Xeno Fighters - The Ultimate Tribute Shmup

To tell you the truth to begin with, femmes and mechs, I have quite an unhealthy addiction to sci-fi action games - especially FPS and shoot 'em up games. And this humongous tribute shmup over here, created by Team XF, ain't no different: Xeno Fighters in its current R edition. Glorious to think that it all began when Alluro got hooked on Raiden Fighters' manic gameplay and wide ship roster in '97. The rest, as they said it best, is history...

history in the form of the ultimate freeware indie RF-style tribute shoot 'em up to end all else.

Imagine yourself into a future where BRES, consisting of Keto lizardbreaths and human traitors, has declared an all-out, everything-goes war on human military history itself, and ATHENA's Anemoi squadron - the balanced Amada Vipros, the fast Phyxius, the damage-dealing Zaiva and the finesse Xelcor - is the one and only roadblock on the traitors' roadtrip to space/time domination. But with a wide array of guest fighters also making up ATHENA's fighter-bomber roster, spanning dimensions, human imagination and different video game eras, the BRES traitors will learn the real hard way the Anemoi ain't flyin' solo. That history's flying on their side.

Again, to tell you the truth, all you pilots out there, I used to play this shmup way back when I was a kid... 2003's EX version, if my memory's correct. Believe me, all of it was freakin' glorius just watchin' all those alien scumbags' sea-air-land-space military forces and their superweapons burst into flames from your starfighter's ragin' assault throughout military history, the future, space and beyond, right up to the final battle with the Xeno Mothership, all while heavy metal and techno music blare through your helmet's headphones.

Best part of it all: it's freeware.

'Twas a grade-A toughie, though. Only some real veteran starfighter pilots can survive an ordeal this extreme, and boy I'm glad I was one. But hey, with Xeno Fighters R's latest beta version, V0.10 out, I can report back to active fighter pilot duty any freakin' time I want. I can get my fighter-bomber of choice up in the air and, for example, lay waste to a wartorn city full of enemy tanks, big and small and really big, and turn an entire bomber squadron and its fighter and attack jet escort into airborne debris - especially if they are high above Hungary.

Oh yes. And make that giant leap into outer space and beyond - and right on top of BRES' space forces - for all mankind.

Guess what: that time's now. Why not you, too? If you feel up for some wanton shmup destruction, download the latest beta and blast away - or the 2003 EX version if you jones for a historical fixin'.

For all I care and love, I would love making those invadin' alien airheads attend their own funeral pyres time and again...