Zero Tolerance

About Zero Tolerance

Zero Tolerance (1994) is Technopop's rare Genesis first-person shooter in which an elite five-commando squad clears an alien-infested starship before its reactor blows.

Zero Tolerance in Depth

In a future where mankind has colonised the Solar System, its settlements, outposts, mines, colonies, ships and stations are protected by the military Planet Defense Corps. When its flagship Europa-1 is attacked by a lethal alien aggressor, the Corps calls in Zero Tolerance, an elite strike squad of five specially trained commandos. Europa-1's last transmission shows heavy fire damage, nearly everyone aboard dead and strange creatures hunting the few survivors, and small-arms fire has damaged the nuclear cooling system, so an overheating core will destroy the ship within hours. The player must sneak aboard and eliminate the aliens and the "infected" crew to erase all evidence of the attack.

Its 40 levels span Europa-1, an abandoned merchant freighter, the Corps' fortified central command building and that building's sub-basements. The aim is to kill every enemy and reach the exit, a staircase or lift to the next level, though players can head straight for the exit at the cost of not receiving passwords until the area is finished. A killed commando is marked "deceased" and can no longer be used, and the game ends when all five are dead. Two Genesis consoles could be linked with a special cable through the second joypad port for multiplayer.

Making Zero Tolerance

Technopop developed it and Accolade published it for the Sega Genesis in 1994. GamePro gave it a mostly positive review, noting that first-person games put pressure on a system's processor but that Accolade had done a good job, and praising its limited but effective sound effects.