Back in ye olde days there was the C64. And people played the C64. They went out and bought games, such as Battlezone, and played them. These games where fun, and had great game play. But they lacked one thing. Graphics. In the ninties, Battlezone is back.

With support for 1024×768 with a Voodoo2, Battlezone looks great. And what a game the graphics show. Possibly the most underrated game of '98 (next to Interstate 76), Battlezone strives forth with the new "Action\Strategy" genre. Basically, you pilot any tank on the battlefield you want. You can enter enemy vehicles if you snipe the pilot, or get into your own vehicles if you tell the pilot to get out, with 3 quick key-strokes. You command your forces from behind the wheel of the world's greatest fighting machines. During the cold war, meteors hit the earth, and turned out to be a special alien-manufactured metal. The Us and Soviets discover the stuff at the same time, and lap it up. When the supply on earth runs out, both sides head for the moon. This is where the game starts. Your tank hovers above the ground with little altitude jets, and is as agile as a tank gets. You use your recycler to build scavengers, which gather "scrap", which is the alien metal. You build more advanced units as time goes on, and you must watch your base carefully. The NSDF (American) missions start out easy, but in a nice twist, the CCA (Soviet) missions start out on veteran status. Therefore don’t play Soviet as your first mission.

There is a nice training course, which helps you to dodge and climb. which you'll need in Multiplayer over LAN, Serial, Modem 2 Modem or Internet. The Internet needs no IP Address, as there is a brilliant menu set up to get you playing easily and quickly. You choose a server, a name, a game and then a vehicle. Then click "Launch" and you're in. It's that easy.

The game also comes with the full map and mission editor, but the documentation has an error in it, and you'll need the net to get the right command line to run the editor.

There is so much more to this game than you see at first. Some people say "pah! another quake game" and walk off. But they're wrong. My only trouble is that you can't see your unit's ammo next to their health bars. And the scavengers are as stupid as the harvesters in C&C

My friend Paul suggested that you should be able to make AI routines for your men, for example: "guard X unless Y is attacked. If Y is attacked, chase and destroy aggressors." In this way, you could make a whole game and compete your AI with other people. Very smart.

My favourite game next to Total Annihilation.

Yet another great review Axeman, keep 'em coming!