Xenon 2: Megablast is a 1989 shoot 'em up video game developed by The Bitmap Brothers and published by Image Works for the Amiga and Atari ST.

The original release of Xenon 2: Megablast was met with critical acclaim and commercial success, with reviewers praising the detailed visuals, addictive gameplay, variety of weapons and innovative soundtrack.

Xenon 2: Megablast is a vertically scrolling shoot 'em up[1]: 5  in which the player takes on the role of a starship pilot who must destroy five bombs planted throughout history by the villainous Xenites.

[1]: 3  The player controls the Megablaster, a small battlecraft that can move in multiple directions, is equipped with a blaster as an offensive measure, and is shielded from enemy attacks and collisions for a temporary period.

[1]: 4–5 Xenon 2: Megablast was conceptualized and designed by The Bitmap Brothers (consisting of Mike Montgomery, Steve Kelly and Eric Matthews) and published by Image Works.

The development team drew inspiration from Scramble, Gradius and R-Type, and attempted to deviate from the shoot 'em up formula by making the enemy characters less predictable and predetermined.

[4] The game was programmed by The Assembly Line, who wrote the code on an IBM Personal Computer and then ported to an Atari ST.[3] The graphics were created by Mark Coleman,[2] who designed the visuals based on Matthews's brief descriptions using both DEGAS Elite and additional animation routines written by Montgomery.

[20] A version for the Commodore CDTV, also programmed by Sorrell, was released in the same month, and includes a high fidelity remix of "Megablast" as well as voice acting for the character Crispin provided by Richard Joseph.

[31] Stuart Wynne of Zzap!64 lauded the game's difficulty, and said that while the gameplay was standard for its genre, the wide range of power-ups to enhance the ship with served as a vital difference.

He commended the shop feature as "brilliantly presented and cleverly thought-out" and the ability to reverse course as a "great idea ... [that] helps transform an already highly playable shoot-'em-up into a classic, addictive one".

[5] Gary Barrett of ST Format called the game "extremely addictive and exciting" in spite of its lack of new concepts, and considered it to be "in the same elite class as Blood Money".

[3] Tony Horgan of Amiga User International was grateful for the feature of retaining weapons after losing a life, which he felt made the game's balance "perfect".

[30] Mike Pattenden of Commodore User observed that "Xenon II pursues the relentless quest for an arcade quality shoot'em up on the Amiga, and it's probably the closest yet."

[29] Lapworth described the game as "a truly awesome sight" and praised the sprites as "imaginative and conception and brilliant in execution", the enemy designs as "pleasingly vicious" and the colours and textures as "realistic and highly impressive".

McCandless also spoke highly of the visuals; he proclaimed the game to have "simply the best graphics this side of the arcade", felt that the enemy designs were "realistic and seriously hateable", and expressed surprise at the amount of animated details such as the weapons and items.

[31] Wynne of Zzap!64 deemed the arrangement of "Megablast" "impressive", while Robin Hogg of the same publication was unenthusiastic for the choice of in-game music and voiced a preference for heavy metal.

"[38] In a subsequent issue, ST Format ranked the game at #30 in its "30 Kick-Ass Classics" and declared it to be the definitive vertical-scrolling shoot-'em-up, but simultaneously identified it as the genre's "death", remarking that "the Bitmaps milked what credibility remained" and that "nothing else could follow it".

[18] Damien Noonan of Amiga Format rated the Commodore CDTV version a paltry 32%, commenting that, while innovative at the time it was first released, the game had aged poorly and its gameplay was not well-balanced.