Battlezone

Battlezone was released from Atari in 1980 on the arcade platform, although it was to be cloned many more times on different consoles throughout the 80's. The game uses wire frame vector based graphics to simulate a combat environment in which you pilot a tank whose goal is to destroy as many enemy crafts as possible.

Also:

- Published by: Atari
- Developed by: Atari
- Designer: Ed Rotberg, Owen Rubin, Roger Hector
- Platform: Arcade
- Year Released: 1980

Significant Contributors to Game Development:
- Genre: Vehicular Combat Simulation
- Other Games in Series: Battlezone II: Combat Commander

History

This game was designed by Ed Rotberg, who was a prominent developer for Atari. There was another version released called The Bradley Trainer, which was a training element used to train members of the Army how to use the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, which in essence is a massive tank. He only designed and developed this game for Atari becuase he was promised by upper management it was the only time they would ask him to do anything with the military again. This is considered to be the first training device that was also a game used by the US Military.

This game is widely considered the first virtual reality game of it's kind, mainly because of it's advanced 3D graphics (for its time) and it's binocular-like viewpiece that you look through to the CRT monitor.

Game Design Elements

Gameplay

The game is set somewhere in an open area with mountains in the background, a half crescent moon, an erupting volcanoe, and various enviornmental geometric 3D shapes, like cubes. However, the only thing that actually served and an element of gameplay was the blocks that are randomly scattered throughout the environment. These can be used to block enemy bullets and to take cover from enemy fire, but they can also stop the motion of your tank.

Players start the game with 3 extra tanks, and can earn more by reaching the 15,000 point mark, and then the 100,000 point mark, each rewarding 1 extra tank. A cost of 25 cents also made for a great replay value on this title.

There are only two types of projectiles - bullets fired from tanks (yours + enemy's) and missiles fired from UFO's. Enemy missiles can be shot, while enemy bullets can't. Everything in the game can be destroyed in one shot, and projectiles travel in a straight line. An important point to note is that the player is never faced with more than one enemy at once, unless it's a combination of the UFO (can't hurt you) and either a tank or a guided missile.

Controls

The controls for Battlezone were unique in that they weren't just regular old joysticks, they were shaped like those that one would actually find within a tank. There were 2 black joysticks, one of them (the right one) with a red button on top where the thumb is placed for firing. The player used a combination of both joysticks to move the tank. For example, holding forward on both of the control sticks would move you forward, while holding forward on the left and back on the right would turn your tank to the right.

Plot

There isn't a story behind Battlezone, it's a simple vehicular combat simulator with a clear objective - rack up as many points as possible by killing enemy tanks and UFO's before you run out of extra tanks.The setting could theoretically be anywhere, but I feel it's either in a desert or on a moon/some other planet, mainly because of the lack of environmental elements, but then again that could just have been a limitation of the capability of the graphics at the time.

Characters

The 'characters' in this game are your tank, Super Tanks, UFO's, and regular enemy tanks. There's also a bonus diamond-shaped craft that moves left and right around the back wall near the mountains. The point value for the tanks are as follows:

- Regular Enemy Tank - 1000 pts.
- Super Tank - 3000 pts.
- Flying Saucer (Diamond-shaped craft) - 5000 pts.
- Destroying Enemy Homing Missiles - 2000 pts.

The difference between the Super Tank and the Regular Enemy Tank is the Super Tank moves much faster and shoots a little quicker too.

Art

Visual

Upon beginning play, the player is placed in the gunners seat of a tank in a 3D vector world. The landscape features mountains in the horizon, a half crescent moon, and an erupting volcano. There are also many other vector based common geometric shapes like cubes, rectangles, and triangles on the field of play. While these were advanced for the time, they were mainly for functionality. Battlezone actually doesn't have more than one color (green) that's displayed on it's monitor. A small piece of red cellophane is placed across the top of the screen that's used to make the scores and warning messages appear red. Most likely, the bit depth on the graphics is 2. The erupting volcano actually wasn't even part of the original game design, but a programmer on the team coding for this game thought it would be a good idea and took it upon himself to write the code for it.

Sound

The sound in Battlezone is very basic yet extremely fitting. There's a sound for when a bullet is fired (both friendly and enemy), there's a constant "boop" noise every once in a while for when the radar pulses, and a noise for when a bullet makes contact with something (hits and object - environmental vector shape, tank, saucer, etc.) The only music in the game is played at the credits screen where you enter your initials. The song that's playing is a piece from Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. The sound of an enemy bullet being fired definitely raises your adrenaline as you rush in any random direction to try and find the enemy tank and evade the bullet. The audio bit depth is also most likely 2, like the graphics.

References

- http://www.recroom-amusements.com/aboutbattlezone.htm