Reviews

Zynaps is a horizontal scrolling shoot-em up with excellent full color, clash free (well almost!) graphics and sound fx.

This is one of the best of this genre that you will find on the speccy and one that's worth playing with oodles of things to shoot, plenty of weapon types to collect and awesome amount of action to keep you entertained for many hours to come!

Zynaps is a great shoot-em-up, probably one of the best for the Spectrum. When I first played it I was blown away by the graphics which were superb for its time and hasn't aged a bit. The whole game itself is very well done and I had a lot of fun playing this game. I never really got into the shoot-em-up genre beforehand so this game introduced me to a new genre of games. Another Hewson masterpiece!

A fast sideways-scrolling shooter, this was the game that finally moved the genre on from the Penetrator, five years its senior.

The graphics are great with much use of colour in the scrolling backgrounds. Other sprites are single colour but that's used to good effect as it allows pixel perfect movement. To avoid colour clash, enemies invariably travel behind the scenery. It also features some great power-ups and end of level bosses.

The only real drawback is that it suffers from the inevitable vulnerability when you lose your power-ups and some of the later levels are perhaps a little dull in comparison to the impressive scenery of the first, but on the whole it's one of the better Spectrum games if you're after fast arcade style blasting.

Not a shooter lover myself I must admit that Zynaps is a different class.

A truly masterpiece even for those who don´t love the genre , like myself.

1987 Hewson Consultants Ltd (UK)
by John Cumming, Dominic Robinson, Stephen Crow, John Phillips and Steve Turner

Fantastic shoot-em-up. I think its even better than R-Type. The ships movements are very fluid and steady and the two-way initial firing challenges the player to get more accurate. The graphics could have been a bit bigger in my opinion, they look a bit cartoonish and take a bit off drama. The ship's firing sound is also a bit of a letdown, resembling the beeps of BASIC games. Anyway Zynaps is one of the best shooters out there.

Fabulous shooter, probably my favourite on the Spectrum or certainly the one I had the most fun with and the best looking. Fantastic graphics and addicting gameplay. Brilliant.

A decent shoot-em-up with some nice colourful graphics.

Probably the best horizontal shooter of Spectrum, and the only completely original 8bit game from legendary Dominic Robinson.

With a weapon system reminiscent of Nemesis/Gradius, still having own personality and differences to erect as an original game.

Real two cannon firing, Inertia movement.. you'll need to power-up these features to be able to confront space battles with minimum guaranties.
Very remarkable is the intelligent use of Homing Missiles and Seeker, both brilliantly programmed and designed.

Great shoot'em up which distils quality from every bit.

The best arcade game on the Spectrum. The weapons, levels and bosses are all excellent.

Graphics are colourful, fast, smooth and free of colour clash.

The asteroids level mixes up the gameplay and each level can be conquered through practice and tactics, no cheap deaths here.

It definitely owes a debt to Gradius but it has a style all of its own.

I wish I could hate on this game I really do, because I fucking hate how much people gush on about how fucking great it is!

OOOH Hewson Did it again! OOOOOOOH It looks so great OOOOOH! It's the best shooter ever!

Sadly they're almost right, I can't deny it....

...Or at least I couldn't if the game didn't hide the 1 shot syndrome behind the fact the ship shoots from the top or bottom. I can't work out if it's random or sequential, but it's still 1 shot syndrome! Only being able to fire one shot til' it hits or exits the screen is fucking bullshit my friends! It's a shoot em' up, let the player fucking shoot you bastards! Don't make the game intentionally harder through shit design please it's not funny, and people who actually play and enjoy games notice dirty fucking tricks like this!

Being able to get powerups to increase the amount of shots is not an acceptable excuse for crippling the player from square one either, you die you lose those powerups, you get dropped in the hardest part of a level and have to try and powerup again in one shit mode...Haha...that was a typo but I'm going to leave it, because it's true...it's shit!

this game could have been the amazing shooter everyone spunks their undies over if the smooth scrolling and tidy graphics didn't polish over another typical shooter.....Hewson really did do it again...I guess!

I'm giving it a 3, I was gonna give it a 4, but I thought about it and it made me angry so no! It defo doesn't deserve a 5

The best testament to the great feat this was to the entry in Spectrum's "really hi-quality games" club is the joy of young school kids when they play it on qaop emulator. Everything else was already said so long ago...
Pure quality, the Maybach of Spectrum games.

Altough it's a modern game; no doubt is one of the greatest classics.
Relatively simple (as good shoot em ups) but with charm and unforgetable clean graphical presentation

The best shoot 'em up on the Spectrum. Glorious in every way and looks and plays excellent today.

Excellent space shooter by Dominic Robinson for Hewson, at the same level of superb classics like Uridium or R-Type.

It's got everything a top shooter must have: smooth movement, good graphics and sounds and a cool music by legend Steve Turner. Also, parallax scroll and an excellent use of colours.

Finally, different weapons, a fuel scoop and a variety of enemies is all you need to have an excellent gaming experience.