Zero Wing

"Decent shooter, crappy translation"

Gameplay:
Zero Wing plays like R-Type, with many similarites, including the way that you die after one hit, and that you fly around collecting weapon and speed pickups, and that you have 2 cannons orbiting you, helping you to destroy enemies. Zero Wing introduced a new concept to games of it's genre- the tractor beam. The tractor beam allows the ship to suck in enemies and use them as shields. The thing that seems bad about the tractor beam is that all the enemies you can suck up are usually able to be destroyed by one bullet, so if you're planning to use them as a weapon, you'll need to hit your target fast.

The bad thing about Zero Wing, as with almost all games of it's genre, is that there just aren't enough differences in weapon pickups. Throughout the entire game, there are only 4 weapons (laser, bullets, rockets), each of which gets powered up 3 times. This may sound like it would make the game easier, but even with the most powerful weapon in the game, it is hard to destroy enemies, especially the bosses. The only other thing

Another annoying thing about the game is that the bomb pickups are pretty much useless. To get an idea of why, it's because the bombs appear on the front of the ship, and they detonate if they hit a wall. There are many situations where it is impossible to even use the bomb, due to the way the level was designed, not allowing enough room in some places to get a bomb through.

Graphics:
Nothing special here. There are many sprites, but few animations for each, and the colors used are darker, making it a little difficult to see some enemies, especially when they're black on a black background.

Sound:
One of the two poor areas in the game, the sound is mainly explosions and bad sounding background music. You'll want to bring a CD while playing.

Storyline:
This is where Zero Wing really suffers. The game really didn't need a plot, yet they stuck one in anyway.
The English version of Zero Wing actually features a plot (the Japanese one didn't), shown in the intro movie added to the game when it came out in America. However, the intro sequence was very poorly translated, with people saying things like ''Somebody set up us the bomb'' and ''All your base are belong to us''.

Replayability: Nothing out of the ordinary, unless you want to play on a different difficulty.

Buy/Rent: Rent, even though it's almost impossible to find a cartridge of this game.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 01/04/03, Updated 01/04/03