"Those who plot the destruction of others often perish in the attempt." - Thomas Moore

In the early 90's, overhead shooters were a dime a dozen. Most were very linear, however; such as the more popular Raptor: Call of the Shadows. This game was different in that instead of placing you on rails in each episode, you were free to navigate the region in any way you please.

Developer: Renaissance
Publisher: Epic MegaGames

Gameplay: While fairly open, Zone 66 is also pretty straight forward. After picking your Jet fighter and armament you navigate the fairly large region and take out the enemy's primary facilities which are shown as white dots on the game's map.

That's a lot of stuff to blow up

Blowing up all of those facilities isn't as easy as it sounds, though. All of the facilities are defended by state of the art automated defense systems (red dots) that ensure players that winning each episode is not a walk in the park. On top of that, there are enemy Jets flying around (yellow dots) that can also make your life miserable. If you're thinking that Zone 66 sounds hard, you're right; this was a very difficult game. Fortunately, the game gave you an infinite amount of lives so you could experience the entire story if you wanted without having to worry about starting over. Every time you "respawned", though; your score reset to zero.

Destroying the primary targets is easier said than done

The most irritating aspect of Zone 66's gameplay, is that essentially it was just "bomb targets, die, bomb targets, die," etc (which was also why I chose that quote by Thomas Moore for this volume). This meant that the game could become very repetitive, as every episode was the same except for a change in scenery. You always ended up bombing all of the facilities marked in white on the map, and you always died quite a few times before the end. You could always land at friendly landing pads (blue dots) to repair your fighter, refuel, and rearm but more often than not you wouldn't make it.

The beautifully hand drawn introduction was one of the most memorable aspects of Zone 66

Design: For its time, Zone 66 was a very polished product. While the gameplay could be repetitive, it was presented exceptionally well. One of the most memorable aspects of Zone 66, though; was the beautifully hand drawn introduction sequence which featured a comic book-like design. The game also had an amazingly well done musical score, with the game's main theme (which plays during the introduction and on the main menu) as the highlight. Another interesting aspect of the design is the way the storyline is presented after the cinematic introduction. Right after the intro and at the beginning and ending of every episode there's a fairly lengthy text interlude presented in a traditional novel design.

The text segments added to the game's overarching storyline

Honestly, aside from the often repetitive gameplay I can't really think of any other negative aspect of the overall design. I must be getting soft.

Nostalgia Factor: To be honest I wasn't a big fan of Zone 66 when it first came out. Now when I look back on it and replay it, though; I can appreciate it a bit more because it was a unique game then, and it's still a unique game now. There's hasn't really anything else like it since, so as the only one of its kind I can honestly say that I probably would have liked it more back then if I could have seen the future, and the decline of the video game industry.

Critical Reception: Couldn't find or remember anything this time, sorry folks.

How it holds up: As I pointed out in the nostalgia section, Zone 66 is a very unique game. As long as you can get past the fact that it's not 3D it's still a title worth playing. The graphics really aren't that bad, though; I mean as you can tell from the screenshots it's a very beautiful 2D title. I'd even go as far as saying that Zone 66 is better than a lot of modern titles due to its unique gameplay, and often challenging difficulty (without going too overboard). Unfortunately when Epic made a lot of their games freeware after they decided to leave their Pre-Unreal past behind, Zone 66 was not one of them. Most abandonware sites host it, but I can't condone those for obvious reasons.

Zone 66 is worth playing even if you're from the latest gaming generations

External Links:
Moby Games Zone 66 Page
Watch the awesome Zone 66 Introduction on YouTube
Download the Shareware version here