"Holy crap, I finally captured a lion!!!"

I sure do miss this game. When I was a kid, it was tucked away in the corner of my local arcade, literally. Me, being the curious gamer I was (and still am), tried the game out. To my delight, I discovered that Zoo Keeper was one of the most fun and addicting action arcade games I've ever played.

Story: 3
You're a zoo keeper. Some animals have escaped and taken your girl. Put them back in their cages and get your girl back.

Gameplay: 9
Each stage is one big zoo cage. The animals are ramming into the walls in an attempt to escape. You can repair the walls by walking over them. If an animal escapes, it will walk around the outside of the cage and try to hurt you. You must jump over them until you can get ahold of a net. Once you have a net, you can catch animals on the outside of the cage and put them back, but it doesn't last forever. Each stage has a time limit. When the level is over, you gain bonus points for each animal you managed to keep in the cage. As you play higher levels, you must catch/avoid faster animals. Can YOU capture a lion?

There are also bonus levels. Bonus levels are played very much like a stage in the arcade classic Donkey Kong. You have to jump from moving platform to moving platform, get to the top platform and save your girl. There is also another bonus level where you must climb up to the top of a huge escalator filled path to save your girl again. Obviously you get a lot of points for beating a bonus level. The latter bonus level also nets you an extra life.

Graphics: 8
For their time, this game had pretty good graphics. The levels themselves aren't very well detailed (just a bunch of bricks against a black background), but the animals and your character are, not to mention well animated.

Sound/Music: 8
The sound effects were pretty good and actually didn't get on your nerves even though you heard them a thousand times per level (you'll see what I mean when you walk over a section of wall to repair it). The music was mainly a bunch of triangle sound waves. They weren't particularly ''zooish'' songs (for some reason the songs make me think of a pizza place), but the tunes were strangely catchy anyway.

Control: 10
Run and jump. When you get a net, your character swings it automatically, much like Mario automatically swings a hammer in Donkey Kong. Child's play.

Replay Value: 5
This game will keep you coming back for more for a decent amount of time due to how fun the gameplay is.

Bottom Line?
If you can find this game in your arcade, consider yourself extremely lucky. If you can't, I highly recommend picking up a copy of Taito Legends; it's worth it for this game alone. This game will catch you in it's net and won't let go until you've captured a lot of elephants, snakes, etc. The fact that this game is easy to learn and play makes it appealing to almost anyone, which is why I give it a 9.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/27/01, Updated 10/25/07

Game Release: Zoo Keeper (US, 1982)