Zero Wing

Introduction

Title screen of the 2-player arcade version.

Zero Wing is a horizontally scrolling shoot-em up that was developed by Toaplan and released to the arcades in 1989 by Taito in Japan. The player controls the ZIG-01 ship through a total of eight different stages. Zero Wing is one of few and the last horizontal shmup that Toaplan developed. It is a slight departure from a typical Toaplan shooter as the spaceship does not have bombs but rather is equipped with a tractor beam that can grab some enemies. Mostly arcade faithful ports were made for the PC Engine CD-ROM in Japan and the Sega Mega Drive in Japan and Europe that added more story elements.

While Zero Wing is a decent and worthwhile game, most people know of it by the meme "All Your Base Are Belong To Us". The English translation of the European Mega Drive version with the added story elements was done very poorly and the opening story sequence became one of the most popular internet memes of all time.

Gameplay Overview

Zero Wing has 8 way directional controls with 2 buttons for shot and tractor beam. Small enemies can be captured by the tractor beam. Captured enemies can be held and used as front shields or launched forward at other enemies. The tractor beam can also be used to collect items. On default settings, the player starts with 2 extra lives in stock with Extends awarded after the first 200,000 points and every subsequent 500,000 points earned.

Controls

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• A (Press): Shoots a single shot
• A (Hold): Fires continuous shots of blue laser and homing missiles
• B (Press): Fires captured enemy forward
• B (Hold): Activates tractor beam

The built-in continuous fire is very slow and will not be sufficient in many cases, so an external autofire setup is recommended. While Zero Wing has a shot limit, it is not evenly divided - the main ship is given priority with respect to the shot limit and once it has consumed all the available player projectiles, very few to none will be fired by the options. The lower option has minimum priority and will often fire nothing at all if using a high autofire frequency. For this reason, there will be many situations where it is better to tap rapidly the A button manually, to allow for an even distribution of projectiles between the main ship and the two options.

Weapons

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How the three weapons behave at each power level. The final column shows the effect of the secret special powerup

Each weapon can be powered up to maximum of level 3.

Valcan Unit (sic): Fires red bullets. Does not auto-fire by holding down the shot button.

Laser Unit: Fires blue laser beams. Auto-fires by holding down the shot button. Can shoot through enemies but not walls.

Homing Unit: Auto-fires by holding down the shot button. Fires homing missiles that lock on to the nearest target

Items

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Weapon: can be collected to either switch between weapons or to power up the ship by one level.

Super Bomb: In order to be used, it has to be launched with the tractor beam button. It can be used as a front shield as well, and will go off after it takes three hits or collides with an enemy or obstacle.

Speed Up: Increases the ship's speed by one level, up to four times.

Special: Only appears under certain conditions. Increases the ship's power once more, beyond the normal level 3 cap. While in this state the option pods are greatly increased in size, enabling them to block bullets and enemies more effectively.

Item Cycle

Items always appear in repeating sets of four, the second set ending with a bomb instead of a speed item, creating a simple 16-item cycle. Upon death, the cycle returns to the start. Unlike some other Toaplan games, the cycle only advances when an item itself appears, not when its carrier appears.

1		2		3		4
5		6		7		8
9		10		11		12
13		14		15		16

The number of item-carrying enemies varies between stages, and within the stages the exact number of carriers that appear may vary depending on the speed with which certain large enemies are eliminated. Starting at the second loop, the first stage contains two fewer item carriers. This is because the player enters the stage at a slightly later point in comparison with the first loop.

Stage	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
Carriers	14 (12)	15	10	2	15	12	26	11

Special Power Up

In order for the special power up item to appear, the following conditions must be met when destroying an item carrier:

• The player must have reached the standard maximum power.
• The player must have reached maximum speed.
• The player must not already have the special power up.

And either of the two sets of conditions below must also be true:

A

• The item released is the 40th item from the start of the game or since the last death.
• The player is either carrying or currently using a bomb (otherwise a bomb will be dropped by the carrier instead).

B

• The item released would have been a power up of the weapon the player is currently using.
• The number of frames the player has survived for is a multiple of 32.

Extend Items

Collecting extra items beyond maximum power or speed usually provides a 5000 point bonus instead. Occasionally, instead of a point bonus, the item will grant a 1-up, awarding an extra life to the player, or even a 10-up awarding 10 extra lives. The latter will be awarded if the number of frames the player has survived upon collection of the item is divisible by 64, while the former is awarded if it is not divisible by 64 but is divisible by 16. Therefore, each bonus item collected has a 1/64 chance of awarding the 10-up, and 1/16 - 1/64 = 3/64 chance of awarding the 1-up. This may only happen once per game, and receiving one of these will prevent the player from receiving the other without starting a new game. Naturally this makes receiving a 1-up item undesirable as it means the 10-up is lost for that game. It is therefore expected that one will see the 10-up in around a quarter of the games that receive either, with the 1-up appearing in the remaining three quarters.

Hit Box

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The hit box of the ship in Zero Wing is narrower than the sprite but about 75% as long as the sprite minus the blue thruster flame.

Options

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The two options of the ship always fly with one above and one below. They are indestructible and can absorb enemy fire. This can be used to protect the player ship from enemy fire, although diagonally aimed shots may be able to sneak past the options and hit the player. Each power level gained will cause the options to increase in size.

When navigating confined spaces or passing by a large enemy, the options will draw in closer to the player. This can be caused deliberately by using clever positioning in order to increase the concentration of fire within a certain vertical range.

Rank

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Rank, along with the weapon the player is currently using, determines the speed of bullets and the frequency of enemy attacks. The red weapon contributes the least to the game's difficulty while the green weapon contributes the most. The player's power level also makes a minor contribution to the difficulty, but as both the power level and weapon are numerically limited to very low values the vast majority of the effect comes directly from the rank level itself.

Rank starts at a base level determined by the difficulty DIP switch setting (starting at 0 for the easiest setting and adding 2 for each higher setting) and increments after each stage. Unlike most Toaplan games, both the rank and the bullet speed have no upper limit and will increase indefinitely.

HP scaling

Enemy HP is affected by the weapon the player is using when the enemy appears. The corresponding multiplier for each weapon is applied to the base value HP:

Weapon	Multiplier
Red	1.5
Blue	3 or 5 *
Green	5

* For some enemy types, such as grounded turrets, several types of zako enemies and the various parts of the stage 5 boss, the blue weapon multiplier is x3. For others, the multiplier is x5 like the green weapon.

The presence of HP scaling opens up a potential strategy of delaying a planned weapon change until after a particular enemy appears in order to influence the amount of HP it receives to the player's advantage. This will usually consist of taking the red weapon before a particularly dangerous enemy appears so that it receives the minimum amount of HP possible, then immediately switching back to the more powerful green weapon to destroy it as quickly as possible.

Attack timing

There is some randomness to how soon after appearing enemies will first attack. Regardless of the current rank or stage, every enemy that appears will take either 16, 32, 48 or 64 frames before first attacking, the actual value being derived by combining the current frame counter with an enemy spawn counter. This makes some of the bosses that consist of multiple parts more challenging, as this randomness will cause the attacks of the various parts to synchronise in an unpredictable way. After a death, both counters are reset to zero, making it possible to predict enemy behaviour for a while based on where the death occurred. As bosses will last a variable number of frames based on the player's actions, this predictability is usually lost at the start of the next stage (unless the player makes a deliberate effort to preserve it by waiting for the boss' time limit to expire).

After the random intitial delay, the rank level will then determine the time between subsequent attacks. Although the bullet speed will continue to increase forever (even to the point where the collision detection begins to fail), the maximum attack frequency that the game allows is once every 64 frames. This limit will be reached some time into the fourth loop.

Very rarely, attacks may disregard rank and the standard timing methods entirely and trigger only when the frame counter that continually increases from the start of the player's current life reaches certain cyclical values. Some midboss attacks may behave in this way, such as those of the first stage's midboss.

Loops

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Both 1P and 2P arcade versions loop infinitely as do the Mega Drive versions. The PC Engine CD version does not loop. In addition to the gameplay differences brought on by looping, there is a small easter egg to be found in the ending story - the year of the battle increases by 8 (one year per stage), with each successive loop that is cleared.

The difficulty continues to increase indefinitely through looping. With each stage cleared, the rank, and therefore the speed of bullets, increases unchecked. Although the game has no end in theory, the lack of any upper limit to restrain the bullet speed will eventually cause the difficulty to rise to a near-impossible level.

Penalty Bullets

A stage 2 enemy demonstrates the varying number of penalty bullets in each loop, from loop 1 (top-left), to loop 4 and beyond (bottom-right).

In addition to the increasing rank, many enemies, including those that did not fire at all in the first loop, will begin firing additional bullets in the second, with the number of bullets increasing each loop until reaching a maximum in the fourth:

Loop	Bullets
1	0
2	1
3	3
4+	5

While most enemy types encountered do not have these penalty bullets, the ones that do tend to appear in large groups. This causes the game difficulty to rise dramatically at the start of the third and fourth loops as the number of penalty bullets increases. The player is fortunately given some respite as these enemy types are largely concentrated in the early stages, with both stages 6 and 7 being devoid of them entirely.

Scoring

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After reaching maximum power, each additional power up of the same weapon equipped provides 5000 points, as does collecting a speed up item while at maximum speed. Dying can cause an immediate loss of up to 35000 points as the items that would have provided these points must go towards restoring the player's power and speed instead. Holding onto a bomb item without using or losing it will cause the next bomb drop to be replaced with a speed item, which will also provide an extra 5000 points if the player has reached the maximum speed. Being at maximum speed will also allow the special power up item to appear, which provides 50000 points when collected. A 5000 point loss is incurred when receiving the 10-UP or 1-UP from collecting an item, but the benefits of receiving the 10-UP far outweigh this cost.

In most cases, capturing and launching an enemy with the tractor beam does not provide any score until the enemy is destroyed by colliding with some other object. In this case, it is worth the same number of points as when destroying it directly.

Some midbosses and bosses also award tick points, repeatedly giving 10 points each time the enemy is damaged. Since the equipped weapon influences enemy HP, it also influences the number of points that can be obtained in this way.

In the fourth stage there are five instances of Toaplan's mascot, Pipiru, hidden behind scenery throughout the stage. Capturing Pipiru with the tractor beam awards 10,000 points, while destroying it only provides 100 points.

Destroying some of the mid-boss enemies quickly will provide some additional enemy waves that would not have appeared otherwise, which can be destroyed for some extra points.

Secrets

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• Holding up on the controls at the end of stage 4 will result in a message of thanks from Toaplan's mascot, Pipiru.
• There is a warp zone in stage 5, by taking the path above the final upper section of rail. This warp brings the player straight to the final stage but only exists in the first loop of the game. Using this warp awards a bonus of 70,000 points, although this is much less than the amount that can be obtained simply by playing through the stages in full.

Strategy

See (Template Page)/Strategy for stage maps, enemy and boss descriptions, walkthroughs, and advanced play strategies.

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Pipiru Locations

The location of the five Pipiru characters that are hidden throughout the fourth stage.

The locations of the five hidden Pipiru characters in Stage 4 (which grant 10,000 points when picked up with the tractor beam):

1) Immediately at the top of the screen at the start of the stage, hidden behind the foreground.
2) In the water immediately before the first section of the large red battleship.
3) At the top of the screen, hidden behind the foreground, at the beginning of the section of the battleship featuring the long rope.
4) At the top of the screen, hidden behind the foreground, at the midpoint of the section of the battleship featuring the long rope.
5) In the water below the boss.

Tricks

10-UP Manipulation in Stage 1

This trick allows the player always to receive the 10-UP item near the end of the first stage. Though this trick is quite difficult to perform, it can become very consistent with sufficient practice. The trick takes advantage of the frame-counter initialisation at the start of the player's very first life, and the automatically scrolling nature of the game progression. The immediate benefit of performing this trick is to remove the possibility of receiving the inferior 1-UP in its place, which as noted above will happen in about 75% of all games that do not make use of any deliberate manipulation. The process of performing the manipulation can be outlined in a few steps:

1) The correct item locations must be maintained throughout the entire stage. In practice, this means that no deaths are permitted, and all item carriers within the stage must be destroyed.

2) The player must only use the red weapon throughout the stage. Though the green weapon is the most effective weapon overall, the 10-UP can only be granted once the player has reached maximum power, requiring the player to pick up at least four items of the same weapon type, and this cannot be achieved with green items in the first stage. Use of the red weapon will make some large enemies in the stage more difficult to handle and effective strategies for dealing with these enemies must be developed.

3) Just before reaching the third red item, which should grant maximum power, a bomb item will appear. This bomb is also crucial in performing the trick and must be kept. It will explode after taking three hits or immediately upon colliding with an enemy or terrain. Holding onto the bomb will also prevent the tractor beam from being used so strategies for dealing with enemies without the tractor beam will need to be relied upon for the remainder of the stage.

4) The trick involves an enemy bullet causing the bomb to explode at just the right time and place. The bomb can take three hits from bullets before exploding so it's necessary to keep track of how many hits the bomb has taken. It's necessary to allow the bomb to be hit at some point before the final stage of the trick so that it explodes upon contact with the desired bullet.

5) Once the player is at full power and has the bomb, the midboss of the stage must be destroyed quickly, and without using the bomb. It's necessary to destroy the midboss just after its first dive to the bottom of the screen, but before its subsequent rise beyond the mid-point of the screen, as an item carrier will shortly follow, but this carrier will not appear if the midboss is still on the screen. It must be destroyed to preserve the correct location of the fourth red item, or the rest of the manipulation will not be possible to perform. Upon destruction the midboss slowly sinks off the bottom of the screen before being removed. The higher it is upon destruction, the longer this animation will take and the greater the chance that the next item carrier will be missed. The midboss fires rings of bullets periodically but at this early point in the game the timing of these rings is still predictable. If the bomb still hasn't taken any hits, it's recommended to allow it to absorb one bullet from these rings to prepare for later.

6) The large red ships that appear after the waves of green enemies following the midboss are difficult to handle with the red weapon. They can be caught with the tractor beam, but this can't be used while holding onto a bomb. The best strategy seems to be to stay at close range and block the enemies' 3-way shots at the point of origin using the lower option.

7) After dealing with the two large, red ships, there will be three smaller enemies appearing from the openings in the terrain. The first will appear from the left opening, while the second two will emerge from the right. After this, two ground turrets and an item carrier will appear from the right. The front turret and the item carrier must not be destroyed prematurely so it's necessary to stop shooting at this point.

8) At this point, it's very important to know how many hits the bomb has taken. It must have taken at least one hit, but no more than two. If it has taken one hit only, the first bullet fired by the front turret must hit the bomb so that one more hit will cause it to explode. The bomb must be destroyed by the second shot fired by this turret, so there's not enough time to have the bomb take two extra hits here; it must have already taken one earlier in the stage.

9) After the front turret shoots once, head straight to the upper left corner. When the front turret fires its next bullet, allow the bullet from the rear turret to hit your lower option pod before travelling directly down to collide the front turret's bullet with the bomb. If this was the third hit, the bomb will explode, and the explosion will destroy the item carrier at the correct moment. During the explosion, there is also an opportunity to remove the two turrets from the screen.

10) The carrier should drop the fourth red weapon item. After the bomb has destroyed the carrier and the turrets have been eliminated, do not collect this item immediately, but return to the left edge of the screen and engage the tractor beam by holding the B button, allowing the red item to drift into the tractor beam's hitbox. If all was done correctly, this will result in collecting the item on frame 13440 of the current life. As this is divisible by 64, this will award the player the 10-UP.

Double Special Item

As noted above, the Special item can be made to appear by fulfilling one of two different sets of conditions. Normally, the special item will only appear once at most per life as it only ever appears when the player is at the standard maximum power. Despite this, there are rare cases where it's possible for the item to appear twice, by fulfilling both sets of conditions simultaneously, in an area where two item carriers appear in quick succession. This could be achieved by having the green weapon and having the special item randomly take the place of the green 39th item via condition B as outlined above, and then immediately receiving it again via condition A at item 40. Alternatively, this can be done in reverse order by having the red weapon and fulfilling condition A with item 40, then fulfilling condition B with the red 41st item. Both cases require manipulation of the item sequence so that these item numbers occur with two item carriers that appear together. This manipulation can be done either by dying deliberately at a specific point or by allowing a specific number of item carriers to leave without destroying them. As condition B only ever occurs with a 1/32 probability, this is still a very rare event even if all other conditions to produce it are set up correctly (although a long and precise manipulation pattern could possibly be crafted to remove this random element, in a similar way to the 10-UP manipulation outlined above). The only real benefit of successfully performing it is that the 50,000 point bonus received upon collecting the special item can be received twice.

Story

Arcade versions: They do not have an opening story. The ending of the 1st loop in the arcade versions describe that all bases of CATS were destroyed. However, things are not peaceful as CATS is still alive and ZIG-01 must fight CATS again.

Mega Drive version: This is the infamous opening story where in 2101 A.D. a space war erupted. The Captain has been informed that explosives have been planted in his ship and he receives an incoming transmission. It's CATS! He informs the Captain that he has cooperated with the Federation Government Forces and taken over all the bases. CATS threatens to blow up the Captain's ship and end the lives of the crew. The Captain immediately commands all ZIG fighters to launch and restore hope for the future.

While the previous is a more accurate translation of the story, the original English translation tells it like no one other could:

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Development History

If available, you can include information here about the hardware, the development of the game, and its general reception. Try to have as much information in this section cited as possible.

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Version Differences

Arcade Versions

There are two version of the arcade game, a 1P and 2P version. Both play similarly but the 1P version has a higher penalty for dying and is considered the more difficult version. Both versions have a red flash that appears every time an enemy is destroyed. This is an intentional part of the game and not a video error. The flashing effect was removed in the home versions of the game.

• 1P arcade version: This more difficult version has checkpoints, returning the player to one of several points in a stage upon losing a life. The player is returned to the default red weapon, at minimum power and minimum speed and with no options.

• 2P arcade version: This version does not have checkpoints - the player's next life begins in the same place the last one ended. Like the 1P version, all speed and power is lost upon death, but the player keeps the pod options and weapon they were using.

Changes made in the 2P version

General

• The number of shots each player can fire at once is lower.
• The player begins the game with the pod options activated, instead of having to power up once to activate them.
• The player's minimum speed is increased by 4 and the player's maximum speed is decreased by 4, meaning that the maximum speed is reached after just three speed items instead of four.
• The secret warp zone in stage 5 has been removed.
• The final stage's softlock bug has been eliminated by automatically launching the captured projectile before despawning it upon destruction of the penultimate stage's boss.
• The hidden extend items are no longer purely time-based - the total number of enemies that have appeared so far is also introduced as a factor.

Items

• The item cycle begins at the second item in the cycle. This is presumably to prevent the player from powering up too quickly, due to always starting the player with the two pod options.
• Bomb drops occur twice as frequently as they do in the 1P version.
• Dying does not reset the item drop cycle to the start.
• The special power up item has been completely removed from the game.

Difficulty

• Rank is summed with the first and second players' power levels (even if only one person is playing) to determine bullet speed and attack frequency, instead of power level and the equipped weapon.
• HP is scaled differently - for a single player the HP is multiplied by 1, 2 or 3 for the red, blue and green weapons respectively. With two players the HP is calculated as base * 1P weapon + base * 2P weapon / 4
• The enemy waves at the beginning of stage 5 do not fire any bullets in the first loop of the game, even while using the green weapon.
• The stage 5 boss's side parts are indestructible, meaning that the player must deal with their attacks throughout. The side parts fire in pairs instead of all four parts firing independently - the top left and bottom right parts fire simultaneously, alternating with the top right and bottom left parts.

Tractor Beam

• The capturing range of the Tractor beam has been reduced.
• Colliding a captured object with another object will only damage the captured object, not both objects involved in the collision.
• Captured objects that are destroyed in a collision do not award any points, even when launched.

Score

• The 10,000 point bonus is no longer awarded for capturing any of the five hidden Pipiru characters in stage 4, only the 100 points given for destroying them with the shot.
• Points are no longer awarded for damaging certain boss and midboss enemies. Points are only awarded for destruction of these enemies.
• Points are no longer awarded whenever the indestructible enemies in stage 6 eat through walls.
• Item carriers are now worth 0 points instead of 300 points.
• When destroying the main part of an enemy composed of multiple parts, the points of any remaining secondary parts are no longer awarded, only the points of the main part itself.
• The stage 5 midboss gives 15,000 points, where it previously did not give any points due to a bug.
• The main part of the stage 5 boss awards 10,000 points where it previously was not worth any points.

PC Port

A PC port of the arcade version is available on Steam, released by Bitwave Games on February 14, 2023. Aside from autofire, This version provides an assist feature and other quality of life improvements in order to make the game significantly easier:

• Auto-dodging
• Instant slowdown button
• Health: Allows the player to take a select number of hits before dying.
• Hitbox size modification
• Hitbox display
• Rewinds
• Savestates, up to 10
• Practice mode
• Online leaderboards, only accessible when not using assists.

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Home Console Versions

Mega Drive Port

This version is a fairly faithful port of the 1P arcade version, albeit with a slight graphical downgrade due to the Mega Drive color palette. It has the same checkpoints and power down rules as the 1P arcade version. It provides more story and cut scenes to the beginning of the game. The Japanese release contains 35 different endings that can be seen at the end of each loop completed. The latter 32 endings all have a picture of CATS with dialog underneath that makes reference to something in 1960's and 1970's Japanese pop culture.

Unlike the arcade version, the full height of the playable area is not all on screen at once, instead scrolling with the player as they move vertically. This seems to have introduced a small amount of so-called bullet wobble, in which the enemy bullets appear to move with the screen as it scrolls.

The difficulty has been reduced drastically from the arcade version, which is especially noticeable in the durability of enemies and in the speed of their bullets. There are now three difficulty levels to choose from - the higher the difficulty selected, the greater the starting amount of rank, which now increases every two stages instead of every stage and has a maximum limit of 16. Even the hardest difficulty level in the Mega Drive port is much easier than the arcade version.

At the start of each loop the player is returned to minimum power and speed, as if they had died. The player is also given the default red weapon and the item cycle is returned to the start. This is in contrast to the arcade version, in which the player retains the weapon, power, speed and position in the item cycle that they had at the end of the previous loop.

Score extends are given much more frequently in the Mega Drive port. The first is awarded at 70,000 points, instead of 200,000, and additional extends are awarded every 100,000 points instead of 500,000. This unfortunately created an infinite pattern at the final boss as the boss alone can award over 200,000 points, enough to earn two extends for every life spent to re-fight the boss. This turns the final checkpoint of the final stage into an infinite source of both score and extra lives.

The multi-directional penalty bullets fired by enemies after the first loop have been toned down. In the third loop, penalty atttacks contain two bullets instead of three, and contain three bullets instead of five in the fourth loop. Instead of reaching a permanent maximum density in the fourth loop, the number of bullets fired follows a four-loop cycle, returning to zero in the fifth loop.

The Special item no longer requires the player to reach maximum speed to appear, only standard maximum power. It also only ever appears randomly rather than after a specific number of items under certain conditions. The random 10-up and 1-up bonuses are also no longer limited to one occurence per game as in the arcade version and may occur multiple times per game.

There is a test mode with the ability to level select, change power level, become invincible, and view the endings. Press: C, Up, B, Down, A, Left, Right, B, C, C, Right, Left, Right, A, Down, Start.

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Bugs

Stage 7 boss Softlock

Destroying the main part of the stage 7 boss before damaging the arm enough to trigger the second phase, and before the first phase time limit expires, will softlock the game, leaving the player unable to advance to the next stage.

Final Boss Softlock

Though also triggered by the stage 7 boss, this bug prevents the final eighth stage from ending after the boss escapes, leaving the player only the option to crash into the ground to restart from the final checkpoint. This softlock is ultimately caused by destroying the stage seven boss while holding one of its orb projectiles with the tractor beam. When the boss is destroyed these orbs instantly despawn including the one the player has captured. However the tractor beam is not appropriately updated as empty; it's still possible to launch this now nonexistent object and a pointer to what was once the location in memory of the captured enemy is maintained. The final stage is allowed to end only after there are no enemies remaining. Attempting to use the tractor beam before this point will 'launch' the nonexistent orb, turning on the relevant bit at the former location of the orb, flagging the object as being in a launched state. However since the object being launched no longer exists, the bit will never be turned off as this requires the object to either leave the screen or crash into something else. At the end of the final stage the presence of this bit will be counted as an enemy that still exists and the conditions to end the stage will never be met. This bug was fortunately corrected in the 2-Player version of the game, as the captured orb will be automatically launched upon destruction of the stage seven boss.

Missing Penalty Bullets?

The homing zako enemies which appear in stages 1, 3 and 6, and the larger dragon-like enemies which appear in stage 7, may have been intended to fire the same loop-based penalty bullets that are fired by many other enemies in the game. However, for these enemies specifically, the timers controlling their attacks are reset after performing their standard single-bullet attacks which occur in all loops of the game. As it is the same timer which is tested for the penalty attack immediately after being tested for the normal attack, the conditions for firing the penalty attack are never able to be fulfilled.

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"All Your Base Are Belong To Us" Meme and Trivia

• One of the earliest and most popular versions of the "All Your Base Are Belong To Us" meme was a dance track video hosted by New Grounds. The music in this video was composed by Jeffrey Ray Roberts and called "Invasion of the Gabber Robots". It was a remix of Zero Wing game music with robotic voice samples of "All your base are belong to us". In February 2001, Bad_CRC created the infamous video using various images from a Something Awful AYB photoshop thread and Roberts' music.

• The meme was so popular in 2001 that it made it to local news broadcasts.

• The meme endures and was referenced in January of 2019 by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

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References & Contributors

1. Primary info provided by Coreo