Xenophobe/Walkthrough

Once you have inserted your coin(s) into one of the three slots of the cabinet of Bally Midway's 1987 run and gun arcade game, Xenophobe (red for 1P, yellow for 2P and blue for 3P), the game's opening theme will be heard from the DAC (Bally Midway were famous for not switching to FM synthesis until 1989), and you will have fifteen seconds to choose one of that side's three characters, by using the thumb buttons, then squeezing the trigger to confirm your choice; each coin inserted awards an amount of energy (which can be changed, by the arcade operator), and the maximum amount of energy your character can have is 9999. Your section of the screen will now cut to a shot of the first starbase as the text "SHUTTLE. INFESTED." appears above it - and the text "TRANSFER. ENGAGED." will then appear upon the screen as up to three small saucers fly towards it from the mothership on its right side. The screen will then cut to a shot of the starbase's first room (the "Dragon's Planet Transport Center"), as the three saucers beam your characters down to it in the manner of Star Trek; it contains a randomly-generated amount of Xeno eggs (which are worth 25 points apiece when destroyed), as well as a vial and a bomb (which can be picked up with the right thumb button for 250 and 500 points respectively). The characters will proceed from one room to another by walking through the vertically-sliding doors on the left and right sides of the screen - and when they come up to each starbase's self-destruct timer, they can break the glass panel on its left side, then (if they had collected a code earlier) insert the destruction code into it to instantly set it to 0:10 (they will beam out of there once it reaches 0:05 so they will not perish in the explosion), or press the button on its right side to temporarily freeze it (the text "DESTRUCT OFF" will appear on its monitor during this time). Also, when they come to each starbase's "XX% ALIEN INFESTED" display they can press the button on its right side, to temporarily make it change to that self-destruct timer; it is also worth noting that if you are using a version of MAME that is lower than 0.90 (released 5th January 2005) to play this game, you will not be able to play with the 2P and 3P controls except for inserting coins.