New Space Order - History

History

Xevious was one of the earliest vertical scrolling shooters (it was preceded by at least the 1981 Atari 8-bit computer game Caverns of Mars) and greatly influenced games in this genre. The graphics were revolutionary for their time, and characters were rendered with remarkable clarity and effect through careful use of shades of gray and palette-shifting. It was one of the first games to have hidden bonuses which are not mentioned in the instructions but can be revealed by a secret maneuver. Among these was the 'special flag' which first appeared in Rally-X. In this game the flag gave the player an extra life and this feature was carried over to numerous subsequent Namco games. In 1983, the original Xevious was the first arcade game to actually have a television commercial aired for it for the North American market. Atari promoted the game with the slogan "Are you devious enough to beat Xevious?" and closed the commercial with a tag line branding it "the arcade game you can't play at home." This may have been the first TV commercial for an arcade video game. Atari also produced a TV commercial, specifically for Xevious.

While it saw limited popularity in the U.S., Xevious was a huge cult hit in Japan. Popular musicians Haruomi Hosono (Yellow Magic Orchestra) and Keisuke Kuwata (Southern All Stars) were known to be fans of the game, and the former produced an album of music from Namco video-games, with Xevious as its centerpiece. A follow-up 12" single featured in its liner notes an entire science-fiction short story by Endō, set in the world of Xevious, with even a rudimentary fictional language. The theme music from Xevious was used during certain segments of the video arcade game-based television game show Starcade.

According to Namco Museum DS, a three-part novel was written about Xevious entitled "Fardraut". However, not much is known about the book, implying that it was never even released. According to the game, some backgrounds, characters, events and even sounds were inspired by the book.

Xevious has recently been resurrected as a comic strip as part of the ShiftyLook series of internet comic strips. The strip features a storyline focusing on a young pilot who breaks up with his girlfriend to fight the Xevious only to have her join the airforce alongside him afterward to save Nelvana.