Zynaps

To anyone who has told someone to 'Git Gud' may I present Zynaps, a brutally difficult horizontal shooter with ever so slightly iffy controls. There is a heft to the ship that makes the game even more difficult to get to grips with. Technically, this is one of the best shooters on the system with smooth scrolling, lovely detailed backdrops and excellent sprite work. Its just a shame it is so difficult.

I didn't really notice the inertia thing, controls are very good for me, but I agree with those saying the lack of checkpoints is a problem, especially since the game is quite hard, in particular boss fights. Polished graphics, good sound fx, I quite like the title-tune too. Overall a solid shoot 'em up, very atmospheric and way better than all the other conversions.

The Amiga version had a very nice title tune with a thumping bass.
I assume the C64 got a nice title tune, too, right?

As I am beginning to find the more I see Pyramidenkopf's comments, he's right on the money as usual.

Like he said, the two things that really put a downer on this game are 1. The inertia, which is not too bad when you get used to it. And 2. No restart points. That means if you get killed by the level boss you will be sent back to the start of the level. Harsh, and incredibly dull.

The SFX and graphics are good and save this game from being a total disaster.

5/10.

Zynaps is an okay shmup. The graphics are not exactly groundbreaking but have an interesting comic book like style. The title music is mediocre, but the sound FX are well done. The missing restart points within the levels as well as the heavy inertia on the controls in combination with the hard to dodge homing enemy bullets can be a little annoying, but overall playability is okay. The Speccy version plays a little better though.

I'm not the greatest fan of horizontal scrolling shoot em ups (or vertical ones for that matter), to which I would say that IO was a completely pointless game to me, so linear it was basically a dressed up version of Simon and that I still find Scramble much more playable than most of the genre I've played after it. After that elucidation for the purpose of context (er.. What? -Ed) Zynaps is, in my opinion, a great game, I would be one who agrees with the praise given to the control system, the inertia was weighted just right for me and I played this quite a bit after finding it quite addictive with the 'one more go' effect. I never got that far IIRC, as I guess I'm not that good at these types of games either, but overall, for my limited taste of the genre, (having not really played Armalyte being just one example of this), I enjoyed it very much as a game in its own right, not trying to compare it to the ultimate this or that. Definitely worth a shot (har har - Ed) to see what one thinks for themselves.

+1 for liking the inertia. It gives the game a great feel and adds a little perceived realism to hauling a spacecraft around.

One of my favourite C64 shmups.

Quite a nice shoot 'em up, like any other Hewson game. I don't remember a loading picture on the tape version however - although on the tape I had it used Burner. Pretty good playability. 7/10

Looked nice, but not at all fun to play owing to the lack of checkpoints. And the music was rubbish.

Pretty. Hard.

Very polished graphics, animation is great, sound is great, action is very challenging and fierce. Superb game!

Looks and sounds lovely, but a bit on the fiddly side.

The Spectrum version is better, but, really, both are pretty underwhelming (and let's not even discuss the awful CPC port). Zynaps is basically Gradius, but without the variety, depth, or polish that made that game such a classic.

Oh, and, like everyone else has said, the inertia and level restarts are awful.

No checkpoints during levels but surprisingly it doesn't make Zynaps furiously frustrating but challenging and addictive. By each go you get a bit further and you begin to develop strategies against enemy attack patterns. Slight inertia in controls is actually a good idea since it gives the ship a nice sense of mass. Also pretty game to look at.

Overrated when it was released, nevertheless largely ignored by the Commie community.

It was a hard game, but was a quality product. Looked nice, sounded nice, layouts were nice. Just little more variety required + level checkpoints needed.

The first John Cumming work but.. What.. No checkpoints per level? Frustrating. A waste of potential, tho' one of the first of its genre.

Yes, I was exaggerating there. However, that bottleneck is a pain for me to get through.

I'll rephrase what I said:

"this version is too easy until halfway through level 1 - which quickly becomes harder, forcing the player through narrow gaps which are made worse by the floaty controls. "

Happy?

@ Lockett: I agree that the flaws in this game (inertia, getting send back to the start of the level, and also slowdown on level 3) make it not as good as the fairly modest speccy version, but... "prohibitively difficult" halfway through level 1?

You must be joking!

Possibly

Sarcasm?

Enforcer is a trrible game, the controls are appalling

You *could* play it with the inertia? Whoa.

As much as I like the original, though, both games are completely trashed by Enforcer. We can agree on that, right?

Yeah I've played a lot of Shoot-em-ups in my time too, probably why it look me about 7-8 minutes to get used to the controls

Actually, the Spectrum version IS better. True, the C64 version has the better graphics and sound by far, but the controls make it next to unplayable. I would say the same thing had I not even heard of the Spectrum version. I have played lots of shoot-em-ups, and this has some of the worst lateral control that I've ever had to use - your argument that I'm "used to the original controls" is meaningless when I've played so many examples of the genre. I also have no problem with the original's powerups.

The simple truth is that good graphics don't make a good game. This version of Zynaps is a perfect example of that.

It would be nice to think that wouldn't it, a shooter on the Speccy to be proud of, unfortunately your comment is nonsence, on the C64 the music and sound FX are better, the colour is better, the weapons systems work better eg the homing guns work properly, and even the detail (which is usualy the Speccy's saving grace) is better, the gameplay is virtually the same, when you talk about the controls, you are having trouble because you are used to the original (yes speccy is original) controls and having trouble adapting

This version is inferior to the ZX Spectrum original(at least, I <i>think</i> that it's the original, since there's only one credited programmer) in many ways. While the graphics are infinitely better(then again, that's not saying much), and the menu has a polyphonic theme, the gameplay doesn't hold a candle to the original. For example, in the original, the player ship was responsive and easy to control. In the C64 version, however, horizontal movement is extremely floaty, making bullet dodging next to impossible. Also, the original had nicely balanced difficulty, while this version is too easy until halfway through level 1 - which quickly becomes prohibitively difficult. As if those flaws weren't enough, they kept something that should never have been in the game in the first place - after dying, the player is sent all the way to the beginning of the current level, but with downgraded weapons. Bottom line: Unless you really must have all three versions(it was released on the CPC as well, and was even worse on that platform), stick with the original and forget about this inferior port.

I don't see anything special about this. Oh sure it's one of the "good" shoot-em-ups, but this doesn't say much when there were so many released for the C64.

The way you pick power-ups is a nice change from the norm, but the power-ups themselves leave a lot to be desired.

The difficulty curve is ridiculous and after trying for the umpteenth time to get past level three, I simply gave up.

A competent shooter marred by the fact that you are sent all the way back to the start of the current level when you lose a life.

The inertia on the player's ship doesn't do it any favours either.

I second that... Speccy version wins this time.

I did not like this version. Go with the Spectrum version instead as its 10x better and its different from this inferior version.

Nicely designed but way too hard for me. Prepare to be frustrated. 3/10

Got stuck into this one and managed to get quite far but never really found it all that rewarding or original. Still, nice music and functional sprites made this an OK shooter overall.

Together with Uridium plus, this is still my all time fav C64 shoot 'em up.
This one seperates the men from the boys although I never beat the boss on level 9 when playing fair though.

Nice relaxing title music... Ahhh!

Zynaps is one of the best Shoot em up.

The graphics of this game were inspiration for me when I made my own shooters with SEUCK. Having to play the level from the beginning after you're destroyed is unfair though. The game is so good you'd like to go ahead but most of the time you end up repeating the same bit over and over and over again.

A superb shoot-em up, but seemingly designed by a sadist. Well done to ABS for completing it. The frustration of being sent back right to the beginning got a bit much for me after a while. The asteroids were superb but getting past them required superhuman joystick dexterity.

The sound is wrong on my emulator version. Nigel grieves nice little tune has been replaced with a really crap tune and there's no explosion sound when my ship blows up. A very neat game though very nicely done.

Bloody brilliant shoot'em up game. Superb graphics, colourful with nicely drawn sprites. The sound and music is also of very high standard. The game-play is fun, but a bit too hard I must admit. (and the HTL super trainer doesn't work properly. Get the TWR trainer instead... 100% !!!)

What a shame, really interesting graphics, amazing astroid rock animations, good music all let down by rock hard game play??? The player ship was so hard to control I hated it...

Graphics and sound are impressive, like about all Hewson's games, and it's even addictive, but lacks in variety (I've finished it).

The first shooter I ever played in the Delta/Katakis/Rtype/Nemesis side scrolling genre.
Although the version I had was cracked, I never gave in to the 'dark side' and still to this day as a result, have never passed the first level.
Grieve's title theme is oddly hypnotic in a Parallax meets Delta in game way... Some good memories here.

Drove me absolutely mad as it's hard to the point of frustrating

Tough! But, still quite addictive, probably because GFX and sounds rule!!!

My best shoot up game. It was one of the games I play more. Only I'd never pass yhe 5 level without helps.

Great tune by Nigel Grieve

Along with Zybex (why isn't that on this site?), it was my favourite shoot em up on the Commodore. Even better in my opinion that delta or armalyte - another underrated game.