Zero Wing - Arcade

Someone set us up the bomb!

All your base are belong to us, Gentlemen make your time and a whole host of other such bad translations are what plagued the Megadrive/genesis version of this game, but now we have just the arcade version which features solely the gameplay and no shoehorned plots and cut scenes that the console version has.

In AD 2101, War was beginning

With that, what we have is a solid, if a little long, scrolling spaceship shooter. Bright and colourful graphics adorn the gameplay while you're zipping through space collecting powerups, speedups and massive bombs while negating around weapons, enemies, projectiles and some VERY large bosses.

CATS: How are you gentlemen!!!

For plot, there's little to realise in Zerowing beyond you leaving an exploding space station and... That's it, you're off! Into the large black abyss that is "The Space" and you're flying from left to right and taking on all comers in a massive battle royal of you vs. everyone else. On your way you have the lovely little ability to shoot and use a sort of tractor beam that lets you capture small and medium sized enemies and then launch them at others or use them as a shield.

Operator: We get signal

Zerowing's powerups come in several flavours of primary light colours, red for spread shooting, blue for lasers and green for homing shots. Get enough of the same colour and you'll power up through levels of 3 shot, to 5 shot and then 7 shot (except for lasers, they just get fatter) while your 2 pods will also stop most attacks and even destroy smaller enemies for you. You can be seriously kitted out in a short amount of time.

You are on the way to destruction!

Which you'll need for Zerowing as the levels can be extensively long and it's not until you destroy the 2nd boss-looking monster that you're actually told it's the next level. Bosses are not introduced with any fanfare, the music doesn't change, they just turn up and you're fighting them while usually the normal enemies are still trying to swarm you. It's almost as if someone added bosses and then forgot to recognise them as bosses.

Take off every 'ZIG'

The controls in Zerowing are fairly responsive though you do have that issue of trying to control a spacecraft that's going too fast if you're not careful in picking up those bonus items. However, there's the issue also of the dying and being grossly underpowered as a result of not having the firepower needed to take on the onslaught of multiple weapons from a myriad of opponents.

CATS: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha...

The music for Zerowing is a little simplistic and repeats throughout each level but has the good sense and grace to change with the levels. Sadly some of those levels are EXTREMELY long, take up 2-3 bosses before being defeated or can be won out within a single simple boss. There's an inconsistent pattern about the design and it shows.

Captain: ... For great justice

There's flaws in the game, there's great aspects too with the level design and the fairly constant difficulty curve that's in place. There's plenty of challenge and given the age of the game, quite an extensive set of levels and gameplay on offer for the studious and hardworking gamer. Certainly worth a play just to see some of the bigger bosses and inventive designs for them.

The Game With No Name - Dos

I have no idea who ART is.

ASCII, or the programmers guide to using characters instead of actually coming up with graphics, can be used to make some interesting games and with games like Jason Jupiter, Rogue and Kingdom of Kroz, it gives older games and programmers a chance to realise their games as whatever it is they wanted it to be, assuming that a big smiling face was acceptable for their main character (usually).

 

It's supposed to be a jungle I guess.

The Game With No Name, actually has a name and it's "The Game With No Name" so we're off to a confusing start already. It is a simple little platformer that uses a single screen to display each level and has the usual expected ticks on the platformers guide to making a platform game. Little character? Check. Enemies that move in predictable directions? Check. Collection of items to beat the level? Check. Password system for later levels? Check. Puzzle element that requires a little bit of thinking to make sure you don't get stuck? Double Check. Lifts and other traps? Check.

Level 1, filled with suspense and danger! Until you realise that there's no suspense, or danger.

Trapped somewhere (like it really matters) you're tasked with collecting fuel/diamonds (expensive isn't it but what fuel station isn't these days? Right??? nevermind...) by navigating your way through various surprisingly colourful levels in order to hop, collect and acquire the necessary fuel to escape from your location. Along the way you'll have to also find key items that will do various things from unlocking doors, illuminating your way etc. otherwise you will be unable to progress further in the game. (Which entirely negates the point of a password system to jump levels as it doesn't give you the items you will have missed by jumping ahead!)

Think fast! Or really really slowly given the speed your machine needs to run at.

Some tout this game as one of the hardest to play, in a way they're right. The game is broken in many versions in that the fifth level has 1 less diamond than the game is searching for and as such, is physically impossible to defeat it. On top of that, there's also the issue of multiple enemies that have to be navigated around and in some cases, used as stepping stones before they kill you in a shower of red blocks. Other regular traps include a fountain that has to be switched off in order to gain access to the rest of the level otherwise the falling water will kill you.

Yes, I AM running out of ideas for pictures at this point.

But the biggest problem in the game is being VERY careful in planning your route, getting a diamond removes it from play and as such, may have been serving as a stepping stone towards other diamonds that you will require to find within that level. Other traps include lifts/elevators that raise you up, into enemies or into the ceiling if you're not careful. That said, the design and innovation in the levels is interesting enough to encourage players to keep playing in order to get to the next level just to see the next challenge. The problem with this is that while you can resume play on a level by getting the password to it (and they’re all to do with computers and hardware), you will miss the key items you require to continue usually after those levels are over.

Game over? Thank fuck for that.

There's no sound in the game so nothing to talk about in that regard. But I imagine it would be beepy-boopy, but not in a dubstep way.

If you use your imagination, with these graphics, you can almost see, the bad ASCII being used.

It's a challenging little game that's presented rather well, all in all and for what it's worth, will keep people entertained for a short while in the least, but it's never going to be a long term game though can be worth a gander if you're curious to see how people have used the ASCII settings to create games.