Saturday, May 26, 2007

A Brief History of Video Games: The Arcade Years: Part 10

Battlezone had tanks. This is reason enough to love it, but it also had flying saucers and a landscape littered with giant pyramids and cubes. There is no real explanation as to why you needed to drive your tank around and blow up stuff. I always assumed I just hopped in my tank for a quick drive to the store to pick up some Lucky Charms (substitute the foodstuff of your choice, if necessary) when I was suddenly attacked. I would certainly fight for my Lucky Charms, I assume you would as well.

Battlezone also had a city. I never saw the city, but my best friend, Chuck, assured me that his older brother had a buddy who had a cousin that saw it. If you played long enough, you would eventually reach the city and fight there. I have no reason to doubt this. After all, if you can not trust some cousin you never met, who can you trust?

Next time: Tempest!

3 comments:

Blackbyrd2 said...

I loved Battlezone. The awesome neon green and the idea of a landscape entirely composed of wireframe were enough. The added bonus of seing the opponent's tank literally blow apart was mere icing on the cake.
I saw the city.* I also saw the bonus level where you went to another planet just like the original one.

Tempest ruled though. The hardest part was surviving the warp to the next level. It was, for me, the most mind-altering experience I had had, til I discovered pot the next year. Tempest was still better though.


*No, I didn't.

J.A.G. Fehr said...

I never got to far on the arcade version, but then I got the two P.C. games of Battlezone, with the U.S.A. fighting the Russians and then a meancing alien threat (or the Russians fighting the U.S.A. and then a meancing alien threat) I enjoyed those, and the arcade version so much. I wish they'd try to make another version for the P.C.

Jason Janicki said...

I played the PC version, but didn't really get into it. For one thing, everytime my vehicle was destroyed and I had to run back my base, one of my own tanks would end up running me over.

Getting killed repeatedly by my own harvester units was just too embarrassing.