Zero Wing

A fantastic horizontal arcade shooter that will deliver a big hit of nostalgia for the gamers of the '90s, and anyone else who wants to see how frustratingly hard games could be in the good old days.

We've really got a thing for this iconic game from Toaplan, an iconic shmup publisher back in the '90s. Zero Wing was first released in arcades in 1989, but most people will probably remember it from its Mega Drive port in 1992.

Zero Wing begins with that famous intro that is now a legendary meme, with a translation so bad that it became a cult classic. That's right: all your base are belong to us! It's even referenced in Disney's Wreck-It Ralph, where graffiti of "all your base are belong to us" can be seen when Ralph leaves the meeting with the bad guys.

When it comes to the gameplay, Zero Wing is a horizontal shooter with checkpoints, meaning that when you die, you lose all of your bonuses and go back to the last checkpoint. It was quite common back in the day, but might be frustrating for younger gamers.

There are three kinds of different weapons that you can upgrade by collecting bonuses of the same colour, dropped by enemies. Then there's the tractor beam that can be used to drag bombs or trap enemies to use as a shield or even a projectile.

We liked the simplicity of the gameplay that gets straight down to the fun. It can be summed up as blowing things up while avoiding being blown up yourself. On old arcade machines, the controls needed to be intuitive and straightforward, and that's what you get here.

To help you on your way: you can capture enemies and use them as a shield in front of your ship. It's loads of fun, especially when you manage to trap a much larger enemy. You can also shoot them forwards to take out whole waves of enemies! And that's what makes Zero Wing so original.

The game contains eight levels, each lasting a few minutes and featuring different environments and enemies.

A great arcade classic, just how we like 'em!