How to play Xenophobe online
- Walk: left and right arrow keys
- Jump, or stand up from a crouch: up arrow
- Crouch, pick up objects, shake off a clinging alien: down arrow
- Shoot: Z (left button)
- Throw a grenade: X (right button) while crouching
- Use the elevator: stand in front of the elevator buttons and press up; inside, up and down choose the floor
- Choose the skill level (Novice, Standard, Advanced or Expert): F2 (Select), or left and right on the title screen
- Start or restart: Z or F3 (Reset)
- Pause: F4
- Both the USA (NTSC) and Europe (PAL) cartridges are on this page; use the switch above the emulator.
Gameplay
Your mother ship takes you to nine space stations in turn. Each has between one and five floors, every floor has eight rooms, and the only way between floors is the elevator. The aliens grow as you go: Pods hatch into Critters, which cling to you and drain your health, and Critters grow into Rollerbabies and finally Snotterpillars, which leap and spit. Tentacles also lurk in some rooms.
Each alien takes a minimum amount of force to kill, from 1 unit for a Critter to 16 for a Snotterpillar. You start with a Phaser (1 unit per shot) and can swap it for weapons you find: Laser Pistol (2), Electric Rifle (3), Poofer Gun (10) or grenades (100). You can carry only one weapon at a time, but none of them run out of ammunition.
You start with 1,000 health units, and every alien attack takes some away. Burgers and flasks restore health; items such as clipboards and screwdrivers are worth points. A visit to a station can end three ways:
- Too slow: the screen flashes red, you are pulled back to the mother ship and the station explodes.
- Self-destruct: find the self-destruct code, use it and leave, earning 100 points for each alien you killed there.
- Full clear: kill every alien to earn 300 points per alien and a 200-point health bonus.
In two-player games the screen splits: the left joystick plays the top half and the right joystick the bottom half. Each player is independent, so one can lose without ending the other’s game.
Tips
- Hunt aliens, not treasure. The clock is always running, so pick up items only when they are on your way.
- Check the floor name. A floor whose name is shown in red still has aliens on it; blue means it is clear.
- Use the self-destruct on the hard stations. The manual suggests it for stations 4 and 8, saving your health for full clears on the easier ones.
- Time your shots at Tentacles. Hit them at the bottom of their swing.
- Save grenades for rolled-up aliens. Aliens curled into balls are best handled with a grenade.
The story behind Xenophobe
Xenophobe was designed by Brian Colin and Howard Shere and released by Bally Midway in arcades in 1987. The arcade cabinet split its screen three ways, so up to three people could play at once, each choosing from nine odd characters, including one with a duck’s head.
Atari Corporation brought the game to several of its systems. BlueSky Software made the 7800 version, released in 1989 with two-player split screen; Epyx made the Lynx version, and there was also an Atari 2600 cartridge. Sunsoft released a separate version for the NES. The 7800 could get games like this because arcade companies were free to license the same title to more than one home system, even when another company held the NES rights.
