The "homebrew" scene for ancient game consoles is fairly robust, although probably not big enough to be considered anything but a niche market. I suppose I should define homebrew before I go too much further. The definition of a homebrew game is generally accepted to mean a new game made at home by one or a small group of dudes (and sometimes chicks!) usually for a dead console (although homebrews exist for current gen hardware, for sure). The level of quality varies greatly and ranges from a game being released only as a download, to something put out on a genuine cartridge with a box and a manual, perhaps with some swag and often numbered and autographed. Zaku is a new game for a dead console — the Atari Lynx, published in 2009 by Super Fighter Team. Development began in 2003 by Osman Celimli of PenguiNet.

Zaku falls somewhere on the higher end of the homebrew quality spectrum. Super Fighter Team is more of an independent publisher than they are homebrewers and they tend to go for the gold when publishing a game; offering everything you might have expected if it had been released when the console it is for was still "alive." Zaku comes on a standard L-shaped Lynx cartridge with a pretty label, packaged nicely in a professional looking box, and accompanied by a high quality full color instruction manual, which is well written and designed, and which clearly explains how to play the game.

Speaking of how to the play the game, you may find you’ll need to read the manual to figure out exactly what all is going on. While Zaku is a standard horizontally scrolling shooter, and therefore fairly simple — shoot the enemies, avoid getting shot — if you don’t read the manual, you may miss a few things. Indeed, you’ll probably miss how the power-ups work and what the option buttons do. Without the benefit of having read the manual, you may think that grabbing the power-ups has no effect, since nothing at all seems to happen when you grab one — not even a score increase. But if you pay close attention you’ll notice that after grabbing a bunch (eight, to be precise), an exclamation point appears next to Zaku’s status. What this means, you’d probably wonder about for a while if I weren’t here telling you... it means you can hit the Option 2 button on the Lynx to restore a bit of health. That leads me to the Option 1 button. If you hit it, you may notice a jet a flame shoot out from Zaku’s, um... rear. Well, if an enemy is on your ass, you can shoot flame out Zaku’s rear area to discourage them from tailgating. Mhm, yes! While this all works fine, it’s not the most intuitive way to do power-ups. I’d not have required you to press any buttons to restore health, I’d just have give you a little health back with each power-up. But that’s not really a major complaint, just a personal preference, I guess.

So, moving beyond the technical gameplay explanations, I’m sure you’re wondering if the game is actually any fun. I’m pleased to say that it is! While it’s not a game that pushes the boundaries of shooter design and graphics, like, say, one of those amazing 8ing/Raizing arcade shooters, it has still got many of the basics of a good shooter design included which, to me, means, among other things, challenging and varied enemies, bosses and interesting level graphics. So check those things off the "what makes a good shooter" list and you’ll find what keeps this game from being a 5 of 5 kind of shooter — interesting and varied power-ups and weapons. There is only one power-up in the game and it is there to restore your health. You only have three basic weapons: your pea-shooter, a mega-shot (hold down B for a while) and a mega-shield thing (hold down B even longer) which kills enemies on contact. I’d consider these the basics of any shooter and would want to see many more interesting ways to take on my foes in order to consider a game top-notch. Therefore, I rate this game better than average, but not the greatest ever (i.e., it’s good). Bottom line: definitely worth the asking price if you’re hankering for a new game to play on your Lynx.