PixlBit

The craziest and "coolest" shooter you'll ever find

We've all played shoot 'em ups before. There are tons of them on the NES and SNES, and they can be found on pretty much any console known to man. Usually shooters involve a ship or some kind of vehicle and usually you shoot at aliens or other ships. Well, Air Zonk turns the entire genre on its head. Air Zonk is a shooter, but you don't control a ship and you don't shoot at aliens. It's bizarre, awesome, and humurous at the same time. Air Zonk is a unique and refreshing shooter.

Developed by Red Company and published by Hudson Soft, Air Zonk was released for the TurboGrafx-16 in 1992. It's a spin-off game of the Bonk series, which is the mascot series for the TG16. On the opening screen, Bonk appears, then transforms into Zonk, and zooms into the future. It's supposed to be in the future, yet King Drool is the villain (maybe it's his ancestor?). Air Zonk is a unique experience as well as an homage to the Bonk series.

You start by picking the difficulty: sweet mode, spicy mode, or bitter mode. Then you get to choose a friend to aid you in battle. There are ten different friends and you get to choose a different one before you start each stage. You can also choose to go alone, but who would do that? These are the coolest friends ever, including a giant missile, a dump truck, a baseball named Bob, a little magician girl, a cow named Moo Moo, a flying mummy, and some others. After you choose a friend, they take the spotlight and a pair of shades slams on 'em bam! Now we're ready to go kick butt!

The game is purposefully bizarre, with weird enemies and crazy power-ups. Each level has enemies which fit into that environment. For example, level 2 is in a city, so you'll fight fire hydrants and parking meters (which reminds me of another crazy game, Earthbound). While blasting enemies, you can grab smiley faces for points and different meat packages for different power-ups. It's easy to get extra lives if you're blasting everything.

The power-ups are crazy yet awesome. Here's some of them: lightning bolts which shoot out from Zonk in every direction, surrounding him; rocket missile gloves which shoot out then come back; death jaw missiles which shoot right out of Zonk's mouth; laser beams which, once again, shoot from Zonk's mouth. But by far the most helpful power-up decreases Zonk to half his size, making it harder for you to get hit by enemy fire. Eventually you'll learn which power-up is best to use in a specific spot, which can make a huge difference.

If you grab a giant smiley face with shades, your friend shows up to shoot alongside you. All the friends do the same thing, keeping in step with you and firing missiles at the enemies. But here's the cool part: if you grab another giant smiley face with shades while your friend is with you, Zonk and the friend will merge into a unique transformation (depending on which friend you have) and you'll be invincible for a short time. After the invincibility wears off, you'll stay in this transformation until you get hit. The transformations are awesome! Zonk and Moo Moo transform into a cow tank that shoots fat missiles; Zonk and Mumbles (the mummy) transform into a giant spinning drill which shoots quickly across the entire screen; Zonk and the giant missile transform into an awesome spaceship that shoots a huge wave of lasers across the screen. These transformations are the incentives to try out all the friends and see what they can do.

The levels are not long, but can certainly be challenging. Luckily, you have unlimited continues, so beating a level just takes a little persistence. Each level is unique in its setting, enemies, and overall feel. There's a city level, a sports stadium level, a water level, and the last level is a great homage to the Bonk series as you fly back to prehistoric times and fight dinosaurs and eventually face King Drool. This is a long level, including a boss rush at the end, so you'll need as many lives as you can get. Each level has a mid-boss and a final boss at the end (which always has two phases). The bosses are giant and fun, but don't let your guard down as the bosses have some crazy attacks. Luckily, power-ups will float by every now and then to help you. Also, having a friend during a boss fight can save the day. However, the ultra-fast-moving background during boss fights can be a little disorienting.

When it comes to dying, it only takes one hit, unless you have a power-up, in which you'll lose the power-up when you're hit. When Zonk dies, he slowly falls downward, causing you to miss any power-ups which might be floating by on screen. This happened to me more than once, and it was most frustrating when I missed a giant smiley face with shades. No, my friend! I need you, Bob! When you beat a boss or finish an area, Zonk puts up the two finger peace sign. Yeah, he's so cool!

Speaking of cool, the music for Air Zonk is very cool! It's that oldschool beaty kind of music which you never get tired of hearing (I don't, atleast). There's no doubt that this is a crazy and cool game, and that's only made more obvious by the music. It goes a long way in establishing the cool factor of this game, and we all know that cool was important in the 90s.

Final Verdict--4.5 Stars: Highly Recommended

I really enjoyed Air Zonk. It's cool, fun, hilarious, challenging, and refreshingly original. It's great to see it pay respect to the Bonk series while at the same time blazing its own path. Be prepared, though, because that last level is long, but the entire adventure is worth it. Air Zonk is available for download on the Wii Virtual Console, and you should definitely get it if you've never experienced this awesome game. The cool friends alone make this game worth it. I mean, c'mon, that is the coolest dump truck I've ever seen.

Join me every Saturday as we take a look back at all kinds of retro games, good and bad.