Sigh. Atari are a thorn in my side. Just when I think they couldn’t release anymore rehashed ‘Evolved’ tosh - along comes Battlezone straight out of 19 frickin’ 80! I’m almost tempted to believe my ever faithful editor pleads to get his hands on Atari game codes just so he can have me review them. It’s like he gets off on it!
Here we go. Battlezone from Atari was originally released in 1980 and at the time - I am assured (2 years before my time) - it was groundbreaking. Featuring 3D graphics and a first person view Battlezone was also the basis of an army training simulator. The idea was and still is, to blow up enemy tanks, missiles and UFO’s. Whether or not the enemies were really in control of these UFO’s is still up for debate.
The Xbox LIVE version is a straight port of the original, although a crud ‘Evolved’ version is also included. The evolved version of the game plays exactly the same. Strangely not the default setting, but the best setting is the twin analogue controls. Left stick for the left runner and the right stick for the right runner. Right trigger/A fires your tanks cannon - and that’s pretty much it. The classic versions visuals remain vector style and naturally have dated badly. The evolved version only builds on the vector style a little. It really looks like all they’ve done is colour in the shapes with some green and black…there’s also cloudy looking explosions and a new 3rd person view - which just makes things harder. This is primitive death match style gameplay - a style that to be fair, hasn’t changed that much in nearly 30 years.
Battlezone is tough, I gave up several hours of my life and only came away with a top score of 29,000. The original by far the better of the two games, is also the tougher of the two. I understand tanks are never gonna be doing loop the loops and barrel rolls, but as a video game, I expect some boundaries of realism to be sacrificed in favour of adding a little bit of fun. You have a radar which will fish out any enemies within firing range, but more often than not, by the time you’ve turned your tank around 360 degrees you’re in a thousand different pieces. It’s frustrating and rather dull.
Sparse on options in the single player mode (on both games) I head online to do battle with other people. Admittedly, I really thought this could’ve been a laugh and a half. Going beyond the call of duty (a first for Atari’s pathetic ‘Evolved’ games) Battlezone’s multiplayer has been given the life line of Xbox LIVE vision compatibility. Two finger salutes all round. OK, my slight optimism was shot down in flames when after 3 days of actively searching - I couldn’t find one single game to join, nor did anyone join mine. Although slightly annoyed that I really needed to play online for the benefit of this review, I was and am ecstatic that my fellow gamers, are finally taking a stand and saying “NO! Stop it Atari, we will not buy this rubbish anymore!” Maybe if the guys from Stainless Games who produced this port offered to come on camera and face people, it would probably sell by the bucket load. Hell, 400 points is a small price to pay for getting the chance to hurl abuse face to face at the jokers that put this together. Although, to be fair a job’s a job. Maybe I should aim my distain at the joker who gave this the green light in the first place.
OK, short and sweet. Not that I feel anyone is going to need deterring from purchasing Battlezone, but if this review/rant even persuades just one person to keep their wallet zipped up, then my work here is done.
