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