Quote from: "Greyfox"...as with DC's comment, it was the Atari ST version which had all this amazing visual presentation with great music and the game allowed you to morph into a land machine and ship, a first for me on the all new 16-bit platform...
That pretty much encapsulates what, for me too, made Xenon on the ST so freakin' great at the time.
I still vividly recall the memories of having first seen the game on display running on the local independent computer and videogame shop's ST and marvelling at those 'metallic'-looking visuals and the cool ability to switch between landcraft (which looked curiously similar to the Millennium Falcon, imo!) and the flying craft.
Seeing it in motion was the first real moment I knew the world of the 8-bit systems had had its day and it was time to move on to the 'next-gen' 16-bit Atari ST. It took a while after that before I became an ST owner but in the meantime I managed to play the Speccy conversion of Xenon and I was pleasantly surpised by its very high standard. Sure, it was often difficult to make out where the bullets were due to the monochome graphics and the scrolling juddered a fair bit but the gameplay was still largely all there.
I loved Xenon 2 Megablast too but despite its wonderful presentation it was the gameplay of its predecessor I most enjoyed. *
As for the two main Speedball games, I preferred the more claustrophobic intensity of the gameplay present in Speeball relative to Speedball 2 Brutal Deluxe. Not that I'm claiming the sequel wasn't a great game too, because it obviously was. I've since bought the mildly enhanced Amiga CD32 version of the sequel and have warmed to it more these days. Iirc, in an old interview in gamesTM one of the Bitmap Brothers said he preferred the first Speedball to its sequel too so I know I'm not the only one!
As for their other games I can't say they were my cup of tea.
* Yes, I'm aware that The Assembly Line were the devs for that game but the Bitmap Brothers still designed it, apparently.