ZERO WING

Zero Wing is a port of a 1989 arcade game that was released in 1991 in Europe by a small company called Toaplan. You play as the newly-''orphaned'' pilot of the fighter ZIG-01, and now that a villain named after the most popular Broadway music ever has all your base, you have to get it back. Sounds fun, doesn't it?
The graphics are actually quite nice. However, there is very little animation throughout the game, which is kind of sad given that this is a 16-bit system. Anyway, the backgrounds are very detailed, but Toaplan seems to like ''tiling'' them and hoping gamers won't notice. There is also not a lot of color in these backgrounds, even on the ''lusher'' levels like level 4 (Aquese I believe it's called). The ''foreground'' in level 5 partially obscuring the action is a nice touch.
There are a fairly wide variety of enemies in this game, and they all look quite nice, despite the relative lack of animation mentioned earlier. However, ZIG-01 looks kind of ''Chunky''; Less ''sleek'' than, say, Life Force's Vic Viper. Maybe it didn't participate in optional Intergalactic Fighter workouts, but for whatever reason, it's definitely a wide target.
The bosses are probably the highlight here....these guys are huge, and the mini-bosses that occupy some stages are no slouches in the size department either.
The game is comprised of a mostly techno-sounding soundtrack. However, except for the intro theme (Which we've all heard by now) and a snippet of the level 1 tune that was used in ''Invasion of the Gabber Robots'', you'll find that the tracks blend into one another as you play, song after song after techno song. Techno isn't really known for having tracks distinct from one another, and sadly, Zero Wing is no exception.
Also notable is a complete lack of a boss theme (Even Gradius, released in 1986, had one!). There's not even any sound effects to tell you ''Hey! This huge cyborg thing is a boss!''. Several times I thought I'd beaten a level when, in fact, I was only done with the mini-boss of the stage.
The sound effects are strangely sparse in this game. You have the sound of shots firing from ZIG-01, but no real effects for enemy fire. There's also the sound of your ZIG fighter getting set up the bomb (Or ''Blown up'', whichever you prefer), but that's pretty much it.
Zero Wing gives you an unusual option in the Control department. Namely, whether you'd like automatic Rapid-Fire or not. It's really pretty neat in that it allows beginner shooters to get as much out of the game as experts in the genre (Rapid fire in some form is essential to survival in any Space Shooter).
Other than that, though, there isn't a whole lot here that manages to distinguish Zero Wing from every other shooter out there. in fact, the most notable thing is that the curve on grabbing Speed-Ups is too sharp--1 will be all you really need; grab 2 or 3 and you'll soon be zig-zagging out of control and all over the place.
Avoid this pitfall and you'll find a ship of basically average responsiveness, which isn't really a bad thing (Most Shooter games have at least good control). And the Tractor Beam, where you grab enemies and fling them into other enemies, is a somewhat original feature--too bad you'll be too busy shooting everything that moves to use it. Your fire is, thankfully, quite fast.
Okay, so it plays like practically every other shooter out there, but is this necessarily bad? I mean really, the game was first released on a console in 1991. But anyway, ZIG-01 takes off and has to fly through 8 levels, none of them overly imaginative except perhaps for level 4's jungle-like environment. Along the way, you grab various power-ups, from a spread-shot to homing missiles--again, nothing truly mind-blowing. You also can acquire Life Force-like ''options''--mini-ships that shoot along with your larger ship--from grabbing a certain Power-up, which effectively triple your firepower.
Probably the most original thing about Zero Wing's play was its Tractor Beam, which could grab an enemy to be used as a shield or an offensive weapon to plow into another enemy. Another cool thing is that your Options actually absorbed fire for you and could be used as weapons themselves. This is very nice in that if you know a line of enemies will approach from above, you can simply position the Option to wipe them out as they enter the screen.
Whether intentional or not, this game has one of the best, most compelling stories out there. Rarely does a story make a game better, and even more rarely is this due to a bad translation. But this game is one of those gems.
Basically, it's the year AD 2101. You're on your nice little Fighter Carrier relaxing. All of a sudden, an explosion rocks the vessel. Uh-oh! Somebody set up you the bomb!
Next thing you know, you get signal, and your main screen turn on to reveal just who it was that set up your humble abode the bomb.
Oh no! It seems that all your base are belong to an excessively polite (Anytime a villain's first line is HOW ARE YOU GENTLEMEN!!, you know they've gone to etiquette school) cyborg named CATS. Furthermore, you are on the way to destruction. It also appears that you have no chance to survive make your time. This is not good. At all.
Realizing his seconds are numbered, the captain desperately tries to launch an offensive, calling out ''Take off every 'ZIG'!'' He reassures everyone that ''you know what you doing'', but alas, only you, the pilot of ZIG-01, escape alive before the carrier gets blown to smithereens.
So that's the basic story. You're now an orphan of sorts, and you have no place to land, because all your base are belong to CATS. Obviously, it's your job to get this base back, if for no other reason than to have a place to land. But your cause is far more noble than simply that. As you fly through the levels, the Captain's final words will haunt your memory: ''Move 'ZIG'. For great justice.''
You're not fighting to rescue some wimpy damsel-in-distress. You're not even fighting to save the world, really. No, you're fighting for great justice, the most noble cause there is to man. Let's face it, it just sounds like something you'd want to fight for in real life, if you could. And this is what makes Zero Wing's story so great. On several occasions, when I would ordinarily give up on a game, I instead find myself pressing Start to Continue with the words, ''I will save the world for great justice!''. Never mind that the world isn't technically what I'm supposed to be saving.
Actually, there's a fair amount of leeway in the challenge. You have your typical Easy, Normal, and Hard difficulty levels, but besides that, you can adjust your starting number of lives from 1 to 4 (4? Why not 5?). The toggling of Rapid Fire also plays a part in this game's difficulty.
but none of that really matters in late levels. This game has the same problem as most other shooters out there--that being, once you get beyond the halfway point or so, you'd better not mess up. If you die, good luck getting anywhere with no power-ups. I've died at least 50 times on one section because of this Fatal Shooter Flaw (No, that isn't a typo--the Easy level gives unlimited continues from pretty much where you left off). Despite what you may have read, however, the game does NOT send you back to the beginning of a level after death, and in certain cases will even send you FORWARD in a stage. Unfortunately, this doesn't happen where you need it, such as level 7.
The game is longer than most shooters of the day, sporting 8 levels as opposed to your typical 6 or 7. The fact that you can try as many times as you want to beat a level without penalty on Easy also helps the Replay Value of the game. Knowing that you really have nothing to lose helps spur you on to try and beat that one difficult section you simply can't get by. And of course, you can always try to beat your high score. For a game with almost nothing original, it really has a pretty high replay value.
Anytime a mistranslated intro is the best part of a game, it's usually a very bad sign. Yet Zero Wing is really not a bad game at all; It simply brings absolutely nothing revolutionary to the Space Shooter genre. It's pretty difficult to find, because it was never released in America (And is even fairly rare in Europe), but if you're a shooter fan it may be worth picking up nonetheless. Of course, you could always emulate it....