Game of the Day - Zing Zing Zip

Zing Zing Zip has some elements as goofy as its name.  It's a quasi-typical vert shooter from the early 90s.  I like shooters from this era because the graphics are nice and power-ups are plentiful, but it pre-dates the games that are so flooded with stuff that it's hard to tell what's going on.

And yes, the graphics are nice.  Big stuff, detailed stuff, little stuff, nice explosions.  Also, the action happens in many ways...  some stuff approaches from the top, some from the bottom, some fast and some slow.   Also, you occasionally get large groups that form formations and kind of wait for you and you have to blast the whole group before more chaos ensues.

The controls are typical, fire & bomb - both can be powered-up in a variety of ways.  There is one new-ish game element... If you perform a quick roll - by moving either left or right and then quickly moving the opposite direction, you will not only be avoiding enemy fire, but will be awarded a power-up.  When you move left or right the plane kind of rolls anyway (which I like), so the way you know you did the special maneuver is that the plane will roll all the way over (upside-down) and flash (invulnerability for a moment?).

Now the bad.  The title screen, theme and sounds are XXX goofy.  Of all the speech that occurs in the game, (power-ups, bombs, etc) I don't know what is being said 80% of the time because it's in a ridiculously goofy voice.  Sounds like something from an outtake of the Rocky and Bullwinkle show.

That stuff aside, Zing Zing Zip is a cut above other games of its era, give it a whirl (maybe with the sound turned down).