"Babelfish's grandfather"

IN AD 2101, a war was beginning. Sounds familiar? The infamous ''all your base'' intro that spread like wildfire over the internet in the year 2001 began with this little game, an arcade shooter for the genesis. Unfortunately, the game isn't really all that fantastic (the intro is a classic though).

Reviewer: Ladies and gentlemen, I present: The babelfish VS zero wing tournament for Engrish!! In case you don't know what babelfish is, it's a language translator for altavista (web address: http://babelfish.altavista.com/). Let us begin!

Proper English: Someone detonated bombs all around us!
Babelfish: Someone explode all bombs near us!
Zero Wing: Somebody set up us the bomb.

Winner: Zero wing

Most people will be familiar with the intro, made popular by a group called ''the laziest men on mars'', who used it to create a rather nice sounding (and amusing) techno piece. In case you didn't know, the intro was one of the worst translations ever done for a game, with more grammatical errors than even the lamest reviews on this site. Samples? ''All your base are belong to us'', ''you know what you doing'' are 2 of the most amusing ones. Even the arcade ending has messed up translation (unfortunately, that was missing in the genesis version). However, for this game, the messed up translation actually managed to make the game more interesting....perhaps that was the original intent! This has been a trick used by the developers all along!!!

Anyway, the game revolves around a fighter plane named ''zig'', the sole survivor of the destruction of all your bases...or the UN's bases actually, since a lowly pilot can't possibly own all the bases... Anyway, after the captain of the last particular battleship (or mothership...whatever) has ordered all pilots to take off ''for great justice'', apparently, you are the only one who has managed to survive. You are determined to fight CATS (no, not domestic house pets, the bad guy is named CATS) ''for great justice'', as well as to find somewhere safe to land, I suppose. Pretty typical storyline, eh?

Proper English: Enjoy the remaining moments of your lives....
Babelfish: Likes your life remaining moment....
Zerowing: You have no chance to survive make your time.

Winner: Zero wing.

Anyway, after managing to escape, CATS has obviously noticed that little ''ziggy'' you are flying in, and sent hordes of planes after you. I'm touched that that little plane means so much to him, so much that he even sent huge bosses to try and get it back. Must have been his mother's last gift to him.....anyway, the game plays very much like typical shooters: flying around avoiding bullets and destroying enemy planes. Surprisingly, this game isn't ridiculously hard like other games of similar genre (blazing star and pulstar...ugh), and is manageable. As usual, there are powerups to collect, ranging from the standard straight-only-but-super-powerful beam to the typical weak-as-hell-but-hey-it's-homing beams. Nothing really original, actually. Similar to several games of the same genre, you can upgrade your weapons by picking up more powerups of the same type. One rather enjoyable thing about the game was the ability to pull enemy planes to your ''Zig'' and use them as shields. Nice way to treat your enemies, eh? But even this ability isn't original (Another genesis shooter, Gaiares, has it)

Although the game isn't ridiculously hard, it still suffers from the good old ''one hit and you lose all power'' syndrome. That itself makes the game rather tough (or frustrating) if you get hit. Although the game comes in 3 flavors (easy, normal and hard...hey they actually got this right!), it's irritating to lose all your hard earned powerups, and come back with the good old pea shooting gun. If you lose your weapons, difficulty scales up remarkably, and you'll probably have problems completing the game without continuing.

Bottomline: Zero wing is your typical shooter, with nothing really new or exciting.

Proper English: You appear to be preoccupied, gentlemen.
Babelfish: You have a liking for are lost in thought, gentlemen.
Zero Wing: How are you gentlemen!

Winner : Babelfish

The graphics are rather plain and dull, without much color variation. Note that this is a 16 bit game, so you can't expect too much. Still, take a look at Thunderforce 4 and then take a look at this game. The graphics could have been better.

As for music....the game uses a techno soundtrack, similar to other shooters. If you don't like them, chances are you won't like Zero wing's music either. I did find the tunes somewhat catchy, and the intro music itself is pretty nice. Sound effects are rather poorly done: ranging from those amusing pea shooting sounds you normally hear emitting out of your Zig to those massive burping sounds you get when bosses blow up. All in all, not very impressive sound effects.

The game has 8 stages, so it's pretty long, and with the 3 different difficulties, the game has quite a fair bit of replay value (again, it does not display any originality). Control is pretty simple and takes only a few seconds to learn. Again, similar to a great deal of shooters, the screen scrolls right and you are ''forced'' to move along. Overall, controls are pretty good.

Lastly, the story is....not exactly original, as I've mentioned. The bad translation, however, makes it amusing to see over and over again, and after watching it, I always get a strong urge to play the game....even if only for a few minutes.

Proper English: Thanks to the cooperation of the UN forces, all of your bases now belong to CATS.''
Babelfish: As a result of the United Nations force cooperation, possesses your base now belongs the cat.
Zero wing : All your base are belong to us.

Winner : TIE between zero wing and babelfish.

Concluding thoughts: It it weren't for the intro, Zero wing would have been merely an average shooter, completely lacking in originality. The intro has immortalized the game as the ''best'' game intro ever created, and yes, I agree that the intro was one of the ''best'' ever created, but beyond that, the game isn't worth your attention. I am wondering, though: does the translator for zero wing now work for babelfish?

Final Scores:

Gameplay: 7.3
Graphics: 5.6
Sound: 5.0
Music: 7.3
Replay: 6.8
Control: 9.0
Translation: 10!!...or 1, debatable.

Final Score: 6.1

Reviewer: We have come to the last round of the tournament... If you were wondering, the ''proper English'' came from Frank Provo's excellent Zero wing Faq, and I simply translated the ''proper English'' into Chinese using babelfish, and that became ''Babelfish Engrish''....

Proper English: Give us hope for our future...
Babelfish: Give us for our future hope...
Zerowing: Move 'Zig'

Winner: Zero wing
Overall winner: Zero wing!

Babelfish: Im.. Impossible!
Zero wing: What you say!

And so the saga continues....

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 01/13/02, Updated 01/13/02