Featured Game 8-16-03

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Author: losl
Posted on 08/02/2004
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W

owzers, as Fun Suprise Im Going to Do a Weekly Featured Game That is Suggested for playing =D This months game:<h1>Zero Wing</h1>Any internet savvy person Im sure has at least seen this phrase once:
"All your base are belong to us"
Seems pretty innocent right? Wrong.
I present to you Zero Wing, an average scrolling shooter brought to the english language in the days of the genesis.
Everything about this game is very very average,,, except the grammar. The company that translated this wonderful game obviously failed their English class in good ol Japan.
Missing plurals and prepostions the intro is a hoot to watch, and it doesn't get better on the occasional movies (more wonderful grammar)

Now its time to send all the wonderful history of All your Base Belong to us from a tutorial on gamfaqs by Frank Provo (frank@frankprovo.com)
1989: Taito releases Toaplan's Zero Wing into arcades.
1991: The UK Megadrive gets the poorly translated
"Engrish" version
1995: Toaplan goes bankrupt. Batsugun is their last game.

Early 1998: The Zero Wing animated .GIF is posted on Rage
Games web site. A few months later, another
animated .GIF is posted on Zany Video Game Quotes.
It begins slowly circulating the internet.
(http://zanyvg.overclocked.org)

March 2000: Toaplan.com - a well-done fan site opens its doors.
The site is SO well made that people mistake it for
the "official" Toaplan web site! (see 1995 above)

June 5, 2000: The Zero Wing Dub Project is posted at
OverClocked. This consists of a parody comic that
makes fun of the game's poor translation, as well
as a Quicktime .mov file featuring badly
impersonated voices. Check it out at these URLs.
http://www.overclocked.org/OCzerowing.htm
http://www.overclocked.org/OCalloscar.htm

Fall 2000: According to one visitor, AYBABTU began appearing
on Stile Project as the title for and within some
images. (http://www.stileproject.com - Warning, not
for younger viewers)

Sep - Oct 2000: The forums at Lowtax's Something Awful
(http://www.somethingawful.com) start to get
infected. A gimmick poster there, going by the
name of Alf no less, posts a picture of Alf on
the phone. User Starscream adds a speech bubble
saying "All your base are belong to us." It's a
hit, and gets posted a few more times. A few people
link back to the Overclocked dub.

November 2000: The Something Awful era really gets into gear and
the photoshopping goes into full swing. A thread
is posted - The title is "ALL YUOR BASE ARE BELONG
TO US!!" (yes, it was spelled "YUOR"). The first
image (Army of Darkness) was done by Starscream
(again!). Around page 10, word begins to spread.
Some sites temporarily add AYBABTU to their pages
as an "official" link. The forum at HardOCP
(www.hardforum.com) gets its own insanely popular
picture thread - 2000+ posts. Dr. Eldarion opens the
first two Cafe Press (http://www.cafepress.com)
stores during this time. The Something Awful thread
actually goes to over 30 pages and the server whigs
out. Postings disappear, the thread is "hacked"
closed.

Nov. 14, 2000: JRR, one of the SA forum regulars, releases Invasion
of the Gabber Robots, the Zero Wing remix. This is
the catchy tune heard in the Flash animation. You
can listen to it and visit their mp3.com site here:
http://www.mp3s.com/tlmom

Nov. 28, 2000: Ars Technica (http://www.arstechnica.com, a well know
"geek" news site posts election coverage and wrap ups.
"All your votes are belong to us!!" is the tag line.

Dec. 16, 2000: Tribal War's (http://www.tribalwar.com/) thread
begins.

Jan. 12, 2001: Part 4 of "A Winner Is You," Hubert's game quote
based storyline is posted. It passes completely
beneath the pop culture radar. View it here:
http://hubert.retrogames.com/awinnerisyou.htm)

Jan. 14, 2001: www.Solidsharkey.com puts up a history. The Genesis
version of Zero Wing was NOT a US release. In
English, it was released only in the UK and South
America for their Megadrive (Genesis) systems.

Feb. 11, 2001: Eskimo Bob (http://www.eskimobob.com/), episode 12
- a precursor to the Flash Animation yet to come?

Feb. 13, 2001: www.memepool.com posts about AYBABTU. They link to
the Tribal War thread. In the "in" circles, the fad
takes off again.

Feb. 15, 2001: Bad_CRC of Tribal War releases the Flash music video.
There are some copyright issues and a quickly updated
version with credits is released. It spreads like
wildfire and delivers Toaplan's Zero Wing unto the
masses.

Feb. 16, 2001: The "phenomenon" begins. Message boards, call-in
shows, and pop-culture cannot escape.

Feb. 19, 2001: Work on this FAQ begins. Zero Wing has a notable lack
of coverage on GameFAQs.com and this document's
author seeks to change that.

Feb 21-23, 2001: According to CNet / ZDNet GameSpot's
(http://www.videogames.com/) "Instant Poll" from
2/21/2001 through 2/23/2001:
Question:
How are you gentlemen !!

Responses: (3,895 votes - 101%?!)
All your base are belong to us. 1282 (33%)
For great justice. 187 (5%)
Main screen turn on. 127 (3%)
Take off every 'ZIG' !! 137 (4%)
What you say !! 821 (21%)
No opinion 929 (24%)
Somebody set up us the bomb !! 412 (11%)

Late Feb. 2001: The San Francisco Chronicle (both print & web versions)
runs a story about AYBABTU. OverClocked prints another
Zero Wing comic. Sluggy Freelance (2/26) runs a comic.
Salon.com runs their own AYBABTU story. UK's The
Register (http://www.theregister.com) runs a story.
NewsBytes (http://www.newsbytes.com) runs a story. A
caller into the syndicated radio show, "Loveline,"
mentions AYBABTU (2/22/2001) - Check out the Retrogames
history (http://hubert.retrogames.com/history.htm) for
mp3's. TechTV and Wired.com run stories. Even User
Friendly (http://www.userfriendly.org) gets into the
act! Time Magazine (2/26) runs a story. GameSpot
(http://www.gamespot.com) runs an AYBABTU poll on
their videogames page. Somebody chalks "All Your Base
Are Belong to Us" on the roof of Wean Hall at Carnegie
Mellon University. The AYBABTU fad is getting way,
way overdone.

Feb. 27, 2001: MP3.com pulls "Invasion of the Gabber Robots" from
their site, citing copyright infringement. They quickly
put it back up once they realize that Toaplan no longer
exists.

Feb. 28, 2001: AYBABTU debuts at #46 on the Lycos 50 as a bonafide web
fad. Toaplan, T.L.M.O.M, the flash animation, and this
FAQ are all cited. Yet ANOTHER User Friendly strip. UK's
"The Guardian" (http://www.guardian.co.uk) runs a story.

Feb/Mar 2001: A rash of AYBABTU taggings, defacements, and banner
raisings occurs. The Georgia Tech, U. of Pennsylvania
and Texas A&M capmuses experience leaflet and poster
campaigns. Someone hacks the Dutch Railways web site
to say the phrase, "All your trains are belong to us."
Similarly, the dutch postal code web site gets tagged
with the phrase "All your postcode are belong to us!!"
The folks from the Netherlands musn't have much to do,
as the Dutch Eur

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