XLIENS II by KTB Retro

 

XLIENS II by KTB Retro for ZX Spectrum 48K

It's payback time !

   Participants and friends of this magnificent, all-encompassing contest: after you have repelled the first invasion of the Xliens thanks to your unrivalled warfare skills, we have some exclusive news about the unfriendly aliens.

   Very reliable sources close to an appliance shop, whose owner's cousin is the driver of a bus that stops outside a restaurant frequented by some NASA employees from their Faroe Islands office, have told us that the Minister of Invasions and Silly Walks has been fired on the home planet of the Xliens, due to the negative results in the Invading Species League of the Galaxy.

   His successor, backed by the conquest of Waruram 6, the raid of Tau Ichlax and the complete annihilation of the rebels of Loelialia Whatilla, has reinforced the fleet destined for our little planet. 

   The first step has been to equip the attack ships with weapons, namely xlion bombs.

   Each invasion wave is led by an auxiliary control ship carrying the most valuable officers (in all armies): the cooks. Destroy it and your reputation as a terroriser will grow. In other words, you will earn lots of points.

   However, the most common mistake in war is to underestimate the enemy. While they were rearming, we here on Earth have not been idle. We have built a complex system of barriers to make invasion difficult and protect us from bombs. But that's nothing — those barriers represent the most incredible breakthrough in the armaments industry since August Euler, and were inspired by his ideas.

   

   Our now customary and celebrated historical note:

"During World War I, airplanes were a new technology, and adding guns to fight in the air was an innovative step. A key challenge was preventing machine guns from hitting the propeller. Early designs placed guns in front of the pilot, but this risked shooting the blades. To solve this, engineers developed synchronization gears to time gunfire with the propeller's rotation. The concept of mounting fixed guns firing forward was first proposed by August Euler in 1913–1914, and experiments with gun synchronization were underway in France and Germany to address these challenges."

 - Wikipedia and Popular Mechanics

   Today, engineers at KTB Retro have developed a solid bomb barrier that allows nothing less than shooting through it from the ground. I am still in awe. It has not been possible to capture the image, so please experience it for yourself.

 

   The game:

   If he made us an entertaining Invaders during his lunch break, the result of typing between bites and sips for days is visibly more refined. A new and original set of characters. UDGs and the added cool detail of imitating the overlays of the original machine. A real show of good taste and a smile for me.

   Even the start-up and initialisation process of the game is impressive. Calculations and data movements are accompanied by amusing phrases:

   

   Did I mention the smile? Bring more of them!

   The following will be very familiar: speed up the emulator (I enjoyed it at 600%), defend the Earth by annihilating every Xlien that appears and, most importantly, have fun!

   One thing to bear in mind is that, from the fifth wave onwards, the Euler Barriers Workers' Union forces workers to rest, making things more complicated.

   Another nice touch by the programmer is that our ultra-powerful missile-launching defence vehicle alerts us visually when it is ready for the next launch.

(loaded)

(bomb away!)

   I have just one more thing to say. I played several times. I disintegrated seven waves of Xliens. But I did not reach the red spaceship once. Please do it.

      With all the bombs and missiles together: We have the classic Space Invaders with a really detailed treatment. Even if we have to speed up the game, the fact that it's written in BASIC is very respectable. From here we recruit all the skilled cannoneers to defend ourselves against the Xliens once and for all... Although there are rumours, don't comment, that there is a third version in the oven, this time compiled...

Scrambled Smile: 8/10

Broccoli and Squid Yoghourt: 5/10

Deep Fried Ice Cream: 7/10

Strawberry Monosodium Glutamate: 8/10

Affable Hot Chocolate Sauce: 6/10