THE SPECTRUM GAMES DATABASE



XECUTOR



PUBLISHER

ACE (Softek)



AUTHOR

Cybadyne



YEAR

1987



DESCRIPTION

A polished shoot-em-up with colourful graphics and smooth

scrolling.



CONTROLS

As listed on inlay card; keys redefinable.



INSTRUCTIONS

Normal shoot-em-up with the usual system of weapon progression

(as in Zynaps), that is, destroying a complete wave of aliens

leaves an icon which you can collect to upgrade your weapons or

shoot to advance the choice of weapon.



INLAY CARD TEXT

[back cover blurb]

"Xecutor is a blinding technical achievement. It looks good and

plays even better!" SINCLAIR USER, 'CLASSIC'.



* First ever vertical full-colour scrolling arcade quality game

of its kind for the Spectrum.

* First 'coin-op' style game for the Spectrum to feature options

for 1 player or 2 players (on screen at the same time!).

* Do battle with attack wave after attack wave of the deadly

Zedar of Zinx as they attack in ever devious ways. Manoeuvre your

Mark-7 Quantillion craft through the maze of alien sectors, armed

with pulsar lasers seeking more and more and more powerful

armoury for your craft - and take on the giant Zedar Xax craft

that guard the entry to every new sector!

* Play with joystick or keyboard - or virtually any combination

of keyboard and joystick controls (Sinclair and Kempston

interfaces supported).



[inside]

XECUTOR

LOADING THE GAME: Xecutor is loaded by simply entering: LOAD""

and then press ENTER.



THE FORBIDDEN SECTOR

There had to be a reason why the Zedar region of the Horsehead

Nebula was referred to as 'forbidden'. Looking at your Galactica

map and guidelines set out by Central Space Control you kinda

felt those guys had been viewing too many ThreeDees from a

century or more ago. 'Forbidden' indeed!  But on reflection you

somehow feel you should have heeded the warnings. So you are just

a couple of guys who broke formation in your Mark-7 Quantillion

craft whilst on route to the Stella Wars in Questron Minor. A

couple of wise guys who thought it'd be a laugh to see this

'forbidden' thing close up. But boy do the Stella Wars sound

attractive to you now!  But there's no turning back now. You and

the other guy will have to see it through... at least you will;

sacrifices have to be made sometimes.  Or will you work with him

to beat the Zedar together?



PLAYING THE GAME:

Xecutor is designed to be played either solo, or with a

friend/rival. You can choose to go it alone against the Zedar

death squads, or you can select the two-player option allowing

two craft on screen at the same time.  Upon loading you will be

given an option of pressing '1' for a one-player game, '2' for

a two-player game, or pressing '3' to change the controls. If you

want to alter the basic way the controls are set then press '3'.



Initially the controls are set to:

        PLAYER 1                PLAYER 2

        Set Keys                Set Keys

        Left - X                Left - N

        Right - C               Right - M

        Up - W                  Up - O

        Down - S                Down - K

        Fire - Q                Fire - P

                   Pause - T



By presing option '3' you can then select virtually any other

combination of keyboard or joystick (Kempston or Sinclair 1-5 or

6-0), and you can even define your own preferred keys. To choose

your option in '3' you press SPACE, and to actually select it you

press ENTER.



WEAPON/CUSTOMISING ICONS

Either alone or together with another player your aim is the

same: destroy wave after wave of the Zedar, and blast their laser

installations too.  When you destroy an entire wave of the Zedar

or when you destroy an installation you will find that a WEAPON

icon is left behind, pulsing on the screen. In the display panel

on the right side of the screen you will see one of these icons

already shown - a missile. By destroying these icons as they

appear you will be able to move on to better and better weaponry

that you can choose to add to your ship. There first appears the

missile icon which, if collected, gives you more and more fire

power (up to 3-times more than you start with).  The next icon

is indicative of being able to increase your speed. Then the

icons progress in turn through: double lasers, triple lasers,

super penetration-missiles, explosive pods, and last but not

least a powerful shield. To add the new weapon or feature to your

ship, simply collide with the icon instead of shooting it.  As

two player 'collective' game you can each agree to try to gain

good fire power between you to conquer as many Zedar as possible.

But as a 'competitive' version you can quickly discover how to

collect weapons or destroy ones you do not need thus depriving

the other player of a potential advantage...

 

HIGH SCORE TABLE - simply use the LEFT and RIGHT controls to move

through the alphabet, and either enter all 7 letters or use the

'ED' character to END your entry.



CREDITS:

Game design, coding and graphix by CYBADYNE.

Copyright (C) 1987 Softek International Ltd. All rights reserved.



CLUB OF ACES

Why not join the official club for 'ACE' players? If you want to

be kept up to date with advance information on ACE games, receive

special offers on games, T-shirts, and a lot more besides, then

write to us now! Every new member receives a poster and a

membership card as well as free issues of the CLUB OF ACES

newsletter, and you get free membership to ACE's sister label

 club 'THE EDGE CONNECTION'! Send a cheque or postal order now

for just œ1 - or order an ACE T-shirt at the special 'members

only' price of œ3 each. Just send your name, address,

cheque/postal order and if you want a shirt then don't forget to

specify Med/Large/X-Large. Sorry, we don't do Small - that's not

the way you wear 'em! (Please add 75p for postage and packing

when ordering a T-Shirt. Allow 21 days for delivery.)  Club of

Aces, Softek International Ltd., 36/38 Southampton St., London

WC2E 7HE.



CHEATS



SEQUELS/PREQUELS



SCORES RECEIVED

Your Sinclair (issue 23, November 1987, p.41): 9/10 Megagame

"A tough and gritty shoot 'em up, with lots of action, but

needing lots of skill to finish. A blast!"



URLs



GENERAL FACTS



NOTES

