Well, I played both the
Genesis and the
arcade versions of this
game. The
arcade version had better
graphics, but no funny intro, and no
rapid fire. This meant that after about 30 minutes of playing this game I realized it would only lead to the early onset of
carpal tunnel syndrome, so I went over to the
Genesis version.
When you start off you are in your
Zig which can shoot one
puny red bullet. You will soon want to pick up a
powerup.
The
powerups are dispensed from these slow moving ships which the enemy apparently has left around the bases so that they can get destroyed and give you a powerup. There are five kinds of powerup, and all of them have three levels except the last. Having any of the weapon powerups will give you these two floating, indestructible gun platforms above and below you. The weapon powerups also change the
color of your
Zig's window.
- 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.
After I got the strongest missile powerup, I never stopped using it due to my
Genesis emulator's save and restore functions.
Your Zig also had the aforementioned
tractor beam. You could grab powerups with it, hold super bombs, and most importantly hold enemy
ships captive. You could then use these ships as a shield or shoot them at other enemy ships. After you take a ship captive, it can never threaten you again, so with a few enemies it was easier to run up and capture them than
destroy them. You could carry small enemy ships with no speed penalty, and some larger ships, but the larger ships would drag you down and make you slow.
Your gun platforms, being entirely
invulnerable, could also be used as shields or to destroy enemy ships.
I spent the game constantly shooting my missiles while evading enemy fire and sometimes grabbing an enemy ship to shield me. At the end, I was rewarded with "
CONGRATULATIONS!" and some purple jelly bean things dancing.
The
levels have absolutely nothing to do with the
intro, except that you are flying a Zig. You never again see this "Cats" character. The levels range from some water planet, an asteroid base, a tunnel, and an alien hive. My favorite part was the alien hive, where one of the mini bosses was two alien creatures who would MATE right in front of you and then spawn tons of small alien flying things.
However, you are supposed to beat the game six times over, and if I ever get around to this, maybe there is a better ending.