Zero Wing

"Sombody set up us the bomb" indeed. After you've spent half an hour laughing at the terribly translated into sequence, you can get into a quite enjoyable though for the most part, unoriginal flying spaceship thingy. Power-ups consist of a series of increasingly powerful options, and your ship has the handy ability to snag the smaller enemies in a tractor beam to be used as a shield or thrown at othe baddies. The tractor beam also lets you carry a handy smartbomb.

The graphics are nice and chunky, with bosses generally filling the screen. Music, and use of colour are just avarage.

I believe there is also a version for the PC Engine CDROM2 and an arcade PCB.

The intro sequence appeared on the Genesis / MD version, and may have appeared on the Turbo CD / PC Engine version. The arcade version featured very little in terms of story; however, it was not without its own misspellings. In the demo scenes, vulcan was misspelled as valcan. Unfortunately, I know of nobody who's played through any version to get see the ending sequence, which I'm sure contains just as many hilarities as the intro.

The intro has to be seen to be believed, and there is an animated GIF roaming around the internet. Just in case you don't want to find it yourself, here's the full text:

IN A.D. 2101

WAR WAS BEGINNING.

CAPTAIN: WHAT HAPPEN ?

MECHANIC: SOMEBODY SET UP US THE BOMB.

OPERATOR: WE GET SIGNAL.

CAPTAIN: WHAT !

OPERATOR: MAIN SCREEN TURN ON.

CAPTAIN: IT'S YOU !!

CATS: HOW ARE YOU GENTLEMEN !!

CATS: ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US.

CATS: YOU ARE ON THE WAY TO DESTRUCTION.

CAPTAIN: WHAT YOU SAY !!

CATS: YOU HAVE NO CHANCE TO SURVIVE MAKE YOUR TIME.

CATS: HA HA HA HA ....

OPERATOR: CAPTAIN !!

CAPTAIN: TAKE OFF EVERY 'ZIG'!!

CAPTAIN: YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DOING.

CAPTAIN: MOVE 'ZIG'.

CAPTAIN: FOR GREAT JUSTICE.

end.

The ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US retouchings are the biggest reason for this side-scrolling shooter's continued popularity. I haven't played very far into it, but I've discovered a few tactics that should help.

You have three different ways to attack:

• Your missiles (press A).
• Ramming smaller enemies with the little option ships above and below the Zig.
• Grabbing a smaller enemy and throwing it at another enemy (press B). If you've played Kirby's Adventure, Kirby's Dream Land, or any of the other Kirby games, this will come naturally.

In the intro scenes, the Zig's windows are green. In the game, the windows change color depending on what weapon you have. Naturally, the green weapon (homing missiles) is the most versatile, clearing away hordes of enemies quickly and making boss battles merely a matter of dodging their bullets without worrying about aiming. FOR GREAT JUSTICE TAKE ON RED, GREEN, GREEN, GREEN.

YOU CAN'T DIE! If you're not playing for points (which are reset every third time your Zig is blown up), there is no difference between dying and continuing, thanks in part to unlimited credits ("FREE PLAY"). Or just use DGen's save feature after you beat each mini-boss. (You may have to pause and resume the game to clear up an incompatibility between Zero Wing's music engine and DGen's save support.)

I will REMOVE your "All Your Radical Touching Base Are Already Occurred to The Lesbian Monkey Puppy" Philosophy on me if you don't eat my soy google balls, hatt-baby. Real or Malarky?

• Red Bullet Powerups - your Zig and gun platforms will shoot increasing numbers of red bullets as you gain these powerups, but they still suck.
• Blue Laser Powerups - your Zig and gun platforms shoot one blue laser each, which quickly travels in a straight line across the screen, and increasing in strength as you pick up more powerups.
• Green Missile Powerups - your Zig and gun platforms shoot a lot of homing missiles. The more enemies on the screen, the more you shoot. They increase in power as you gain more powerups. They also do heavy amounts of damage, making this the best weapon.
• Speed Powerups - your Zig goes faster as you pick up more.
• Super Bomb - it is held like you would hold a ship with the tractor beam, and when you release it, or when it is hit, it makes a nice big deadly explosion.

• Orientation: Horizontal
• Type: Raster: Standard Resolution
• CRT: Color

• Joystick: 8-way
• Buttons: 2 - Shoot, Seizer

Sound: Amplified Mono (one channel)

The Rest has been said, it just needed technical specs