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Xion - awesome and original retro shooter

RuneSR2
Grand Champion
A few days ago this game arrived:

https://youtu.be/8-UwNI9bD9c

https://www.oculus.com/experiences/rift/1868957053126430/

Intro according to the devs:
"Xion reVives the arcade and shoot'em ups of the 90's in a refreshing and unique rogue style and destructible voxel landscape setting!  Blast your way through multiple randomized levels!  EVERYTHING is destructible!  Design and build your own ship!  Defeat the big bad end-bosses of each level!" 


The game should perform just perfectly on most rigs:

    RECOMMENDED:
    • OS: Windows 10
    • Processor: Intel Core i5 4590 or AMD FX 8350 or greater
    • Memory: 6 GB RAM
    • Graphics: GeForce GTX 970 or AMD Radeon R9 290 or better
    • Storage: 100 MB available space

Note that right now the game's just $10 in the Oculus Store, but $15 on Steam - maybe the game will be 50% more expensive in the Oculus Store shortly... $10 is a great price. 

My review from Oculus Store:

"Awesome game - perfect performance
Great retro shooter, but still very original. You've never tried anything like this before! In another review it said that this game felt like being inside a Commodore 64, and that's a nice description, but it's probably more like a Commodore Amiga, although none of these classic machine even remotely had the power to make a game like Xion. I was worried due to another review stating poor performance, but I could in absolutely no way reproduce this problem. Using Oculus Tray Tool this game performed at a perfect 90 fps even when forcing super sampling 2.0! And that was using the "beautiful" cpu preset and no anisotropic filtering and no MSAA. Then I tried to more or less max out the game by adding 4xMSAA and forcing anisotropic filtering - and whoa - I still got 90 fps with 30 to 40 % headroom! (Remember I'm still forcing super sampling 2.0.) It may make good sense - this game is voxel based, and you can shoot the terrain too. Thus this game may be cpu intensive (I've got a i7 7700K, 16GB 3200Mhz), but it's in no way GPU intensive - the game should work flawlessly on lower end rigs (I'm using heavily oc'ed GTX 1080). Actually few games are as optimized on the Rift as Xion. The game is great fun. You build your own ship and then shoot nearly everything that moves. Your right hand is your ship, so your ship follows your hand movements exactly. The left hand is used to monitor your health and to pick up items. The game works so much better than the great old arcade machine thanks to VR. Congrats to the devs for producing this flawless gem! PS. Should I criticize one thing, then it would be great with an option to change hands - I'm left handed :-)"

I rated the game 4 stars for the gameplay + 1 star for the awesome performance. 

I did read this review, which for days kept me from purchasing the game: 
"The bad. Serious performance hit on my machine 6600K, 16GB, 1080Ti. The first level is fine but it starts going downhill from there. Lots of stutter and dropped frames with default graphical settings set to "fastest". By the 3rd game is barely playable. Other games worked fine and tried rebooting but the stutter remains. Perhaps a memory leak or something as the start of the game seems fine. I'll check back after updates to see if this gets fixed."

As I've written in my review I could reproduce no of those problems - in fact, Xion is one of the best optimized games on the Rift. 

Some screenshots that don't do the game much justice - you simply cannot show VR as flat 2D images, sadly:

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Building your ship:
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Your ship (ok, not in the first level 😉
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Boss fight (large tank in the background, not easy to see):
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Paradise Decay has made a nice review of the game:

https://youtu.be/Bylq893iPgs

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

26 REPLIES 26

KlodsBrik
Expert Trustee
I haven´t come across this title before.
 Seeing how much it looks like zaxxon, brings back sweet c64 memories .... Easy purchase. Downloading as I write this !
Be good, die great !

KlodsBrik
Expert Trustee
 Just played throug the first level to try it out. F1 starting in 10min. if it wasn´t for that I would have kept going !

Definately feels like a fast paced retro shoot em up. I love how one have to navigate through the enviroment using your whole body ( at least to get the best view of things ). Nice feel to how powerups are delivered, and it feels rewarding getting as many enemies as possible.

 So far this game deserves more than the low rating it got so far!

Will get back into this game soon for sure !
Be good, die great !

RuneSR2
Grand Champion

KlodsBrik said:

I haven´t come across this title before.
 Seeing how much it looks like zaxxon, brings back sweet c64 memories .... Easy purchase. Downloading as I write this !


 
Maybe it's a bit like Zaxxon - maybe not so much the CBM64 version, I vote for the Sega version  😉

https://youtu.be/cHORFz6ZCC0

Level 2, especially the boss, got me thinking of R-Type. Love how some enemies in Xion are flying right next to your face - like you could reach out and grab them - that's what you get in VR, never had that feeling in pancake games!

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

KlodsBrik
Expert Trustee
Hehe ... I meant to write "remind me of Zaxxon" 😛
IO, Delta and R-Type for that matter .... I will get nostalgia trips playing this game for sure ! 
Be good, die great !

RuneSR2
Grand Champion
Hmmm, yes, gotta write to the Xion devs to let them know that their game needs some proper music  o:)

https://youtu.be/LlwgAzgK7ws

Nothing is better than Hubbard!  ❤️

Looking at that video, the road from Delta to Xion has been very very long  😄

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

Zenbane
MVP
MVP
Very fascinating. I just bought Sacralith but still haven't been able to load it up. I'm a bit behind on gaming. Xion will have to wait a bit longer before it gets in my Library. But very nice reading the community feedback on it!

KlodsBrik
Expert Trustee
I want Sacralith as well ... lol  @Zenbane If you could see my backlog of games I´ve bought and haven´t played yet plus all the games I´ve only scratched the surface on, you would be embarrased by me :lol:

Thing is, I really want to play em all, but rarely have the time, or im just to tired due to work.
 I will get through all of them eventually !

Got this as I could tell from the video that I would be able to have quick 10min. sessions now and then.

Be good, die great !

Zenbane
MVP
MVP
Sacralith is the only title on my Backlog. I got caught up way earlier this year, but as soon as I buy a game that I won't touch the same day I buy it... I put myself in a purchasing Time Out lol

Also, I have my GO which I tend to buy apps for once a month. I just completed Augmented Empire on GO and it was fun as hell. That is actually why I haven't loaded up Sacralith, on top of the fact that the approaching Holiday Season is keeping me quite busy.

Anonymous
Not applicable

RuneSR2 said:


KlodsBrik said:

I haven´t come across this title before.
 Seeing how much it looks like zaxxon, brings back sweet c64 memories .... Easy purchase. Downloading as I write this !


 
Maybe it's a bit like Zaxxon - maybe not so much the CBM64 version, I vote for the Sega version  😉

https://youtu.be/cHORFz6ZCC0

Level 2, especially the boss, got me thinking of R-Type. Love how some enemies in Xion are flying right next to your face - like you could reach out and grab them - that's what you get in VR, never had that feeling in pancake games!


Wow, this brings back memories... holy cow !!!! Those red fuel containers. I forgot about that game but seeing those red containers really sparked a great nastalgia moment for me...