"You mean there's a game that goes along with the intro???"

There's nothing I can say about the Zero Wing craze that hasn't already been said. The infamously horrible translation of the intro is huge.

On second thought, maybe there IS something I can say. Somewhere between ''What you say!!'' and ''For Great Justice.'' it seems to have been forgotten that there's an actual game to go along with the excellent opening cinematic. Maybe that's a good thing...

Graphics: 7/10

For a Genesis game(especially one from 1989) Zero Wing actually has excellent visuals. The sprites are big and reasonably colorful, and there is a fair variety among the monsters.

Sound/Music: 8/10

Maybe it's just the catchiness of the Laziest Men on Mars remix influencing me, but the background music in Zero Wing is surprisingly good. The sound is your generic ''bang bang, kaboom'' fare, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Gameplay: 4/10

Okay, so Zero Wing has competent visuals and a decent score. When it comes down to the actual gameplay, however, ZW falters.

On the surface, the game is a simple side scrolling shoot-'em-up. This is both a blessing and a curse. The side-scroller is a fun kind of game, but it's been done to death. Not only that, ZW is a blatant rip off of other established side-scrolling franchises, such as R-Type.

In its defense, ZW is not as difficult as the humanly impossible Super R-Type. The screen does not frequently get flooded with monsters. Crippling the gameplay of ZW, however, is the control. It's not the typical bad control that many games exhibit. In fact, it's very responsive. Overly so. One tap of the d-pad up or down and you go halfway to the top of the screen. Ok, it's not that bad, but it's close. It's difficult to navigate the game's sometimes tight passages when you're dealing with outrageously touchy controls.

Also, who is CATS? After he pops up in the intro and utters his notorious catchphrase, he disappears forever. You don't fight him, nor do you see him in the closing cinematics(you must beat the game three consecutive times to see all the endings, by the way). In that sense, ZW fails even in the execution of its cookie-cutter shoot-em-up plot.

Bottom Line: Games like this explain why Toaplan doesn't exist anymore. Recommendation to avoid: watch the flash movie of the intro instead.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 04/08/01, Updated 04/08/01