Air Zonk
from Hudson Soft
An in-depth hu card review by
Dylan Hankel
Air Zonk
from Hudson Soft
An in-depth hu card review by
Dylan Hankel
-Dylan Hankel
It's the future. Bonk's futuristic sunglass-wearing
cyborg descendent, Zonk zooms around with his sunglass-wearing buddies(yep they're
cyborgs too).
Then, the futuristic descendent of King Drool, um-ah...King Drool, decides to take
over the world with his crazy looking army of cyber bots and his mean team of cyber
bosses. Well, if you were a sunglass-wearing cyborg armed-to-the-teeth and hung out
with a bunch of sunglass-wearing cyborg
friends armed-to-the-teeth, what would you do? Well, since this is a Hudson/Red shooter,
first you'd probably say to your sunglass-wearing cyborg armed-to-the-teeth friends:
"Hey, King Drool wants to take over the Earth. Let's blow him up." And
then your sunglass-wearing armed-to-the-teeth cyborg friends say: "Yeah, we'd
like to blow him up too.
That would be fun. We'd like to do that." And then you say: "Of course,
it'll be fun to blow up his invading forces too." To which your sunglass-wearing
armed-to-the-teeth cyborg friends say: "Yeah! First we'll blow up the invasion,
AND THEN WE"LL BLOW HIM UP!!!" So, get ready for the blast-a-thon of Air
Zonk, because it's time to shoot up the future with guns-a-blazing,Hudson Soft/Red
style!
  He's Zonk. He's got a lightning bolt on his head. He's got power sunglasses. His boots are rocket-powered weapons. He can spit super-powered missiles out of his mouth. I guess you might say Zonk is kind of like Bonk meets the Terminator. But considering Z Man is a walking,flying arsenal, it's a good bet Arnie wouldn't be much of a match for the old Zonkster. |
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Combine top-notch,high-quality graphics with great parallax, cool bosses and a
endless assortment of crazy,very inventive-looking enemies and Zonk's very original
looking friends and Air Zonk is a graphic marvel for the eyes.
As I said before, Zonk's moves/attacks go perfectly with the great play control and
they're also easy to do and remember. Button II fires continuous shots, hold down
I and release to shoot big green shots great for taking out tougher or larger enemies.
When powered-up green shots hit, they break up into smaller shots which are great
for taking out multiple enemies. Keep holding Button I and Zonk will release a power
missile which will damage or destroy everything on screen. This is one of Zonk's
cooler (and very colorful) attacks and it shows off the graphical power of the TurboGrafx-16.
Great for damaging bosses or when you're in a tight spot and everyone's about to
get you. I could go on for quite awhile listing all the innovative weapons Zonk can
get and power up but I don't want to spoil the fun of trying the game out for the
first time. Some of the cooler ones include a homing missile arm cannon and steel
traps shot out of Zonk's mouth. This game has some of the funnest moves, attacks,
and weapons that you'll ever see in a shooter of this type.
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While some of the sound effects in Air Zonk may sound understated or quiet, they
still work out well because they fit in excellantly with the visual style of the
game. But if there's anything about AZ that isn't understated, it's the music. This
game has some of the best music I've heard on a Turbochip game. AZ's music is very
well done and fun to listen to. Whether it be the techno-Caribbean music of Deep
Blue (listen to those echoes in the background, very cool), or the menacing, industrial-techno
sounds of Stage 5, Land of Drool, the music of AZ keeps with the fast pace of the
game and makes it all the more enjoyable. So, turn up the volume and take advantage
of the TG-16's 6-channel stereo sound so you can really enjoy the game's music!
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Zonk's friends are totally original but some of the game's enemies and characters are direct take-offs of characters from the Bonk games. There's the futuristic cousins of the egg-headed chikkuns, the bucketheads, the sprung florets are back and this time they wear sunglasses and bow ties(don't shoot the blues ones, they'll follow you around and try to attack you just like the bad ones in the Bonk games). Zonk himself obviously looks like the Bonkster. Many of the characters' humorous facial expressions or appearances will remind players of the graphics style of the Bonk series. There are still tons of very original enemies too, though and some look prehistoric and high tech at the same time and some look bio-mechanical(cool!). Like I said before, this is one of the great things about Air Zonk, it combines the graphics style of the Bonk games and new style graphics excellantly. Bonk fans and newcomers alike will be able to get into AZ right away because the game looks familiar(to Bonk fans anyway) and new at the same time in an innovative way.
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One of the best parts of the game is being able to choose from a wide assortment
of Zonk's friends ( 1 per stage) and combining to transform and pull off cool combo
shots once a bunch of smileys and two big smileys have been collected. 
Unfortunately, no matter how many
smileys you get in Drool's Fortress in Stage 5, the game won't let you combine with
a friend after the first few areas (I've tried many times). 1 big smiley=friend who'll
fly with you and shoot at enemies too, but don't let them take too much damage from
the enemies or they'll be gone before you can combine. Defend you and your friend
by taking out enemies before they can hit you. Don't forget that using your backfire
shot works well for defense especially when enemies are smeaking up from behind.
It works best when fired automatically but you can press select to fire it manually.
Also, once you've combined, you get a temporary blast of invincibilty to rack up
easy points which go towards scoring 1-ups ( the only way to get 1-ups in the game
is to keep racking up as high a score as possible) or frying enemies and bosses.
The friends and combo morphs are very cool looking and show a lot of imagination
on the part of Hudson and Red's design team for the game as do the friends themselves.
Scud, Spike Lee (or is that Ree? Heh heh), Bubblician, Power Dump, Bob, Mumbles,
Moo Moo, Astra, Ripp, and Tojo are all worthy cyber side kicks. Trying out diffrent
combos on different
stages is very fun and gives the game alot of replay value (the killer graphics,
play control, and sound don't hurt either). Also, choose "Alone" for the
game mode and you get three special helper friends that each provide temporary backup
after you shoot certain purple florets!
Air Zonk has some of the best play control ever in a shooter. The razor-sharp play
control and weapon/power-up play mechanics work together perfectly. Powering up weapon
energy, shooting weapons and shots always feel very tight. You can feel the excitement
of knowing that once you let go of holding down button I, that weapon energy will
be shot without a problem, toasting the enemy. Regular shots fire continuously with
almost zero letdown. Shots fired off when Zonk is combined respond very well to the
controls(although the firing patterns of Scud and Bob seem a little slow once combined,
it's not to the point of frustration). The weapons/power-up system is a lot of fun
and well done. Not only can you power up regular shots into big shots and missiles,
but when you get weapons from air bones, you can power up weapons and release their
own special energy. First time players will have a lot of fun(I know I did) getting
new weapons and powering them up just to see what sort of new energy blast that they're
going to see next. Unfortunately, Zonk can't power up when he's small or combined.
In short, Hudson and Red did a great job in making Air Zonk's play control easy and
consistent and it never lets you down.
Air Zonk's challenge is adjustable. There are three settings.
Sweet: Very easy. Enemies are easy to defeat and take a lot less hits to kill. You'll
breeze through the game in no time (which isn't a good thing).
OK for younger players maybe but more experienced players will want to take something
tougher for more of an experience.
Spicy: This is the mode that I recommend. It's not too hard but still plenty challenging
most of the time.
Bitter: They named it this for a reason. Take this only if you've mastered "Spicy"
and are very good at the game. Expect LOTS of enemy fire.
Stages- There are five stages in Air Zonk and they vary greatly in appearance
and challenge. If I remember Video Games and Computer Entertainment magazine correctly,
they said, "If we had only one complaint about Air Zonk, it's that it is too
short." Well, even though the game has "only" five stages, it seems
more like six because stage 5 has well over five areas in it, so the game will end
up seeming longer than it is.
Stage 1-Toxy Land: An over-the-ocean assault on Drool's forces. GreenPeace boats
at 4 o'clock!
Stage 2-Cyber City: Check out those amazing color-changing signs in the background.
It really shows off the TG-16's variety of colors. Shoot it out in the streets with
fire hydrants, street lights, and bucket heads in double decker buses, soar and blast
over giant purple buildings and get attacked by killer billboards, and then get ready
to take out the trash in a high tech junkyard and prepare for a showdown with a molten
glob of garbage goo probably known as "The Trashinator." And you thought
that city in Blade Runner looked cool.
Stage 3-Rockin' Stadium: A very cool stage, but where's the John Madden and Pat Summeral
bucketheads?
Stage 4-Deep Blue: Well, as Jacques Zonksteau would say: "Ze ocean ees full
of many marvels and dangers including ze torpedo-shooting cyber lobsters, ze mean
little whirlpools with eyes that attack you, and let's not forget ze see-through
neon-colored glow fish. So let's blow it up, eh? Ah the ocean is such a cruel...whoops!
I'm having a flashback from my Bonk's Revenge review.
Stage5-Land of Drool: One of the neatest stages in the game and the most challenging
and longest stage. The graphics are at full blast here. Get ready to send Drool and
his cyber minions to oblivion.
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Air Zonk is one of the greatest Turbo games of all time. Great graphics, gameplay,
and sound make for a title that really shows off the power of the TurboGrafx-16.
In my opinion (and many others), AZ is even better than Super Air Zonk(still a great
game though) in terms of graphics, gameplay, and it has a much better combo system
than SAZ. Words really can't do the game jusice, though. This is one of those games
that you have to play and decide for yourself. It's a very fun shooter that you'll
want to play over and over again.
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