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                                    BATTLE ZONE
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                            article by Maarten Maartens
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Comments

Everybody  probably  knows the  famous  game "Worms". In  this game, by Software
company "Team 17", you  play as  a team of  4 worms, battling  it out against an
other group on a playfield.
The worms are  armed with all  kinds of crazy weaponary, like bazookas, grenades
and much more.
"Team 17" started programming for the Amiga exclusively, after the demise of the
machine they went  on to create  games for the PC. Too bad they never considered
developing for the ST, cause they are responsible for some of the greatest games
on the Amiga. Another good example of their work is "Alien Breed".
However, this company surfaced late during the second half of the 90's, when the
ST was already dying. So that might explain their absence from the ST scene...

What most of you probably don't know is that the ST has got its own little Worms
clone called "Battlezone". This  version  is limited though, due to the hardware
of the  regular ST. But  that doesn't  change the  fact that  it is still  great
multiplayer fun. Let's give it a closer look!



Graphics

The graphics aren't  really on par  with the original game, which is acceptable.
Viewed  on  its  own, the  game  does  look pretty  good  and  professional. The
scrolling is fine, just as long as there isn't too much happening on screen.
The animations  on the  other hand  are pretty  harsh and  blocky. There  are 13
different  landscapes at your  disposal, the  ST landscape being one of the most
original.

Sound

The game  starts with  a nice sampled  soundtrack. After  this all  of it  seems
pretty quiet. There  is no in-game  music, though the funny samples of the Worms
swearing when they're hit, made it to this version as well!

Gameplay

Well, as mentioned  before, Worms is an action game. Before you start the actual
game, You  have to pick  one  of the predefined  teams of  four Worms. You wanna
practice or play a complete tournament?
Finally, you  select the level  of difficulty and you  enter the arena where the
mayhem starts.

In Worms, you wait  turns to blow each other to crimson thunder. To do this, you
have a great  selection of  weapons  at your disposal. eg the shotgun, grenades,
rocket launcher, bazookas, ropes, ninja punches, and  you can even  call for air
strikes. But if it was just that, the fun would end pretty fast, I guess.
So the creators have come up with all kinds of nifty things.

You can move  a worm freely  over the landscape. You  can reach higher levels by
jumping, or  you could use the  ninja rope to  reach that  perfect spot. Keep in
mind once  you used  a toy, you  have  to wait your  turn again. You cannot just
shoot a rocket at your enemy, well you can  try, but there is  a big chance that
you'll miss him. The creators have added a lot of naturals physics to this game,
wind is one of them, so try and make use of this in your advantage.



Each worm starts with the same energy level. This gets  depleted by the numerous
ways of attacks  inflicted on the poor  creature. Once you have killed all works
(or shot them from the scenery), you win the match.
In this version  of Worms you can  take all the time you want, since there is no
time limit for each turn implemented. To me, this makes the game a bit less fun,
since it was an important factor in the original.
Now you have  to wait till  everybody is dead  till a game is finished, and this
can take while!

As a one  player game, Battlezone isn't  bad. And even  though the AI  is pretty
good,the game  gets boring soon. But  the real fun starts when you can shoot the
crap out  of a friend :-). Worms was  one of the  best multiplayer  games, well,
Battlezone does  that for the ST. You will be  laughing for hours once  you boot
this thing up!

Conclusion

Battlezone is a far cry from the original worms on the Amiga or PC, but it still
is nice to  have a clone  for the ST. The  graphics and animation isn't as good,
but the gameplay  is top notch. Especially  in 2 player  mode. Give this thing a
chance, you'll love it! Kill 'em all...

You can download this game over at Atari Force website

http://atariforce.atari.org

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