Lethal Xcess
| Lethal Xcess: Wings of Death II | |
|---|---|
 Cover art by Celal Kandemiroglu | |
| Developer(s) | X-Troll |
| Publisher(s) | Eclipse Software |
| Producer(s) | Marc Rosocha |
| Designer(s) | Heinz Rudolf Claus Frein Marc Rosocha |
| Programmer(s) | Claus Frein |
| Artist(s) | Heinz Rudolf |
| Writer(s) | Richard Karsmakers |
| Composer(s) | Jochen Hippel |
| Platform(s) | Atari ST, Amiga |
| Release date(s) | 1991 |
| Genre(s) | Shoot 'em up |
| Mode(s) | 1 or 2 players |
| Distribution | Dual format floppy disk |
Lethal Xcess is a shoot 'em up game developed by two members of the Atari ST demo crew X-Troll and published by Eclipse Software in 1991 as a sequel to Wings of Death. An Amiga version was also created.
Gameplay
Plot
After the great magician Sagyr had succeeded in defeating the wicked sorceress Xandrilia, and regaining the human shape of his former self, he is cursed again and teleported 3,000 years in the future. There he finds out that the witch's descendants, the Xandrilians, have conquered most of the universe. Now his only chance to stop the forces of evil from succeeding is to use a small combat spacecraft on a last-ditch mission to destroy the Xandrillian Empire's home planet called Metallycha.
Development
Lethal Xcess was coded by Claus Frein and Heinz Rudolf. Originally it was planned to be an independent release, but in the end it became the sequel to Wings of Death and features music by Jochen Hippel and the cover picture was created by Celal Kandemiroglu. Lethal Xcess has been the first commercial project of Frein and Rudolf, although they had some offers before. Due to the disappointing sales, both coders quit the gaming industry and became IT consultants later. While it's a rather average shooter on the Amiga platform, the game is one of the technically most impressive titles for the Atari ST. Besides many technically impressive features, such as digital sound, sync-scrolling, overscan, and full 2-player support, all original copies of Lethal Xcess featured dual format, which allowed the Amiga and Atari versions to boot from the very same disk.