Interludicrous

As this school year comes to a close, I find myself reminiscing about one of my favorite games of all time: Battlezone.  It all started when I came over to my grandparents’ house one weekend in 1998.  I was 10 years old, and the only PC game I was playing at the time was most likely Silent Thunder: A-10 Tank Killer II from 1996. Later that year I discovered Need For Speed III: Hot Pursuit.  So my grandpa introduced me to Battlezone and I was in wonder, looking at the box.  It was labeled as “Revolutionary Action-Strategy,”  and it truly was revolutionary.  I installed it and launched into the singleplayer campaign, joining the American NSDF (National Space Defense Force) in the space race against the Russian CCA (Cosmos Colonist Army, originally Communist Cosmonaut Army) for the precious bio-metal found on various planets.  The bio-metal was created by the ancient Cthonian civilization.  Both the NSDF and the CCA have separate playable campaigns, complete with unique structures and vehicles.

The main gameplay consists of building and defending a base and constructing vehicles to help the player accomplish the mission.  The player acts as commander and can order every unit from the cockpit of his vehicle or he may go out on foot.  Almost every vehicle is pilotable, and each one can be customized with weapons from a mobile armory.  The main base vehicle is the recycler, which builds scavenger vehicles to collect bio-metal scrap.  The main vehicle builder is the factory, which can deploy anything from tanks to heavy walkers.  The constructor vehicle builds static structures such as gun towers and power sources.  Besides the singleplayer, there is a multiplayer element which I only discovered until much later, when I realized there was such a thing as online multiplayer gaming for pc games.  I haven’t yet come across another game series that brilliantly blends the base-building of real-time-strategy games with the action of first-person shooters and vehicular combat gameplay.

Battlezone’s successor, Battlezone II: Combat Commander, was released the following year.  I had originally thought it was released much later.  It was not reviewed as highly as the first game, but I thought it captured the same gameplay and was true to its roots.  The story line continues with the NSDF and the CCA joining forces as the ISDF (International Space Defense Force) against the Scions, an alien race that uses bio-metal.  The significant change in Battlezone II was that the main base vehicles like the factory and armory became static structures.  Only the recycler had the option to deploy and become mobile again.  In addition to collecting scrap metal that was scattered across the battlefield, scavengers could now deploy on bio-metal pools to receive a constant flow of resources.  Once deployed, they could not move.  Otherwise, the game played out in a similar way.  There was a large modding community behind the game, making maps, mini-mods, and total conversion mods.  The modding community is still outliving the series, releasing unofficial patches to keep both games alive.

So I finally got around to trying out the Far Cry 2 map editor.  I wasn’t able to access it on my pc with XP.  The game itself runs better on my Vista laptop than it does on my XP desktop, which is due for a video card upgrade sometime this year.  The editor allows you to preview your map exactly as you would see it in-game, much like the CryEngine editor.  The available tools are easy to use and provide enough flexibility to customize a map the way you want to.  I started working on a map and went non-stop into the wee hours of the morning.  It’s almost done, as I’m just adding spawn points and required objects for game modes.

So as I bid farewell to my Alienware m5550 laptop, I’ve acquired Gateway’s P-7805u FX laptop for a great price, $1,149. It’s a great desktop replacement, weighing in at 9.1lbs with a 17″ 1440×900 screen.  I put it to the test with Dawn of War II and it performed extremely well with medium to high settings.  Keep in mind that it comes with 64-bit Vista so older games may not be compatible with it.  I tried installing Battlefield 2, a good four year old game, but the installation process couldn’t quite finish and the game couldn’t load a map.  More specs below…

• Processor: Intel Core2 Duo P8400 (2.26GHz)
• OS: Windows Vista Home Premium (64-bit) with SP1
• Memory: 4GB DDR3
• Hard Drive: 320GB 7200RPM SATA
• Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GTS with 1GB of GDDR3

I’m looking forward to acquiring these strategy games soon. I had the opportunity to participate in the Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II multiplayer beta and had a blast. Its gameplay mechanics parallel those of Company of Heroes, so if you’re familiar with them you’ll feel right at home with Dawn of War II. Tales of Valor deviates from the previous games in the series by giving the player direct control over a single tank in its campaign.  Both games were developed by Relic.