Nostalgic Vacation: 1982 - Xevious

On 09/11/2014 at 03:42 AM by KnightDriver

1982 was a very good year for video games. Just to name some I liked, there were: Donkey Kong Jr., Xevious, Joust, and Front Line in arcades, Ultima II and Wizardry II on PC; Barmstorming and Frogs & Flies on Atari 2600; B-17 Bomber, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, and Shark! Shark! on Intellivision; and Venture on the new ColecoVision.

I was bouncing between friend's houses to sample all the differnent consoles and then biking down to the many arcades that were in malls, in hotels, in convenience stores, in pizza shops; they were in just about anywhere there was enough space for a cabinet.

The one game I had to play again, after watching videos of Ultima II and adventure game Time Zone, was Namco's Xevious.

This is some ace gameplay.

I played the port of Xevious on Xbox Live Arcade, which I had to buy again for $5 because my original purchase was on an old gamer tag. This is a fine port but I could've sworn I saw some slow-down in the animations. That really shouldn't happen at all on a 30-plus year old game.

I ended up with a high score of 79,080 and got past the first boss in the game. Not too good, but I was never good at this game even though I loved it. Xevious was one of the first vertically scrolling shooters and had unique sounds and visual design for the time. The sounds in this game really seemed strange to me. They seem to have no real world reference. The design of the ships and the enemy were all silvery and mechanical looking, which I liked as well.

The story, which I only just found out about on wiki, is complicated and totally scifi. Ancient humans created GAMPS (General Artificial Matrix Producer), human clones created for heavy labor. These guys rebelled. Then they traveled to planet Xevious to escape the Ice Age on Earth where some humans remained. Of these remaining humans, thousands of years later, pilot Mu and android companion Eve travel to planet Xevious and are imprisoned by the GAMPS living there. While there they find out the GAMPS are planning a return to Earth to conquer it.

The GAMPS do return to Earth and activate the Sol towers dormant for millenia under the ground and start the invasion. Mu and Eve escape with the help of GAMP rebel Mio Veetha and, in their ship Solvalou, try to stop the GAMP invasion of Earth. This is what you are doing in the game.

I never knew your ship was The Solvalou and that inside it were Mu, Eve and Mio Veetha trying to stop ancient, and angry, human clones from planet Xevious. I also didn't know that you were flying above Peru and the Nazca lines you see on the ground hide an ancient weapon to help you stop the GAMPS. Kinda weird, kinda cool. This needs some serious fanfic pronto.

[note: I found out after all this that Xevious was only copywrited in '82 and actually released in '83. Whaaaaaaatever.]

Cary Woodham

09/11/2014 at 05:53 AM

Here are some things I know about Xevious:

Yeah the storyline in Xevious is ridiculous. In Japan they made a whole book series about it back then.

The sprites in Xevious are prerendered, like Donkey Kong Country.

There have been a ton of Xevious games and sequels. Like Super Xevious, Xevious Arrangement (awesome music on that one), Xevious 3-D/G+, Solvalou (a 3-D arcade shooter using StarBlade's engine), etc.

There are a lot of Xevious cameos in other Namco games, too. It's a hidden bonus game in Star Fox Assault. Susumu Hori pilots the Solvalou to help out his dad in Dig Dug Digging Strike. There is a Xevious skin you can use in the DS puzzle game Trion Cube. The square indestructable enemies from Xevious appear in many Tales games as foes. There are lots of others, but those are some of my favorites.

Here's a funny story about Xevious and my childhood. I was fascinated with Xevious when it first came out as it was one of the first vertically scrolling shooters that didn't use a static space background. One weekend I got sheets of my dad's dot matrix printer paper (you know, the kind that was connected and you tore it off with the preforated edges). Anyway, I spread out the printer paper from the front door all the way to the back door and fireplace and tried to draw a map of the Xevious backdrop on it! I think on the other side of the paper I tried to do that with Zaxxon. Then I would play 'pretend' Xevious with one of my toy spaceships. I got in a little bit of trouble for wasting so much of my dad's printer paper, though!

Anyone else besides me think that it looks like you're flying over a golf couse in Xevious? Anyone else think the US Atari Xevious arcade cabinet looked really cool? --Cary

KnightDriver

09/11/2014 at 04:44 PM

Wow! I knew about some of those Xevious facts, but you've just given me a lot more, thanks!

That's funny what you did with the printer paper. . . and super cool! Why didn't I think of that as a kid?

Ha! It is a bit like a golf course. You could do a version where you are a Hawk and are flying over a golf course grabbing ruinous groundhogs and such before they destroy the course. I'd play that one.

xeviouscab

The cabinet art is cool. Maybe that was part of the reason why I went back to it every time I went to the arcade.

Super Step Contributing Writer

09/11/2014 at 06:21 AM

Looks cool. I can never keep track of which shmup is which, but since Cary pointed out the pre-rendered stuff, I am seeing some objects that remind me of SNES Star Fox.

09/11/2014 at 07:32 AM

It's interesting that you say that since you can play Xevious on Star Fox Assault. You can also collect Special Flags in the main game, also from Xevious.

09/11/2014 at 12:59 PM

Yeah, I saw your comment and it made me think of it as well.

09/12/2014 at 01:39 AM

I forgot what maneuver you need to do to reveal the flags in Xevious. They're apparently in Rally-X as well.

09/12/2014 at 06:39 AM

Rally-X was the first game to use Special Flags. You bomb certain places in Xevious to make them appear. A good majority of Namco-made games use the Special Flags at some point. Even the new Smash Bros. games!

Pacario

09/11/2014 at 08:54 AM

Didn't know this simple shooter even had a book series behind it. Those Japanese take their shooters seriously.

09/12/2014 at 01:55 AM

Xevious apparently was a huge hit in Japan. It went over well in N.A. too but not like that.

NSonic79

09/11/2014 at 12:30 PM

I want to buy the XBLA version but $4.99 seems like too much to as for. definitely 2.99 or lower for me likt he rest of the retro offerings on XBLA.

09/12/2014 at 02:14 AM

Yea, it really should be the price of the Game Room games, which I forget what they were, but they weren't $5.

Matt Snee Staff Writer

09/11/2014 at 01:49 PM

Xevious was one of those games my friends had, but I never did.

09/12/2014 at 02:21 AM

I guess you mean the NES version. I don't think I ever played it outside the arcade until I picked up Namco Museum 50th Anniversary on Xbox.

daftman

09/11/2014 at 07:09 PM

I never liked Xevious. When I play a shmup, I want to blow everything up with my big main guns. I hate having to fire off bombs to hit the ground targets. So it's not just Xevious. But I'm surprised the story was so involved, and cool-sounding too!

09/12/2014 at 02:31 AM

I know what you mean. It's tricky to focus on bombing when your being attacked in the air constantly. I was developing a skill of looking at bomb sites and putting the air attacters in my periferal vision, giving them just enough attention in case they decide to shoot at me.

Machocruz

09/12/2014 at 07:29 PM

Dat's some quality nostalgia there. Remember when games had weird but cool titles, like Xevious, Xexyz, GunNac, Gaiares? Or just plain cool, like Lords of Thunder. Seemed to be common with shmups.

09/13/2014 at 03:03 PM

I like Tower of Druaga or Tiger-Heli, but the ones you mentioned are even more unique.

PixlBit