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You don't have to reinvent the wheel every time you make a new game. You can just take existing game mechanics and make something great from previous games. If we are honest with ourselves, most games we play are based on old ideas, XenoCrisis is just that. If you see XenoCrisis for the first time, you will recognize its predecessors - Berzerk (1980), Robotron:2084 (1982), but, more specifically, this top-down arena arcadestyle blaster draws inspiration from such classic games as Smash T.V. (Williams, 1990) and Contra (Konami, 1987). Xeno Crisis is a one or two player shoot and bomb romp with a huge number of enemies to take down.

You fight your way from room to room till you find the level boss - a tried-andtested game design that has generally worked successfully over the years and is featuring even more so in recent times with games such as Geometry Wars (XBOX, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2014), Enter The Gungeon (XBOX, PS4, Nintendo Switch, 2016, 2017) and The Binding Of Isaac (Windows, Mac, Linus, 2011).

Gaming industry veterans Mike Tucker and Matt Cope founded Bitmap Bureau, based in the UK, in 2016. Before their XenoCrisis Kickstarter campaign, Bitmap Bureau released Ninja Shodown and 88 Heroes for PS4, Switch, PC, MAC and Linux. XenoCrisis is their first game as an independent game studio for old consoles such as the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, Dreamcast and Neo Geo but they have also developed versions for Switch, PS4, XBOX1, PC, MAC and Linux - these guys are busy! The XenoCrisis Kickstarter campaign ran from 12th November 2017 until 1st October 2018, receiving 1289 backers who blasted through the target goal of £20,000 by a staggering 363% with a total amount of funds raised equaling £72,569. The game was finally completed and physically released on October 29th, 2019.

As I mentioned above, XenoCrisis is nothing new to the retrogaming audience. But the implementation of the old concept "1 vs. rest of the world" has been made to a very good standard which is really pleasing to see for a newly released commercial game of this kind.

You start the game choosing one of eight languages (I always love this feature in games, it's the little things that make a big difference), watch the intro, select your level of difficulty - 'Easy' or 'Hard' mode and choose between a female or male character. The only difference is the look of your avatar - both characters possess the same abilities and use the same weapons.

A spaceship drops you on outpost 88 and you enter the first room. In Area 1, only a few bubblegum-spiders attack you while you have a chance to master the game controls. Your pixelated soldier moves in eight directions, and he can shoot, throw grenades and roll to avoid the enemies' attacks - three actions with three buttons.

Now the cool part: You can use a 6-Button Controller. The extra buttons allow you to shoot up, down, left, right, throw grenades and roll. That makes your life in the killing rooms much easier. Speaking of lives, you only have one! (that will make this game tough as a kevlar jacket - Ed) You have to go all the way through six areas, filled with many, many enemies to destroy and take on some really big bosses with only one life, a small energy bar of five hearts and three credits. More credits can be acquired during the game.

To be fair, sometimes the killed aliens drop dog tags (bonuses). At the end of a level, after the boss fight, you can exchange dog tags for upgrades including more health, more gun power, speed, ammo, grenades and grenade power. So you better be good at running and shooting to pick up those dog tags, because each successive room is harder than the one before. More enemies, harder enemies and even more harder enemies (we get the picture, it gets hard but sounds very cool too - Ed). True to arcade style gaming you do get the option of continuing the game when your health runs out.

The next cool part: Every time you play XenoCrisis, the levels will look different because of the procedurally generated maps and rooms. Doors, holes in walls and holes in the ground will always be randomized. So too the aliens, they never appear in the same spot. So there is no real tactic or memorizing wave patterns, except knowing the weakness and the speed of your enemies. Speaking of enemies, you have to fight about 40 of them, in six areas with an arsenal of nine different weapons. You will certainly need these weapons but make sure they are stocked up with ammo as ammo for each weapon comes in short supply.

XenoCrisis gameplay oozes huge sprites with lots of blasting with a great selection of weapons to fire at will causing non stop carnage!

When I first saw the boss at the end of area one, I was totally blown away, because he was half the size of the screen. All the graphics are totally on point, executed wonderfully well for this game style, in my opinion, so really cool visually. The rooms never look the same - you fight in woods, laboratories, on sand (with sandworms etc) and much more. The different enemy types add much more appeal to the gameplay. There are six different areas or arenas with plenty of rooms to blast away at many, many alien hordes - it's so fast paced and includes a really awesome soundtrack with different voice samples these are the things I really enjoyed about this game. You don't see any energy bars or anything else like that - it's like a 'clean screen' giving you a much bigger playing area effect.

Every time you pick up a dog tag, your small avatar will get a number above their head indicating the amount received/available. Ammo and health are shown the same way. If you get hit by a bullet or a monster, you lose one energy heart then you see how much hearts are left.

I like that. By the way, you can have more fun together - yes, the co-op feature enhances the game even more. How good is the playability! The run 'n gun it gameplay is excellent. Rolling your marine to avoid enemy fire as a defensive feature works wonderfully well. It's like an action scene from a Rambo movie!

After having played XenoCrisis it's just my type of game, I didn't find any major dislikes to the gameplay or its playability, but that's just a personal opinion. If there is something I dislike, maybe it's that the first boss was huge - half of the screen and I thought "OMG, how big will the next one be?" Turns out the next boss was much, much, smaller, so that was a bit of a disappointment.

XenoCrisis is a very challenging game. It's graphically awesome, and much better than I expected. I was totally absorbed by the fast, intense gameplay. The soundtrack is really good too, just what you need for a game like this, pump the volume up as loud as you can for that insane gaming experience. As far as shoot 'em ups go, XenoCrisis blew me out of my skin.

It is a really addictive shooter with a fantastic array of enemies to blast your way through. With an arsenal of nine different weapons to shower the enemy with, it's hard not to like what you see. Especially with touches such as grenades shaking the screen as they wipe out everything and the hot trail of yellow and red fire power extending out the end of your rapid fire pulse rifle as you blast away at everything without a second thought. For me this is one of the best Sega Genesis/Mega Drive Games I have played.

Bitmap Bureau have got the difficulty and challenge settings for XenoCrisis just right. Grab a friend and play together for maximum blast 'em up carnage. You are going to love this game!