From: Zach Keene Subject: Zach's Shooter Reviews: ZANAC [NES] (Take 2) Date: 1999/06/13 Message-ID: <37642FA4.29711203@bellsouth.net> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Accept-Language: en,de Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: news4.mia 929313044 209.214.52.8 (Sun, 13 Jun 1999 18:30:44 EDT) Organization: /dev/null MIME-Version: 1.0 NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 13 Jun 1999 18:30:44 EDT Newsgroups: alt.games.video.shooters (Sorry if you get this twice. BTW, I'm beginning to wonder if there's a UDP on Dejanews at the moment. That's not very good for AGVS at all, since many people rely on Deja to get here.) Well, I meant to write this a long time agp, but never got around to it. Sorry. --- Begin Review --- Long before FF2US set the standard for horrible translations, there was ZANAC. More specifically, ZANAC's instruction manual. While still more or less readable, whoever wrote it obviously never heard of a spellchecker, with such beauties as "a long time agp", "Automativ", "Rclocate the NES with respect to the receiver" (and I bet you never read those FCC Regulation pages. :) Fortuantely, ZANAC is not an RPG, so it can get away with all the misspellings and awkward translations it wants. STORY: "The System", whatever the heck that is, was created by an organic intelligence body a long time agp. It started out very small, then grew enough to take up the entire universe, and remained active after the "organic intelligence body" perished. Of course, after some "System" takes up the entire universe, I can't imagine anything would be still alive. It's purpose: to give wisdom to those who "opened the icon properly" and wreak havoc on those who "opened the icon improperly." (Don't look at me, I didn't write this manual.) Naturally, some git opened the icon improperly, causing mass destruction until someone opened the icon properly. However, "the System" ignored this fact and went on killing people anyway. So, after a large human offensive force gets zapped, the humans determine in their infinite wisdom that one ship could succeed against "the System" where an entire fleet had failed. (Opening icons causing mass destruction? How could the folks at Compile possibly have known about Microsoft Windows?) PLAYERS: Unfortunately, only one player can fight the system. GAMEPLAY: Operate your AFX-6502-ZANAC and destroy the enemy. Your main cannon begins as a single-shot pea shooter, which can be upgraded by picking up orbs into a dual-shot and finally a triple shot. You also have a secondary weapon system which can use any of eight different kinds of weapons, which are activated by picking up icons numbered 0 through 7. You start the game equipped with Fire 0, a large fireball that can be fired in any of eight directions. Picking up another Fire 0 icon makes it a dual-fireball cannon. Other options are Fire 1, which sends a fireball slowly up the screen taking out anything in its path, Fire 2 is a shield that lasts for a limited time, Fire 3 creates a fireball that orbits your ship, Fire 4 is some vibrating doodad that I can't remember exactly how it works, Fire 5 is a fireball that drifts slowly up the screen and then falls back down, Fire 6 is a very powerful weapon that eliminates all onscreen objects when it hits something, and Fire 7 is a rapid-fire cannon. No big deal so far, right? Well, here's where ZANAC gets interesting. The placements and frequency of airborne objects such as most enemies and the Boxes that contain cannon powerups are not set in stone, but rather depend on your performance. Start firing like a madman at nothing in particular, and the difficulty goes up. When a powerup appears, the difficulty goes up. Take out a reconnaissance plane, and the difficulty goes down. Your major objective is to try and take out the various Fortresses scattered throughout the game's 12 levels. When you reach a Fortress, you have a limited amount of time to destroy it. If you do, the difficulty goes down. If you don't, the difficulty goes up. There are also a lot of neat secrets, most of which are just as unpredictible as the enemy formations you'll face. Sometimes you can ram into a Box that contains a cannon powerup and have your cannon completely powered-up. Other times you can do that and just plain die. I once managed to find a stage warp once, but have no idea how and have never done it since. If your first shot in a level is destroying a Sart recon plane with Fire 0, it'll turn into a 1-up. (Sometimes.) DEATH PENALTY: Your next ship begins with single-shot main cannon and a low power Fire 0. CHALLENGE: This game is hard. Not cheap hard like RayStorm for the most part, but the unpredictability of the enemies causes quite a bit of a challenge. Not to mention the fact that the Fortress love filling up the screen with bullets, or launching these buggers that are difficult to destroy and make it difficult to hit the weak points of the fortress. You're given (I believe) unlimited continues, but continuing at level 11 or 12 takes you back to level 10. Ouch. GRAPHICS: Simple, but there's little slowdown or breakdown, both of which have plagued far lesser NES games than this. There is not too much varience in the backgrounds (at least not in the stages I've been to), as you seem to spend a lot of time in a desert-like level, with a forest or ocean or iceland every once in a while to break up the monotony. (There's a space level or two later on, though.) However, you'll be far too busy dodging to notice. MUSIC: Quite good for an NES game. It won't get stuck in your head like Radiant Silvergun's first level music does (to me, anyway), and it won't make you wish you could pop it in your CD player like Darius Gaiden does (to me, anyway). But it sure beats the hell out of 1942's constant whistle "music". :) CONTROL: No problems here. Your ship moves fairly quickly compared to some other shooters, but not to the point of being uncontrollable. OVERALL: 9/10. The ever-changing difficulty is quite innovative for the time, and keeps this game interesting, if not difficult. This game is to the NES like The Raiden Project is to the PSX, IMO. If you're a shooter fan and you own an NES, get this game goshdarnit! And try to get a copy with the manual intact. You definately don't want to miss out on that. :) Zach Keene ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Author of many FAQs: MK2, FF1, Einhander, CSOTN, AGVS, G3, and G.Darius ftp://members.aol.com/fnlfanatic/arcanelore/ Shooter fans: Visit the new alt.games.video.shooters today! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "The freedom we lost cannot be re-conquered cheaply, but however high, it's a price worth paying." - Robert Miles -----------------------------------------------------------------------