Aaaaand we’re back! Not going to let the incredible information-gathering technology of the internet spoil my fun.
This is a cute little RTS with one sad, fatal design flaw that made it frustrating to play at first. It was also well-known for deserving an R rating for language.
(Remember that you can always click on the image above to get a full-size version. That’ll be helpful in this case, since this game looked like so many others of its day.)
Name and developer, please! If you win, I promise I won’t scream insults at you the next time you fail at something.
Z, The Bitmap Brothers 🙂
Correct! Nice to know someone still reads this blog. For bonus points, can you tell me the FATAL FLAW (dunh dunh DUNHHH!)
Oh, I can hardly wait to find out what it is!
Okay, I’ll tell you. Since these are all basically an excuse for me to pontificate about game history anyways 🙂
In Z, the game map is divided up into territories which you can take over. The game starts with both sides immediately grabbing every territory it can until they’re all claimed. After that, it’s a matter of taking over your enemy’s territories before he can take over yours.
But there’s no such thing as a front in Z – your opponent can attack any of your territories. He doesn’t have to just attack the adjacent ones. And if you don’t have a radar, you’ll have no idea that his units are in your territory until he takes over one of your back territories, putting your base in jeopardy and forcing you to turn your attention inward. At which point he starts taking your outer territories. In other words, the game becomes whack-a-mole.
This is one of those things that would have been so easy to fix and would have made the game so much better.
Did they fix it in the sequel? =)
I wish, wish, WISH somebody would make an update to this game. It is one of the few real time strategy games where there is actually *gasp* STRATEGY! No fiddling with peasants, no ridiculous micromanagement, just good sound (fun!) tactical decisions.
Genius game. It was a real shame that the sequel was just a dressed up CnC clone rather than using Z’s design.
Also, I loved the dialogue in this game. I made an army vs army game for my final project in game programming class a couple years ago, and I made sure that when you lose your entire team calls you an a-hole and a stupid jerk just like Z.