''X-Perts'' is a side-scrolling beat-'em-up video game produced by

Sega of America is a Japanese multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its international branches, Sega of America and Sega Europe, are headquartered in Irvine, California and London, respectively. Its division ...

and released only in

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for the

Sega Genesis The Sega Genesis, known as the outside North America, is a 16-bit Fourth generation of video game consoles, fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master Syst ...

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...

. It is a spin-off of ''

Eternal Champions ''Eternal Champions'' is a 1993 fighting game developed and published by Sega for the Sega Genesis. It was one of the few fighting games of its time developed from the ground up as a home console title, rather than being released in arcades fi ...

'' starring the assassin Shadow Yamoto, who is depicted in her design from '' Eternal Champions: Challenge from the Dark Side''. One of the most high profile of the last wave of Genesis games, it was heavily panned by critics as having dull gameplay and poor control.

Gameplay

The female ninja Shadow leads a group of fellow X-perts in sabotage and other various missions. All three characters have character-specific special moves with differing attributes, along with three unique torture moves, which are used to interrogate various enemies. Players are able to switch characters mid-game in order to carry out different tasks.

Plot

The game's plot is based on an alternate timeline in which Shadow Yamoto was not killed by the Black Orchid in 1993. Instead, she formed a vigilante group. In the game, a group of terrorists took over an undersea weapons factory. Unless the United Nations give into their demands, the terrorists will detonate a thermonuclear device that will destroy Earth. Shadow and the X-Perts embark on a mission to avert the crisis.

Reception

The four reviewers of '' Electronic Gaming Monthly'' found the concept of controlling three characters at once in real time to be exciting, but argued that any potential fun is ruined by the repetitiveness of both the action and the missions. Andrew Baran elaborated on the missions: "Even though they are named different things and found in different areas, all they really consist of it you standing in front of something, pressing a button, and waiting for that character to finish." They scored the game a 5.125 out of 10. ''

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'' panned the game as well, citing "moronic" enemy AI, poor control, ugly animations, repetitive missions, and unoriginal sound effects. A reviewer for ''

Next Generation Next Generation or Next-Generation may refer to: Publications and literature * ''Next Generation'' (magazine), video game magazine that was made by the now defunct Imagine Media publishing company * Next Generation poets (2004), list of young ...

'' commented that "as solid as the premise of ''X-Perts'' is, the execution and game design ranks among the worst in recent memory. Control of the game's characters is slow and unresponsive with most of the gameplay centered around inept hand-to-hand combat and standing at control panels while commands are being processed." He further criticized the absence of abilities that players had come to take for granted, such as jumping and moving while holding a weapon. The graphics were in his assessment above average for a Genesis game, but nowhere near as good as '' Toy Story'' or '' Earthworm Jim 2''. He gave the game one out of five stars.

References

External links

''X-Perts''
at

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X-Perts ''X-Perts'' is a side-scrolling beat-'em-up video game produced by Sega of America and released only in North America for the Sega Genesis in 1996. It is a spin-off of ''Eternal Champions'' starring the assassin Shadow Yamoto, who is depicted i ...

can be played for free in the browser on the Internet Archive {{Eternal Champions 1996 video games Eternal Champions Sega beat 'em ups Sega Genesis games Sega Genesis-only games North America-exclusive video games Video games about ninja Single-player video games Video games developed in the United States Video game spin-offs Video games featuring female protagonists Video games with 2.5D graphics Video games with pre-rendered 3D graphics Video games with digitized sprites Side-scrolling beat 'em ups