GAME OF THE MONTH COLLECTION!
AIR ZONK

(Hudson Soft/Red, 1992)

Intro: Video review:
I would like to present to you, my fans, the next Game of the Month in VGG........... Air Zonk! It's the usual storyline in Air Zinc: Bonk the caveman sends a Bonk-like cyborg named Zonk to the future to stop the evil King Drool of the future....... "Forget how Bonk would know how create and build a robot in the prehistoric times and how Bonk knew about the evil King Drool of the future? This is Zonk's game now, so who cares!" Zonk's mission is to destroy the new Drool empire and it is going to be a tough one (well, kind of) because Zonk has to pass 5 of the weirdest levels ever to reach Drool himself and he'll throw everything at you too (like garbage, baseballs, and flowers) but fortunately old' cyber Bonk has 10 friends to help him out.

Air Zuck is loaded with 8 different weapons like the Sunglasses of Doom, Playing cards of Death, Electro teeth thingy and many more advanced weapons like that can even be charged up by holding down the button like in R Type for a more powerful attack, plus if you charge Zank all the way he'll release a powerful smart bomb to clear the screen of your egg headed enemies. You get to pick a friend before you start a level (depending on your options at least) and they will only show up if you manage to get a super happy smiley face (with sunglasses). Your friends are not too much help since they only fire basic missiles and just follow you around but if you get a second Super happy smiley face (with sunglasses) Zonky and your friend will morph into whole new character like if Moo Moo is your partner you'll turn into a milk jar firing cowman........ Of Doom!


Here's the huge and really weird first boss of Air Monk. Milk works well here.

The graphics may be a little cartoonish like but they still really push the turbo to its limits thanks to all the colours and the huge goofy characters. There are always loads of enemies on screen and the bosses and mini-bosses will not be afraid to throw everything at you either but unfortunately there isn't a lot of slowdown so you cheat as much. The music isn't too annoying either in Air Jordan Zonk especially if you turn it down and listen to the radio instead. Some of the tunes are actually kind of catchy like the futuristic stage 2 music and most of the music in stage 5 but the sound track in the sport stadium on level 3 just sucked.


Heh! It's Bonk's Adventure! Wait....... something's different?

The Bottomline: Video Playthrough:
Being an TurboGrafx-16 game and being released 1992 (the turbo was really fading fast that year) is like the double whammy for Airplane Zonk so it's not one of history's more popular video games. Although both the Sweet and Spicy modes are fairly easy, the Bitter mode is virtually impossible making the game play a little uneven because you only get one life and an insane difficulty. Another problem with Antichrist Zonik is the game's short length. "Why are there only 5 levels?"

Still I recommend you get AOL Zonk because it is not only a very rare video game but there's nothing else like this shooter for any system. Air Zickness has a lot of personality, the action is furious and quick, and the weapons rule. Air Zonk also holds a special place for me and here on this website because I have the World Record of a massive 30, 332, 430 points found in the magazine EGM#45 and website Twin Galaxies. As of today the game has yet to be broken. It's definitely worth picking up this wacky game if you do manage to find it.

Below is a huge list of all the other Air Zonk games released throughout history?

Here's some of my Artwork of Sky Zoink!


SUPER AIR ZONK (Hudson Soft, 1993, Turbo Duo)
The Extremely Rare sequel that I don't even own yet! Yup, that's the only one.

Conclusion:

 

AIR ZONK
overall rating: 79/100

Find Air Zonk on eBay here!

For 1 player only
graphics: 8/10
sound: 7/10
gameplay: 9/10
replay: 8/10


-StarSoldier1
(Ryan Genno) 2001

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