Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: IcyScythe on April 10, 2008, 03:56:05 am
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Battlezone is one of the few other games that can give me that same kind of "feeling" that the Freespace series give. That epic feeling :cool:
Kickass setting and story, alternate history in the 50's/60's the U.S fakes the moon landing and is actually engaged in a very "hot" war across the solar system with the USSR fighting over a new kind of material known as "biometal".
The gameplay is fantastic and extremely unique.
BZ2 wasn't AS good but still had a great story and a beautiful engine.
I'd kill for a BZ3 to be released along with FS3.
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These are some of my favorite games too. I actually liked BZ2's overall gameplay better, especially the improved control interface, but the engine was sort of clunky (the collision detection in particular) and I preferred BZ1's storyline and realistic environments.
I was actually playing through BZ1 again last summer, but ran into a strange bug where my video card's fan randomly shut off during the game, causing an overheat and crash. I don't know if it was a driver bug or an issue with the fan control program I was using (ATI Tool). I got through the NSDF campaign despite this but didn't do the CCA one. Maybe I should try it again and see if it works on current drivers.
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Interesting. What kind of game is it? FPS? Space Shooter?
Oh yeah... epic feeling. The Colossus cutscene made me laugh manically, awaking these feeling of 'They can't stop us now!', whilst the fate of the Bastion made me cry. :(
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It's a sort of hybrid RTS where you command your army as a unit on the battlefield itself. And it's very cool.
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I love Battlezone...thats a great game. Battlezone 2 was beautiful but I don't think it played quite as well. Needed a few tweaks to the gameplay to get it as good as the first one...but it was allot of fun. The epic feeling was definitely there and the alternative history/secret army idea had a really great feel to it.
Gameplay style is, as Marcus points out, a hybrid RTS/first person feel. The RTS part is very simplified and the interface is brilliant. You control from a first person perspective...technically your just a guy in a spacesuit with a sniper rifle so you can hop in and out of different vehicles. Most of the time you're really in vehicles and not just the guy in the suit.
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Loved BZ1, never played 2. Someone should do a remake mod or see if the old game can be edited :)
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BZ2 is great... more veichles, more weapons .. and better graphics ;7
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The SCION Are pants, give me Battlezone 1 in a Battlezone 2 engine with the expansion pack and i'll be a happy NSDF man.
*coughdirtycommiescough*
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I have the first, great game, does anyone knows how to play it on XP?
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Worked just fine for me on XP when I tried it the last time. Remember that you can set your screen resolution somewhere in a .ini file.
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Last time I tried playing Battlezone on XP, it crashed more often than WinME running AOL...
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BZ works fine on XP. Compatibility mode may be needed, but that's it. However, I believe the latest video card drivers from both companies have problems with it.
BZ2 has no problems as far as I know.
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BZ works fine on XP. Compatibility mode may be needed, but that's it. However, I believe the latest video card drivers from both companies have problems with it.
BZ2 has no problems as far as I know.
I can confirm that, I just reinstalled and fired up BZ2 last week on my system with the very latest drivers from ATI. Do yourself a favor and nab the unofficial patches for it (I think 1.3 is the last version), not exactly a new development but it can be easy to miss when developers release patches in their own free time.
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These are some of my favorite games too. I actually liked BZ2's overall gameplay better, especially the improved control interface, but the engine was sort of clunky (the collision detection in particular) and I preferred BZ1's storyline and realistic environments.
I was actually playing through BZ1 again last summer, but ran into a strange bug where my video card's fan randomly shut off during the game, causing an overheat and crash. I don't know if it was a driver bug or an issue with the fan control program I was using (ATI Tool). I got through the NSDF campaign despite this but didn't do the CCA one. Maybe I should try it again and see if it works on current drivers.
I liked the story, environments, and resource management of BZ1 better. The "biometal wells" impacted gameplay negatively, IMHO and meant it was about rushing control points instead of the more dynamic resource management of the original. (some rich areas to hold, but you had to keep moving)
A sequel that expanded on the cold war themes would have been great. Maybe US, USSR, and PRC?
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BZ2 actually had the scrap too. I remember there were one or two missions where no biometal pools were available and you had to rely on scrap. In general though, I liked the BZ2 resource system better. The scavengers had an annoying tendency to wander into enemy territory to collect scrap, and due to the first-person view it was much harder to keep track of them than in a typical RTS. (sending an escort unit with them was fairly useless since the BZ1 unit AI stopped defending itself when it was ordered to guard something else)
I thought BZ2 was a substantial improvement in most aspects of the gameplay and interface. They introduced control groups in it (which also allowed you to build a lot more units at once) and the radar station with the traditional RTS view was pretty useful for setting up formations and coordinating multiple attacks at once. The unit AI was somewhat better and your units could fight more effectively on their own, with less of the constant micromanaging that was needed in BZ1. They also fixed some balance issues from BZ1, like some of the more expensive units that were basically useless due to a low ammo capacity that the AI couldn't handle well. There was also a larger selection of weapons and other upgrades available, although most of the weapon sounds were pretty crappy compared to the BZ1 ones.
I did like the BZ1 plot better though. BZ2's story didn't make much sense early on and had a number of apparent plotholes, although it got much better towards the end of the game.
A sequel that expanded on the cold war themes would have been great. Maybe US, USSR, and PRC?
There was in fact a BZ1 expansion pack called Red Odyssey that had a Chinese faction in it. I've never played it though.
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:bump:
I recently found that Red Odyssey pack off a torrent (seems to be the only way to get it now) and have been playing it for the last few days. Unfortunately, it's not nearly as good as I was hoping, mainly due to the difficulty of the missions. Most of them are not just hard but completely impossible, often even with cheats. A few fairly normal missions are mixed in among them, and it's obvious that no playtesting was done. The story starts off interesting but quickly becomes confusing and drags on without much happening. It's a pity, as the whole premise of the Chinese operating secretly during the events of the original game could have potentially been awesome and there are some good mission concepts here, but the overall result is lacking.
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Do point me towards said torrent and all torrents of the BZ games. I loved the series.
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Battlezone is one of the few other games that can give me that same kind of "feeling" that the Freespace series give. That epic feeling :cool:
Kickass setting and story, alternate history in the 50's/60's the U.S fakes the moon landing and is actually engaged in a very "hot" war across the solar system with the USSR fighting over a new kind of material known as "biometal".
The gameplay is fantastic and extremely unique.
BZ2 wasn't AS good but still had a great story and a beautiful engine.
I'd kill for a BZ3 to be released along with FS3.
Yeah I was an old BZ fan! I hated part 2 :(
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Do point me towards said torrent and all torrents of the BZ games. I loved the series.
I can PM you a link to this expansion pack, although I'm not sure if you really want to play it. :p I generally have a higher tolerance for difficult games than most people, but I gave up long before completing either the Black Dog or Chinese campaigns. You would have a lot more fun just replaying the original Battlezone campaigns.
There was also a second expansion pack called Battle Grounds, but that was just a collection of standalone fanmade missions. Both of these were apparently contracted out to and developed by third party companies, not the original BZ team at all.