Xeno Crisis (Unlicensed)

"Xeno Crisis is an arena shooter in which up to hive players enter a savaged research colony to confront an alien menace and get out alive! Run and gun your way through thousands of adversaries as you search for the source of the deadly alien outbreak.
- Optional 2-player co-operative play, so you can take the fight to the enemy with a friend - just make sure you share the ammo.
- 7 diverse areas to explore, each with their own obstacles, hazards, and secrets.
- Procedurally generated maps and rooms, so you never know what's coming up.
- Adapt your tactics on a room-by-room basis.
- An arsenal of 10 different weapons to switch things up and turn the tables in your favour.
- 6 intimidating bosses, each of which will require you to learn a different strategy to defeat them.
- 512 Megabit cart filled with eye popping pixel art, ear-bursting heart stopping gameplay!"

What started out as a crowd funded game for the Sega Genesis, Xeno Crisis has been ported to many different systems and whilst mostly all the same, also adapt to the limitations of the platform they are on. The N64 games seems to sit very close to the original Genesis game with enhanced sound retaining the full sized maps that would get reduced for the Snes game although it includes some new gfx effects.

The game is a twin stick arcade style arena shooter much like the classic game Smash TV. Each level consists of a number of rooms that have been randomly generated so no two plays should be exactly the same. Occasionally you can save some of the games Backers that appear randomly throughout the game as well as collecting dog tags that you can spend at the end of each level to upgrade weapons and gain additional extra lives. At the end of each level there is a boss battle to be Faught and you are given a rating at the end. The rating is meaningless and doesnt have an affect on the game and only seems to reflect if you took any hits during the stage.

After battling through all the stages to eventually meet the final boss, you will either get to fight it for the good ending or you will get the bad ending if you used a continue (an elixir). I'm playing on an Xbox pad using the second stick to mimic the four c-buttons for four way fire. It is more difficult than you can imagine to get the thing to fire diagonally and movement can sometimes feel slippery as that is performed on the left analogue stick and you can accidently bounce back if you suddenly let it return to centre. DPad can be used of course but its not good for the thumbs

The longplay goes through an initial run on hard to eventually show the good ending. I then play through Boss Rush mode, just because .. and quickly show the backer menu which I think is used to ensure you can see a particular backer in an area of your choice. I then show an easy playthrough which wasn't intended as I just wanted the ending but decided to use it to show an unfiltered playthrough instead (N64 Anti-Aliasing disabled). The only difference between the endings is the final score screen. I follow this up with a quick go at Infinite mode which is essentially a single room survival mode, last as long as you can and interestingly you get to collect powerups along the way. The video ends with the bad ending for using a continue.

For some added fun, if you were a Backer of this game, see if you have been rescued somewhere in this video.


00:00:00 Intro
00:01:00 The Perimeter (Hard)
00:03:47 The Facility (Hard)
00:06:42 The Dunes (Hard)
00:12:12 The Nest (Hard)
00:19:04 The Forrest (Hard)
00:24:20 The Lab(Hard)
00:33:58 The H.Q.(Hard)
00:45:27 Best Ending (Hard)
00:47:42 Boss Rush Mode
--- Filter off ---
00:58:06 The Perimeter (Easy)
01:01:20 The Facility (Easy)
01:04:45 The Dunes (Easy)
01:10:42 The Nest (Easy)
01:16:38 The Forrest (Easy)
01:21:39 The Lab (Easy)
01:31:15 The H.Q. (Easy)
01:41:06 Good Ending (Easy)
01:44:15 Infinite Mode
01:52:58 Game Over
01:53:24 Bad Ending (Used a continue)