Battlezone 98 Redux

 PC
User Score
8.4

Generally favorable reviews- based on 14 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 14
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 14
  3. Negative: 0 out of 14

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  1. cubanjohn
    Aug 13, 2016
    10
    Awesome FPS RTS. Great remaster and patch support. Just got Red Odyssey expansion. Fantatsic. All new models, all new textures, improved AI but the core gameplay remains the same and the Multiplayer is now really solid and works on modern routers. Dream come true!
  2. Mandulum
    Jul 16, 2016
    7
    Five Word Review: A nostalgia trip worth taking.
    Favorite Thing: The combination of first-person tanking and strategy.
    Least Favorite Thing: Placing builds? Terrible AI pathing/following? Crashes?

    Playtime: ~ 15h
    Enjoyment: 7/10
    Recommendation: Only if you're on a nostalgia trip.
  3. Captain_Chaos
    Jun 22, 2016
    10
    My favorite game apart from maybe Interstate '76, and it's based upon that game's engine anyway. One of the defining games of my childhood and well deserving of this re-release.

    Originally released in 1998, this take on Battlezone was itself a re-imagining of the 1980 arcade game. It blended first-person vehicular combat with real-time strategy elements to create a revolutionary hybrid    My favorite game apart from maybe Interstate '76, and it's based upon that game's engine anyway. One of the defining games of my childhood and well deserving of this re-release.

    Originally released in 1998, this take on Battlezone was itself a re-imagining of the 1980 arcade game. It blended first-person vehicular combat with real-time strategy elements to create a revolutionary hybrid game experience that has only been briefly revisited since, in games such as Sacrifice and Brutal Legend.

    In 1952, as the story goes, a meteor shower in the arctic circle brought a previously unknown organic material to Earth. Simultaneously discovered by scientists of both the US and the Soviet Union, this "Bio-Metal" was soon discovered to have the unique ability to remember shapes it had previously assumed. From this material, the superpowers created hovering tanks and weapons centuries ahead of anything they could have otherwise made at the time. They quickly ran out of it, and turned their eyes towards the stars in search of more. In secret, the two nations sent thousand-man armies into space. Thus began a new, hidden chapter of the Cold War- the one too brutal to televise. You will journey into space in search of the bio-metal, and the truth of its origins.

    You take the role of a soldier of either the Americans' National Space Defense Force, or NSDF, or the Russians' Cosmo Colonist Army, or CCA. You begin most campaign missions, as well as multiplayer strategy matches, with your own tank and a Recycler- at once your core base structure, your resource depository, and a factory that produces all other essential units. It exists in a mobile or deployed state, able to travel (slowly) about until you find a geyser over which to deploy it, whereupon it becomes able to build. You have two resources: scrap, and pilots. The former are gathered by scavengers, autonomous resource-harvesting vehicles built from the Recycler that will wander the map gathering bio-metal scrap, found lying around in fields on most maps, or generated from destroyed vehicles and structures. Controlling these scrap fields and assigning escorts to your scavengers is crucial in more difficult missions, and in multiplayer.

    Aside from the two story campaigns, there are a variety of multiplayer modes, including deathmatch, strategy, and "MPI", a form of co-op strategy versus AI. This Redux includes extensive Steam Workshop support- you can download maps on the fly even in-game. It also includes updated models and visual effects, trading cards, achievements, and other niceties- aside from running very smoothly on modern systems, more so then it ever did in the old days. However, it is a essentially a straight re-release, and does not attempt to address any of the game's existing shortcomings- save the netcode, of course.

    You are limited, for example, to only ten units of each type, since that's as far as the number keys go, as well as the hard pilot cap of 30. The AI is single-minded at best and suicidal at worst, with frequent issues with pathfinding, often getting stuck trying to scale inclines the player would have no trouble at all with. Scavengers are completely incapable of not only defending themselves but even of reacting to being attacked, and will continue on their merry way scavenging in the face of certain destruction. Artillery units will fire at will regardless of the risk of hitting your own forces and cannot be set to hold their fire. Your offensive units also require careful management ot get the most out of their attacks. The walkers are also so painfully slow that their use in most campaign missions is extremely limited- its entirely possible to finish CCA Mission 6, for example, without the use of the three Golems you are given. Most campaign missions also have only one or two safe methods of completion, with very little room for experimental tactics.

    However, most of these flaws are attributable to the limitations of the original game engine, and and while they are even more glaringly obvious all these years later, there is something to be said for bringing the game to Steam and a new audience as is, the way we enjoyed it 18 years ago, and it is certainly easier to forgive then a brand new game with these same flaws. Battlezone was something completely new and any problems it had were excusable in the face of how much fun I had with it, and it was a great pleasure to revisit this landmark title in both my young life and the history of PC gaming. I urge newcomers and old hands, shooter and strategy fans alike to pick this one up. You will not be disappointed.    … Expand
  4. WilliamGoh
    Apr 18, 2016
    10
    Great FPS-RTS from the 90s brought back to life, hooray!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  5. Mandulum
    Jul 16, 2016
    7
    Five Word Review: A nostalgia trip worth taking.
    Favorite Thing: The combination of first-person tanking and strategy.
    Least Favorite Thing: Placing builds? Terrible AI pathing/following? Crashes?

    Playtime: ~ 15h
    Enjoyment: 7/10
    Recommendation: Only if you're on a nostalgia trip.

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
75

Generally favorable reviews - based on 9 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 9
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 9
  3. Negative: 0 out of 9
  1. Brash Games
    Jul 13, 2016
    80
    Battlezone 98 Redux prevails because it keeps the identity of the original, without alienating any modern audiences. The game shows its age in terms of its graphics, its controls, and its story. But the timeless blend of action and strategy are what makes this game stay fresh, and with the strategy genre becoming stale with each new release, perhaps this remaster is just what it needs to revitalise it.
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  2. Pelit (Finland)
    Jun 14, 2016
    93
    Battlezone is still a blast. One of the best games that nobody has ever heard of, remastered Battlezone masterfully combines first person shooter with real time strategy. Strategic space tank mayhem goodness. [June/July 2016]
  3. GameGrin
    Jun 2, 2016
    80
    It’s fun and frantic, and has plenty of replayability. It just happens to sound poor and look dated.
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