Xargon

Its 1993, the height of the shareware trend, and online bulletin boards are distributing the content to personal computers via 56k more than any time before. One of those games was Xargon, developed by Epic Megagames using the Jill of the Jungle engine. Youre this super-tan blond dude named Malvineous Havershim that finds himself knocked out by some putrid gas while performing an archaeological dig. When you wake up, youre in some sort of dream world, complete with strange vegetation, oddly defunct creatures, and a talking eagle thats telling you where to go. Its "beyond reality".

Gameplay: 6/10

The game has that classic arcade-action feel, racking up points while you try to jump around platforms and enemies to reach the end. You collect these emeralds, which the game tells you are "very valuable", so you can buy stuff from the shop that Malvineous keeps in his back pocket or something. You see, he can access it anywhere in the game by pressing B, and hes going to need it to buy health and weapons. This guy can only take 5 hits before hes out. Sometimes youre in the top-down map view, running around reading your notebook looking for new areas to explore, other times youre shooting enemies in a sidescroller. You start with this wimpy laser thing that you can guide into going a certain direction, but eventually graduate to better stuff to help slay the creatures. Still, the character movement is pretty rugged on this one. It just isnt as responsive as you need or desire. It feels like it needs some tightening up, so theres a loss of 4 points.

Graphics: 7/10

They are indeed pretty swell. Its a really nice environment going on here. You also find yourself in other areas like the Robot Factory. I like all the plants and just plain weird stuff thats going on here.

The scrolling action feels a bit messed up, so I had to -3 points.

Sound: 5/10

The digitized sound is raunchy and annoying, playing weird guitar sounds every couple seconds. The music is nothing to talk about, either. Its really not that great. -5 points.

Overall: 6/10

It gets an honorable mention amongst the Epic Megagames sidescrollers. Sometimes the game becomes a little egotistical, as seen above, or just plain ruthless, seen right. Theyre saying that they cant be held responsible for the fact that I had an anxiety attack from playing Xargon. However, if I happen to experience any of the aforementioned symptoms,  I should probably call Epic Megagames. For what, I dont know, hopefully not to order Xargon. One good thing about this game is that it was announced as freeware in 2008, and even the source code was released, and thats something a lot more companies should be doing with their old games!

http://www.classicdosgames.com/game/Xargon.html

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