Getting Started

Prologue

The year is 3002. In 2999 the Earth came under attack from a powerful alien force; The Imperial Alliance. The Earth's defence forces could not resist the onslaught and only the prototype space battleship; X-Bomber stands in the way of Earth's annihalation. The Alliance was narrowly defeated and X-Bomber leaves Earth in search of F Zero One a legendary power capable of destroying the Alliance for good.

F Zero One was finally found and the Alliance's space fortress destroyed, but not before terrible damage was inflicted on the Earth.

The process of rebuilding what the Alliance destroyed is underway.

The Alliance's retreat from Earth and its surrounding sectors liberated several of Earth's neighbouring solar systems. In the two years following the war, Earth developed peaceful relations with Simetra; a planet left barren by after countless years of Alliance tyranny.

6 hours ago, Earth's newly established Alpha Proxima Base reported an approaching Alliance Fleet then contact was lost. The Alliance has returned for revenge. X-Bomber, fully overhauled after its year-long mission, escorting 3 transport cruisers to Simetra, is the only warship within range to deal with the threat.

X-Bomber the Game follows on where the TV series left off as X-Bomber's refit is completed and her crew are brought back together after their early 'retirement' to deal with the resurging Alliance threat. Your job is to pilot X-Bomber, destroying waves of enemy ships, on a frantic quest to save the Galaxy once more, grabbing Power-ups, dishing out excessive firepower and, of course, making lots and lots of things explode.

System Requirements

 - Windows 2000, XP or later (64 or 32-bit) operating system
 - DirectX 9	(9.0c is already included in XP SP2 onwards)
 - 2 GHz AMD Athlon 64 equivalent CPU or faster
 - 1 GB RAM
 - DirectX 9-capable graphics system; ATI Radeon 9800 XT equivalent or faster
 - 500 MB hard disk space

The game should run on DirectX 8 so it will theoretically work on Windows 95, 98 and ME.
If neither DirectX 8 or 9 are available, it runs in 'software mode' using only the CPU. In this case, the game will only run very slowly.
The lower-left corner of the game's menu displays a message if anything other than DirectX 9 hardware acceleration is being used.

Installation

X-Bomber is a portable application. 
To run X-Bomber, download the latest version and extract all the contents of the zip file. Then, run the "xb2-*" Application.

Troubleshooting

If you have trouble running X-Bomber, please don't hesitate to get in touch with me either by email or on the forum.

In the meantime, you can always try the following:
 - Download and run the latest version of X-Bomber
 - Make sure that the Windows power scheme is not set to Power saver.
 - Check that your drivers (especially graphics drivers) are up-to-date.
 - Update Windows fully. Some extensions used in X-Bomber might need Microsoft .NET Framework.
 - Check for viruses and spyware.
 - Close any other programs and background processes; especially any that are using CPU time in Task Manager. uTorrent and other file-sharing programs seem to impair X-Bomber's performance when their windows are open.

Main Menu

The Main Menu has seven options:

Start
Displays the Missions menu, from which you can start the game from the beginning or start any level. 
You can also select which ship(s) to fly during the mission. 
When you return to the main menu while playing a level, the Start option is replaced with Resume, which returns you to the current level at the point where you left off.
Options
Here, you can adjust the sound and music volume and configure controls and game settings (including difficulty).
Missions
When you return to the menu while playing a level, this option displays the Missions menu, allowing you start any mission from scratch.
Instructions
Displays this help documentation in the default internet browser.
Scores
allows you to save your current score, view your previous scores and upload any score to the Online High-Score Table.
Credits
Displays information about the game's production.
Exit
Prompts for confirmation before closing the game. 
You can close the game at any time without a confirmation prompt by pressing Alt + F4.

Briefing Screen

Scroll through the mission briefing by pressing the left and right arrow keys.
Clicking the image thumbnails on the right displays the image in the main window on the left.
Press Fire (default Z) or Enter to start the level.
Press Esc or click the button in the upper-right to return to the Main Menu.

About Menu

High Scores
News
Version History

About
Rain Song
To Do List
Project History
Site Info
Contact and Links

Help Topics

Getting Started
Gameplay
X-Project Player Ships
Extra Player Ships
Special Weapons
Allies
Enemies

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