"Tribute. CATS! Dumb?"

Zero Wing

The year is 2101. A ship is in distress somewhere in the skies. The captain and his crew try to avoid the problem, but a bomb goes off (leaving the ship in a huge mess – flames everywhere, people fearing the worst). “They Set us Up the Bomb” says a crewmember. As the ship is getting ready for huge disaster, a signal goes through the main window. “It’s You” says the captain. “How Are You Gentlemen” declares the enemy general by the name of CATS. “All Your Base Are Belong To Us” he continues. “You Can’t Survive, Make Your Time!!” And with this the evil general departs (obviously adding heavy insult to injury). The captain, now mad, weeps on the floor till he thinks up of something that just might work. He takes out all of the Zigs from the ship. Zigs are small transporters that contain missiles and such used in highly treacherous situations. He then leaves the ship, in his Zig, and goes off to stop CATS, with great justice even.

All this sound a wee bit familiar? It may. You see, Zero Wing is a game that’s actually wholly remembered by its intro (all the chunk of text that you’ve just read), rather then its gameplay. Its intro is remembered because it is made up of poor translations of the English language. The “All Your Base Are Belong to Us” phrase was even mentioned in Time Magazine and was pretty much the stable geek phrase of the past millennium (I’m not kidding around). I don’t find it all too amusing, though it is great, once in a while, to be disgraced by the powers of really poor translation.

As you control your character’s Zig you will be able to fire missiles and you can upgrade it throughout the later portions of the game. Since the whole backdrop is set in space, and all you do is blast enemies throughout the game’s eight huge levels, it is easy to compare this game to Konami’s Gradius series, or better yet, the R-Type games. All the huge bosses are here, as is all the creativity and variety that helped make those aforementioned games so great. While Zero Wing can be said to be far from being as great or as masterful as those two hits (as well as other, less known shooters), it still makes an effort and that is basically laid onto the fans of the genre, or of just games in general – meaning this game is in a way both good and bad, though one player can play it in somewhat of a different way (some will enjoy it, some will hate it, others will call it a cult classic).

The aforementioned ship upgrades improve your ammo in some way. Upgrades are found by defeating enemy transporters –who look the part of a huge space rock – that roam through the game’s large, versatile levels. The first upgrade adds parts to your Zig so it can fire standard bonfire spread shots. Not exactly usefully by all means, though it is definitely better then just shooting one shot at a time. The second upgrade for your Zig comes in the form of cerulean lasers, which do far more damage then your standard firing blasts. The last upgrade for your Zig is the homing missiles. The homing missiles track down enemies and hit them with force, easily making this the best upgrade (“the best is always served last”).

There are even some more upgrades that can help you through your quest. One improves the damage that your attacks do making this the essential upgrade when you are about to face a big boss – and yes I do mean BIG! The final upgrade, however, doesn’t do much of anything as to improve your ship in some weird way; instead this equips your ship with a bomb, which you can use in one of two different, though very effective ways. One way can be if you do nothing to the bomb, and then the bomb explodes on its own merit instantly hitting the closest of enemies. The other way can be if you throw the bomb using your Tractor Beam (which I’ll get to next) to an oncoming enemy. The blast of the bomb will not only destroy that unlucky enemy, but it may also damage some of the enemies near that one (as the bomb takes up half of the screen once exploded). These bombs are also even more useful when used on bosses, as these bombs, of course, do a whole lot of damage.

Now the Tractor Beam, which I cited above, is perhaps the only innovative thing in this game that keeps it from being a stale R-Type/Gradius clone. When you use the Tractor Beam (executed by pressing just a simple button), your Zig will suck in the closest enemy and keep it on the hood of the ship. Now, like the abovementioned super bombs, you can use this mindless enemy stuck on your Zig in one of two ways. You can use it as a shield, or you can throw it. Sure it’s not much, and it doesn’t have to be used in this game at all, though however, the Tractor Beam does provide some funny incentive when seeing an enemy exploded by another enemy. Too bad it’s the only fresh and original thing this game has got going for it.

The difficulty in Zero Wing is, in another weird way, unusual. Though the difficulty can be changed effortlessly in the Options Menu, this game suffers the one-hit kill syndrome. And since this game’s levels are so remarkably huge and are filled with enemies from the ground up, you can expect to die a lot of times. Also, bosses aren’t an easy sight too. One boss, for example, will put thorny-like enemies everywhere and you must avoid them at all costs, while also trying to shoot down the huge gargantuan. It’s no easy thing, as just one small touch from all the enemies that are scattered about will send you back to the level as you try to do things all over again, someway hoping that you’ll pass the scene you were stuck in before this time through. But this is where one of the unusual things comes about. Occasionally, instead of the game sending you back to some point once you die, the game will send you forward to the level after you die. It is a weird thing, and I don’t know if it can be mistaken as a glitch or some kind of pesky problem (but seeing as how this game has the most horrible English dialogue for a game ever, I’ll say that’s just how the game is).

Graphically, this game actually impressed me. The intro – which many have seen by now and have probably memorized – is the best part. It looks great – very cinematic actually – though the crappy dialogue sort of ruins the experience. In-game the graphics look average on the most part. Your Zig is pretty small, as are most enemy ships, so you can easily tell that the full power of the Genesis wasn’t put to great use. Adding insult to injury, the backgrounds are no great sight to behold either—they all look very NES-like to say the truth. The boss animations are where things start to pick up again. Bosses are huge and lively, much like the ones in R-Type, and they can all impress visually (as do some of the mini-bosses).

Aurally, this game is not as good. The game is comprised of a techno-sounding soundtrack, and all the tunes tend to get repeated constantly and aren’t much too hear. There is also no boss theme, which doesn’t sound like much though it really is. Sound effects are largely dull as well. The only things that will emit are the sound of your Zig’s spread shots hitting the enemies, or your own Zig exploding. That’s all – pretty bland and unimpressive, if you ask me.

Finally, Zero Wing is not the kind of game “ordinary” people should/or want to play. This game is solely intended for shooting fans that were hooked on Thunder Force, R-Type, or even Phalanx back in the day. If all your playing this game for is the intro – the only reason this game started getting noticed in the mainstream – then please do yourself a favor and conduct a search for it on the Internet to see if you can download it. As a game, Zero Wing is heavily flawed and can just be un-fun to play at times… But as a publicized tool this game can be looked at as pretty cool (if your still misled at as a drunkard hippie).

6/10

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 08/05/02, Updated 02/15/03