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Battlezone is an arcade game from Atari released in 1980. It displays a wireframe view (using vector graphics rather than raster graphics) on a horizontal black and white CRT (with green color overlay). Due to its novel gameplay and look, this game was very popular for many years.
Development
The vector technique is similar to the visuals of games such as Asteroids. The game was designed by Ed Rotberg, who also designed the somewhat similar Red Baron. A version called Army Battlezone was also designed for use by the US army, for tank gunnery training, but only two of them were produced (although the gunner yoke developed was later re-used in the Star Wars game).
Gameplay
The game was set on a plain with flat-line horizon, distant crescent moon, and various geometric solids (in vector outline) like pyramids and blocks. The player viewed the screen, which included an overhead radar view to find and destroy the rather slow tanks, faster moving supertanks, or saucer-shaped UFOs, all with ascending point values. The player could hide behind the solids or maneuver in rapid turns once fired on to buy time with which to fire himself. Three hits by an enemy tank ended the game. Common play in the US could run from 25 cents to a dollar per game, depending on machine setting.
Cabinet
The game cabinet was a standard vertical shape with a novel "periscope" viewfinder which the player used to view the game. The game action could also be viewed from the sides of the viewfinder for spectators to watch.
The controls consisted of two joysticks, each with forward or reverse to move and turn. One joystick contained a button used to fire projectiles at enemy targets.
Legacy
A clone (author unknown) of the game for the IBM PC called "bzone.exe" circulated through the BBS community in the 1980s.
Throughout the 1980s, Battlezone was ported to several home computer systems, including the PC (under DOS), the Apple II, Atari 2600, Atari ST and the Commodore 64.
Activision, the video game publishing giant, released a game for Microsoft Windows inspired and named Battlezone in 1998. Aside from the name, however, the game bears little resemblence to the original arcade game.
The game Tank Hunter on Pogo.com is almost an exact replica of Battlezone, complete with imitation vector graphics. The open source game BZFlag (BattleZone capture Flag) is available on SourceForge, and provides network play and full 3D graphics instead of vector graphics.
External links
Clones
- Pogo's Tank Hunter (http://play02.pogo.com/room/loading/init.jsp?mbwn=1&game=tank&sls=2&site=pogo&redr=http%3A%2F%2Fplay02.pogo.com%2Fgame%2Farcade%2Ftankhunter.jsp%3Fgame%3Dtank%26sls%3D2%26site%3Dpogo) (requires Java)
- BZFlag (http://bzflag.sourceforge.net) (requires a 3D card)
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