Retro Review – Xyanide

<p>I had a huge gap in my gaming experience when it came to SHUMPS&comma; for those of you who don&&num;8217&semi;t know SHUMPS are &&num;8220&semi;Shoot &&num;8217&semi;em Ups&period;&&num;8221&semi; I vaguely remember having a <em>Gradius<&sol;em> on my Super Nintendo and then I kind of fell off the bandwagon of those games for some reason&period; Thankfully because of YouTube I&&num;8217&semi;ve rekindled my love for these unique games that we just don&&num;8217&semi;t seem to get enough of anymore&period; The original Xbox had several that I found out about recently and I decided to boot one up and see what I was missing&period; <em>Xyanide<&sol;em> is the first one that I found&comma; developed by PlayLogic Entertainment and released in August of 2006&period; This game really breaks the box of SHUMPS and I was pleasantly surprised and thrilled that I hunted this game down successfully&semi; it wasn&&num;8217&semi;t very easy to find&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>First off&comma; let me say that this game is insanely gorgeous&comma; I know that the original Xbox was the most powerful system in that generation but <em>Xyanide<&sol;em> really put the Xbox through its paces with the graphics&period; The opening cutscene had my jaw on the floor with just how beautifully done it was&period; The developers nailed the apocalyptic look of this futuristic world&period; I wanted to know more about the place but sadly the cutscene ended and thrust me into the game with no more deep looks into this world&period; Apart from the cutscenes&comma; the actual gameplay looks great as well&period; Diverging from the normal SHUMP formula and going from the bottom of the screen to the top <em>Xyanide<&sol;em> makes some great changes&period; You are on rails and can move a little bit in the lane&comma; but instead of taking you straight up the screen you are moved to every point imaginable&period; PlayLogic made sure to use every bit of power to get the levels to bend and twist around you as you defeat ships that only want to see you dead&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;132312" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-132312" style&equals;"width&colon; 640px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-132312" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;12&sol;06004251&sol;Xyanide&lowbar;level3&lowbar;220&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"640" height&equals;"356" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-132312" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Xyanide<&sol;em> &&num;8211&semi; PlayLogic Entertainment&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>The story of the game is a pretty scary one&period; You find yourself watching an execution&comma; an execution of what looks to be a young girl&period; What you find out is that she is a terribly powerful entity that can bend the world to her whim&period; As the ship pierces her chest to take her into the black hole she slowly takes control of the ship and turns the ship and that galaxy into a nightmare for any pilot that survived the initial attack&period; You fly around what she creates and she creates it and attempts to destroy the most important parts of the entity she is creating&period; Think of yourself as a disease in a human and you&&num;8217&semi;re going after the heart and lungs while the immune system does everything it can to destroy you&period; That is pretty much what this game is like&comma; and it must be my immune system that it is using because this game is HARD&excl;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>For how difficult this game is the controls don&&num;8217&semi;t let you down as you weave and fire and dodge&period; The left thumbstick is move and in an odd design choice&comma; the right thumbstick is aim and fire&period; I&&num;8217&semi;ve never been a fan of games that use the right thumbstick to attack like <em>Grabbed by the Ghoulies<&sol;em> and<em> Too Human<&sol;em>&comma; but this felt natural once I got used to it&period; Maybe it was due to the fact that I was firing lasers and missiles and not wielding a sword&period; Right Trigger switches the main weapon back and forth&comma; Left Trigger is your secondary weapon&comma; you hold it down aim with the right thumbstick then release to unleash the barrage&period; When you think you&&num;8217&semi;re in trouble press B and you shield will pop up for a short amount of time&period; There are certain ships that you can destroy for power-ups&comma; I didn&&num;8217&semi;t see any rhyme or reason to the power-ups you get&comma; but they do come in handy when you decide to use them&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;132589" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-132589" style&equals;"width&colon; 640px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-132589" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;12&sol;18230442&sol;Xyanide&lowbar;level1&lowbar;009&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"640" height&equals;"356" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-132589" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Xyanide<&sol;em> &&num;8211&semi; PlayLogic Entertainment&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>This game is very fun&comma; for people who aren&&num;8217&semi;t as adept at SHUMPS I suggest playing it on Easy&comma; that&&num;8217&semi;s what I did and I still got my teeth kicked in&period; It is a pretty difficult game to find&comma; so I don&&num;8217&semi;t suggest purchasing it on a whim&period; If you are a hardcore fan of SHUMPS or are trying to get better at the genre it is a great game to start out with&comma; just due to the fact that it has difficulty settings&period; There are other SHUMPS out there that offer no quarter for your sucky ass&period; There were a lot of SHUMPS that came out for this generation&comma;<em> Chaos Theory<&sol;em>&comma;<em> Ikaruga<&sol;em> and so on&comma; but for some reason&comma; they didn&&num;8217&semi;t gain any traction and they really aren&&num;8217&semi;t coming out on current generations&period; If you feel you are missing out on some SHUMPS I suggest grabbing this title and quenching that thirst&comma; if you&&num;8217&semi;re just looking to dabble&comma; go a cheaper option&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;