Xenocide

Posted by Derek Yu Sat, 29 Sep 2007 06:47:00 GMT

Xenocide

Sci-fi roguelikes are a nice change of pace from the usual fantasy games, and Xenocide is a pretty good one. The first thing you’ll notice is how developed the UI is. Exploring has never been easier, thanks to intuitive menus and various shortcuts. I especially like the “Explore” command, which automatically hunts out new passageways, until something interesting pops up. The tutorial mode is much appreciated, as well!

The game is in no way easy, though, and even the weaker enemies pose a serious threat to your health and happiness. Weapons and ammo, I’ve noticed, are pretty scarce, too, at least in the earlier levels. Actually, it would have been nice to see more useful items appear in general.

There are four classes you can start with: Combat, Medical, Scientist, and Mechanic. The Mechanic is my personal favorite, as it lets you build robots to help you in battle, by combining robot CPUs and other items. You could probably build an entire game around this idea alone.

Xenocide is a solid Roguelike that could definitely benefit from some more development, but it’s already a pretty slick package overall. I was pleasantly surprised by how much the sound and music added to the atmosphere.

If you’re interested, check out a more thorough review at the Rogue Temple.

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Comments

  1. Gr.Viper said about 2 hours later:

    Yum!

    I wonder if it’s spookier than Dead Cold. That one was very SystemShock-ish.

  2. Bob said about 3 hours later:

    Isn’t that a book by Orson Scott Card?

  3. Thomas Nemec said about 3 hours later:

    Instead of playing this game, I’m going to listen to Tool while watching Blade Runner and putting pictures of my cat online!

  4. Mr. CheckerOutter said about 4 hours later:

    adjusts monocle

    Well, well, that certainly sounds like straight behavior to me!

    You wouldn’t happen to have a webpage of sorts where these pictures of your cat are presented for the viewing of the general public, would you, old chap?

  5. Paulie Mindless said about 4 hours later:

    Oh, great game, althought it doesn’t allow to play with the arrow keys. Blam my laptop (sighs).

  6. Paulie Mindless said about 5 hours later:

    Wow, controls are modifiable. Anyway, I can’t get deeper than 2 level. Always run out of ammo and get killed by beatles or leeches.

  7. Advenith said about 6 hours later:

    I was about to freak out when you said the arrow keys wouldn’t work. I need to get a number pad extension for this thing… >.>

  8. Paulie Mindless said about 6 hours later:

    Advenith, no, you don’t have to. I found out that all controls are modifiable via keyboard.def file. No need for numpad, yay!

  9. teasel said about 11 hours later:

    i like this,for once i don’t have to wrestle with the interface and remember thousand of keys… are there any other roguelike with such a friendly UI?

  10. Paulie Mindless said about 17 hours later:

    Well, Frozen Depth are quite simple. ADOM also has one of the best UI, when you get used to it. =]

  11. John H. said 1 day later:

    Ah, always nice to see a new roguelike. This one looks to have Crawl-style map generation. I shall add it to the pile….

  12. Colossus said 2 days later:

    Friendly UI, intuitive controls.

    Rather high difficulty. This isn’t too unusual for a roguelike. But the lack of 100 different actions generally gives way to a lack of options when you’re being chewed on by a rabid monkey.

    Survival, especially early on, is pure chance, which can be frustrating. For the past day or so, I’ve been giving it a try or three every few hours, and I’ve only ‘survived’ the first ten minutes twice now.

  13. Jakub Debski said 2 days later:

    Survival tips:

    • There is no food in Xenocide. Rest whenever you can.
    • Prepare calm place to rest. Damage doors, make a hole in the wares etc.
    • Find better h2h weapon as soon as possible.
    • Beetles are slow, avoid them.
    • Weaken distant enemies with ranged weapon, in close combat ‘e’xchange to ready melee weapon.
    • Target’s name color is yellow since half energy, red when dying.
    • Run if your energy is low. You are faster than some enemies.
  14. Monsieur LeBoeuf said 4 days later:

    What Mister The Beef wants to know:

    Is it even possible to get into the bunker? I, Monsieur LeBoeuf, sneaked all the way up to the door, and blam! I tried shooting at the lights, no love, I tried drilling the lights, I get shot by capital letter Gs.

    Also, when I reprogram angry robots, they still try to saw me.

    Capital roguelike, though. I like the rest, I’d just like to know if it’s worth another afternoon at the bunker.

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