Xenocide. (computer game) (evaluation)
by Alfred C. Giovetti

Insectoids called Xenomorphs have invaded your solar system; you'll need to kill all of them, of course, and that constitutes xenocide--hence the name of this thriller. Guilty of genocide, cross-species genetic experimentation, biological warfare, and eating your peace envoys, the Xenomorphs deserve extinction. So blast away; you're one of the good guys.

You'll need to blow up the three Xenomorph-infested moons of your home planet, Argenia. Since the only interest that the Xenomorphs have in humans is "how they taste with catsup," there's no chance of an armistice. Fight your way across the surface of each moon, killing alien bugs, avoiding large rocks, collecting ammunition canisters, and looking for the docking station that allows you to proceed further into each moon. You'll unleash fireballs, missiles, and nuclear bombs while on the lunar surface, but to actually destroy the moon, you must collect bombs on level 1 and leave them on level 4, the biolab level, before hurriedly teleporting away to safety.

The bugs splat most realistically on the windshield of your hovercraft. The programmers took great pains to make the squashed bugs highly detailed. Bug corpses litter your windshield and obscure your vision, and they can't be removed. Whatever happened to windshield washers?

A good shoot-'em-up with all the bells and whistles, Xenocide doesn't allow for saving games. You may forgive this deficiency when you watch the colorful graphics scroll effortlessly. This one's for arcade addicts of all sorts, but especially trigger-happy xenophobes.