, I was forced to take out tentacles from the ceiling, and flying aliens that dropped pods.

I quickly was overwhelmed by aliens coming from all directions and was eventually strangled and then shocked to death. It was then that I took notice that Dr. Kwak was no longer available, but I could select another character to continue my quest. I soon selected the closest human character and ran outside past the space suits to finish the job ... wait a minute ... space suits ... space station ... outside. Maybe my character should be wearing a space suit?? Ah well, who has time to think about such trivial matters when it comes to killing aliens.

I found my self enjoying the game quite a bit with its comic book feel, its challenging levels and its great 4-player ComLynx ability. Not having to start from the beginning each time you die is especially a welcome addition to any game. This game also includes a surprise character to use in multiplayer to trick your friends, the Snotterpillar, which is one of the aliens on the many space stations.