Xenophobe (video game)

Xenophobe
Sales flyer featuring the original arcade cabinet
Developer(s)	Bally Midway SunSoft (NES)
Publisher(s)	Bally Midway Atari (Atari 2600, 7800 and Atatri ST) SunSoft (NES)
Designer(s)	Brian Colin Howard Shere
Composer(s)	Michael Bartlow
Platform(s)	Arcade (original) Atari 2600, Atari 7800, Atari ST, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, Lynx, ZX Spectrum, NES
Release	1987
Genre(s)	Shooter
Mode(s)	Up to 3 players simultaneously
Cabinet	Upright, custom
CPU	68000 (@ 7.7238 MHz)
Sound	Sound CPU: 68000 (@ 8 MHz) DAC (@ 8 MHz)
Display	Raster, 512 x 480 pixels (Horizontal), 64 colors

Xenophobe is a 1987 arcade game developed and published by Bally Midway.Starbases, moons, ships, and space cities are infested with aliens, and the players have to kill the aliens before each is completely overrun. The screen is split into three horizontally-scrolling windows, one for each of up to three players, yet all players are in the same game world.

The goal of each level is to defeat all the aliens before time runs out. Some rooms routinely display the percentage of alien infection and time remaining until self-destruct when the level ends (but a nearby button can temporarily deactivate the count-down). Levels may contain more than one floor, and players use elevators (and sometimes holes in the floor) to move between floors to defeat all of the aliens. Players can also pick up more powerful weapons and other items to help in their eradication of the aliens.

The hostile aliens (known as "Xenos") come in different forms. There are "Eggs" (similar to the eggs in Alien). If an Egg hatches, it creates a "Critter" which can attach itself to the player and drain health. If a Critter is not killed, it eventually matures into a "Roller" (a cross between a lizard, caterpillar, and armadillo). Rollers are one of the tougher enemies, as they can ball themselves up and roll around while impervious to the players' guns. Rollers sometimes grow into the "Warrior" Xeno form, which attacks by leaping and requires multiple hits to kill from most weapons. Warriors are able to spit damaging acid across rooms (and sometimes into adjacent rooms). This acid also drips from the ceiling in some rooms. They also have a devastating leap attack that will knock down and disarm. One of the more insidious attacks in a Warrior's arsenal is its ability to disarm a player. Simply walking past a Warrior can cause the player's gun to drop to the floor (destroying it if still in a doorway). Other Xenos include "Tentacles" that randomly appear from the deck or ceiling, and trap or strangle the player respectively, and the arguably toughest enemy is a Xeno "Queen" which appears either in doorways or behind certain backgrounds and throws proto-eggs at the players and shoots hypnotic eye beams which trap players and drain their health. If the proto-egg lands on a screen with a player, it grows into another Egg, which eventually hatches into a Critter as usual. Any biological kinship between Warrior Xenos and Queen Xenos, and whether the Tentacles growing in the ducting are part of the Queen Xenos, is merely implied. There are much larger alien carcasses the player can walk past or through but they only appear as part of the background.