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Z (video game)

Tunned

Member
Hey guys, I never made a thread until now, because there was nothing that came to mind that was interesting to talk about (at least to me).

I'm a old school strategy game fan, with the likes of C&C, KKND, Warcraft, Heroes of M&M being my favourite series in the 90s. But there is one game that I think never got enough exposure, or just was not popular enough back then, and that game is "Z".

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Z came out back in 1996, and I played the shit out of it as a teenager.

Shameless wikipedia quote: "Z is a 1996 real-time strategy computer game by The Bitmap Brothers. It is about two armies of robots (red and blue) battling to conquer different planets. Unlike traditional real-time strategy (RTS) games, collecting resources or building specific structures is unnecessary for creating an army. Regions and structures within their borders that actually manufacture the units are captured by moving troops to their respective flags. The more regions are under the player's control, the less the time required. More powerful units take more time to construct. The objective of the game is to eliminate the opponent by taking out their command Fort."

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Lately I got the itch to play it again, but I found out that the version on Steam is a port of the iOS version of the game, and runs like shite.

So I did some digging and found an open source version of the game, modernised and brought up to date by the fans, just like OpenRA: The Zod Engine
I have tried it briefly, and it seems to play just as well as I remember, and I'm going to put some more time into the game for sure.

There was a sequel to Z, Z Steel Soldiers, it came out in 2001, but for some reason I never played it, I might give it a go one day.

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Whist I was digging for information, I found some more games that should come out soon, and play like the original Z:

Nuke them all - this look like a spiritual successor to Z, mixed with some base defense, but the art is a bit too mobile game like, or flash. Might be fun though.
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And then there is Warpaws - it says that the game will release this year, but there has been no updates so far.
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So what say you Gaf, have any of you played the game, or heard of it? Maybe if it's the first time you hear of it, and you'll give it a go?
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I also played only the demo (very often) and I remember how refreshing and alive the comments from your soldiers feel. It was pretty different to the more subtle/serious tone of other games in that genre.
 

skit_data

Member
Oh yeah, the original Z was probably the first strategy game I ever played. I distinctly remember the little guys flying up in the air towards the player when they got blown up. Damn, I had totally forgotten this game.
 

Tunned

Member
Yeah I played the demo but it was hard as fuck!
I played this a lot as a kid. I don't think I got very far, though. From what I remember it was pretty hard.
Yeah, the game was and still is hard, even the open source version. Which is one thing that makes it so entertaining.

I'm happy people actually know about the game, although telling by the amount of replies, not too many people.
 

Tunned

Member
This was one of the games my friend and I would play head-to-head via null-modem cable. Great game.
I never player the game head to head tbh, must be fun. The Zod Engine actually allows up to 5 players to go head-to-head online!

Played a few rounds today against the AI. Won 1 out of 5 rounds, the game is still hard as fudge lol, still fun though.
 
Played the original, loved it. Really enjoyed the style and the units were all fun.
Hard game you had to be very aggressive and micro your tanks when fighting the enemy tanks. Never managed to win the last level.
I had the directors cut version which just had the robots swearing all the time, thought that was funny at the time.
 
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