The NSDF's first and most important priority is to find and secure any extraterrestrial deposits of bio-metal before the Soviets can, and it is with this objective in mind that the NSDF covertly relocates an entire army to the surface of the moon under the pretense of man's first landing on the moon. With this information, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is commissioned by President Eisenhower, although this is only the public façade which hides the activities of another more secretive government program: the National Space Defense Force, or NSDF. ![]() Researchers discover that the initial samples which fell to Earth were propelled there by some unknown cataclysmic event, possibly a planetary-scale explosion, and furthermore that the likelihood of this event having left deposits of bio-metal on other celestial bodies is high. With only limited quantities of bio-metal available from the initial shower, it is deemed prudent to use it to pursue additional deposits of bio-metal. Fearing the implications were their foes to gain control of such a resource, both the Russians and Americans dedicate themselves to keeping Bio-Metal 11 out of the hands of their enemy. Through years of dedicated research, this substance, which would be dubbed "Bio-Metal 11," was found to have astounding properties which led to the design of military vehicles far beyond what was previously thought possible, while its unique nature also puts space travel within reach. Without drawing undue attention, both American and Russian scientists are able to recover small amounts of an unknown material from the Bering Strait that fell during the meteor shower. The impetus for this conflict was a meteor shower that occurred in 1952, a seemingly innocuous event whose significance the world at large would fail to ascertain. The events of Battlezone are staged as a fictionalized retelling of the mid-20th century Space Race between the United States and Soviet Russia, which the game reveals was only the public's perception of a very real war between the two superpowers. ![]() ![]() Finally, Battlezone was ported to the Nintendo 64 in 2000 under the guise of Battlezone: Rise of the Black Dogs, which featured a significant amount of additional content. Late in 1999, developer Pandemic Studios released a full sequel to Battlezone entitled Battlezone II: Combat Commander, although reception to it was decidedly mixed when compared to that of the original game. Two official expansion packs to the main game were released by Macmillan Publishing in 1998: Battlegrounds, which added a plethora of new scenarios from various authors, albeit with no overarching story or additions to the core mechanics, and The Red Odyssey, developed by Team Evolve, which introduced a third faction, the Chinese, and a new story-driven campaign. The game shares some thematic consistency with the 1980 arcade game with which it shares its name, as evidenced by its use of the first-person, heavy emphasis on tank combat, and its green wireframe minimap, although aside from these similarities, it does not resemble its forebear overmuch.īattlezone was well-received critically upon its release, and made enough of an impact to spur the development of several more titles in the franchise. The player performs all of the normal imperatives of the RTS genre from this vantage point, including base and unit construction, resource gathering, and attacking fortified enemy positions, but in addition to these actions, the player is able to partake in battles personally using controls similar to those of twitch-based first-person shooters. Overview Battlezone's main menu doubles as an homage.ĭeveloped and published by Activision, and released in early 1998 for the PC, Battlezone is a traditional real-time strategy game which is controlled from a first-person perspective rather than the isometric viewpoint more common to games of its type.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |