Battlezone

• Release Date: 1983
• Genre: Shooter
• Style: Vehicle Shooter
• Similar Games: Robot Tank (Atari Video Computer System)

Game Description

Based on the Atari coin-op of the same name, Battlezone for the Atari 2600 is a first-person tank shooter. Your basic objective is to drive around the countryside, shooting enemies while avoiding being shot. Unlike the vector-based arcade game, which used a periscope as part of its control mechanism, this home version of Battlezone is played using a standard joystick.

By the year 1999, all the nations of Earth have banded together in peace (according to this game, at least). Unfortunately, a renegade council of military commanders has disrupted this utopian existence by unleashing a battalion of automated tanks, aerial fighters, flying saucers, and supertanks upon the unsuspecting world. At the helm of an old military tank you found in a museum, it is your job to squelch this rebellion.

Roots & Influences

Battlezone is based on the arcade game of the same name.

Review: Overall

When Battlezone for the Atari 2600 first hit retail stores back in 1983, it is very doubtful that anyone was expecting arcade realism. After all, the arcade version of Battlezone features vector graphics (like those found in games like Asteroids and Tempest), something the Atari 2600 is simply incapable of accurately reproducing. Also, the periscope controller used in the arcade game would've been terribly impractical to re-create for home use. Keeping these obvious limitations in mind, Battlezone is a respectable, if not overly fun, arcade to home translation.

Battlezone is not a great shooting game (it's kind of slow and clunky), but it does look good. The tank you pilot looks pretty realistic, and the perspectives are nicely done. When the saucers and other enemies advance from the background to the foreground, the effect is choppy but fairly convincing. Also, the blending of greens, yellows, and oranges in the grass on which you travel is likable.

When talking about Battlezone for the Atari 2600, you've got to compare it to Robot Tank, a very similar game released by Activision in the same year. Both games are first-person tank shooters, and both games use a radar screen to help you track your enemies. Where these games differ is that in Robot Tank, you are only vulnerable to enemies that are currently in your line of sight, and you can suffer damage to different parts of your tank before being destroyed.

In Battlezone, enemies can strike you from behind, and any time you get hit by enemy fire, your tank is completely demolished. Basically, this means that Battlezone is harder and usually more frustrating than Robot Tank.

Graphically, the enemy tanks in Robot Tank are less blocky and more realistic than those in Battlezone, but Battlezone features a wider variety of enemies. The sound effects are good in both games, but Battlezone includes a musical introduction while Robot Tank does not.

Tank combat games (such as Combat) in which you battle a human opponent on a flat playing field are usually great, but first-person tank games such as Battlezone and Robot Tank leave me a little cold. Both of these titles are certainly competent, well-designed games with high production values, but they can get a little dull after extended play.

Purchasing a copy of Battlezone at a reasonable price probably won't give you buyer's remorse, but it's not a game that you'll feel compelled to rush out and tell all of your friends about.

Review: Enjoyment

The varying motions of the different enemies make for some decent challenges, but I find this kind of tank game to be a little dull.

Review: Graphics

It doesn't have the seasonal changes like those found in Robot Tank, but Battlezone still has a nice over all look to it.

Review: Sound

There's not a weak sound effect in the game. Battlezone has a cleaner, less staticy sound than Robot Tank.

Review: Replay Value

Driving a slow tank and turning it right and left to shoot enemies can get old after a while.

Review: Documentation

The manual is fine.

battlezone	battlezone 2