It has been quite a while since old school shoot-em up games have been released on the Xbox, but now the long-awaited Xyanide is ready to fire its rockets, laser beams, and smart bombs on hordes of challenging enemies.

The player takes over the role of Drake, a government executioner from the planet Mardar. Aboard a small fighting ship, his task is to guide the evil witch Aguira into the great maelstrom to be sure of her final judgment. But as an asteroid hits Aguira's prison ship, chaos ensues, and Aguira tries to escape her fate by creating worlds filled with the fiercest creatures, enemies, and evil manifestations of her imagination.