Xevious Commodore 64

Many eons ago, an advanced technologically orientated civilisation was forced to evacuate the Earth prior to the Ice Age. Now, these Xevious people are returning to reclaim their heritage through conquest. From the controls of your Solvalu super spacecraft, you must defend the Earth from takeover by the Xevious Invaders! Flying a search and destroy mission, you will cruise over the scrolling landscape, bombing Xevious ground entrenchments and zapping the air targets that come into range. Easy. But now look out for flying mirrors - impossible to destroy; a collision will spell certain death! In the event of your surviving wave after wave of enemy onslaughts you will encounter the controlling force of the Xevious offensive; Andor Genesis Mother Ship! This is your goal. A direct hit to her central reactor will disable her, but do not be lulled into a false sense of secuirity. Xevious forces will soon re-appear to renew their attacks with increased determination! — Cassette cover

Xevious is a vertical scrolling shooter arcade game that was  released by Namco in 1983 (but copyrighted as 1982). It runs on Namco  Galaga hardware, and was designed by Masanobu Endō (who later created  The Tower of Druaga). In North America, the game was manufactured and  distributed by Atari, Inc.. In Brazil, the arcade cabinet was printed  with the name of "COLUMBIA" for the game, while the software still  showed the original title of "Xevious".

Gameplay

The player must use an 8-way joystick, to pilot a combat aircraft  called a Solvalou, which is armed with a forward-firing Zapper for  aerial targets and a Blaster which fires an unlimited supply of  air-to-surface bombs for ground targets. The game, presumably set  in Peru, was notable for the varied terrain below, which included  forests, airstrips, enemy bases - and mysterious Nazca Lines-like  drawings on the ground.

There are various aerial enemy aircraft which fire relatively  slow-moving bullets at the player, as well as (presumably unpiloted)  fast-moving projectiles, and exploding black spheres. Ground enemies  are a combination of stationary bases and moving vehicles, most of  which also fire slow-moving bullets at the player. Giant floating  Andor Genesis motherships appear in certain areas; these must be  defeated by knocking out their cores, and are considered one of the  first level bosses to be incorporated into a video game.

The game scrolls through 16 areas, looping back to Area 7 after Area  16. The Solvalou continually advances over varying terrain, and the  boundaries between areas are marked only by dense forests being flown  over. If the player dies, play will normally resume from the start of  the area - but if the player has completed at least 70% of the current  area before dying, play will resume from the start of the next area  instead. As the Solvalou continuously flies forward, it is possible  to advance without defeating any enemies.

Ports

Xevious has been ported to multiple other formats, including the  Atari 7800, Atari 8-bit, NEC PC Engine, and Nintendo Entertainment  System game consoles, as well as the MSX, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64,  Amstrad CPC, Apple II and Atari ST home computers.

Source:Wikipedia