Was it really this difficult?

[soopytwist]

It has been a long time since I last played this (very long time). I've got the difficulty on easy and yet I fail the first American mission almost instantly. If not me being blown up the scavenger does. I don't remember it being this hard, perhaps I'm missing something?

[Novus Ordo Seclorum]

The AI was upgraded in 1.5 to fight properly, and this is in Battlezone Redux too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EVRyRAKXvU
I think somewhere near the 20-minute mark, I start the first mission after goofing around in training and stuff. I'm not playing on easy, I always play on very hard.

[soopytwist]

I only ever previously played the original un-patched CD game back in '98 (and not since) so that might explain why I've found it harder.

[Knights]

It really should be easy on easy, you probably just need to learn the game a bit more. I see a lot of people not aiming properly and missing a lot.

[BZoned]

soopytwist, I suggest that you steer your vehicle until the enemy unit you want to target is approximately in the center of your view and press the "T" key on your keyboard. It will enable a reticle (highlighted in red for enemies) with an active moving dot which indicates where to aim your weapon to increase your chance of destroying them before your ship is blown up.

[soopytwist]

Bugger this. Even on Very Easy I can't play this. In fact even after entering the bztnt and bzbody cheat codes for infinite ammo and shield I still can't play this - my factory or recycler just get blown up while trying to do anything. Constant attacks.

I got as far as the volcano mission but since there's only one gyser I can either deply the armoury (poinltess since I put the cheats in) in or recycler. Either one gets left behind while I'm at the volcano, and is attacked and destroyed within 30 seconds because I'm not there to defend and it with no factory to build no way to build defense.

It was never like this. This redux has changed it too much.

Uninstalled.

[Bagley B. Bagington the Bagpiper]

There's two geysers near the volcano that you can put a recycler and factory together. There's other geysers. Press caps and look at the map. Don't go to the volcano until you have a force with you. You can just set up some turrets quickly as, until you go there, only a couple flankers attack at a time.

[Knights]

I don't think the difficult settings work atm. I don't notice any difference between them... Might be something I'd like see be confirmed by the devs maybe..

[Novus Ordo Seclorum]

Don't worry, I'll eventually cover every campaign mission in my Battlezone 98 Redux let's play, and I've even got videos up of the campaigns in 1.5 as well.

[Ded10c]

Originally posted by soopytwist:

Bugger this. Even on Very Easy I can't play this. In fact even after entering the bztnt and bzbody cheat codes for infinite ammo and shield I still can't play this - my factory or recycler just get blown up while trying to do anything. Constant attacks.

I got as far as the volcano mission but since there's only one gyser I can either deply the armoury (poinltess since I put the cheats in) in or recycler. Either one gets left behind while I'm at the volcano, and is attacked and destroyed within 30 seconds because I'm not there to defend and it with no factory to build no way to build defense.

It was never like this. This redux has changed it too much.

Uninstalled.

During testing we actually focused on this misson - one of the testers said he remembered the being howitzers at the peak and none of the rest of us did, so we went through the mission in every version of BZ we had to hand to find them. It plays just the same.

We never did find those howitzers.

[-=JabbA=- *p0p*]

I'm not privelaged to have played BZ98 in its original release, but I do tend to find that a lot of older games, when played on modern machines, have a different "feel," and by extension, "difficulty" to them. I explain to myself that the video resolution and refresh rates, as well as the mouse DPI and surfce traction, are responsible for this. Going from old systems to modern systems is no less drastic than say porting a game from console to PC: as similar as old and new systems seem, they're fundamentally different on a hardware level. By way of example, navigating 800x600 pixel screen space on a ball mouse is a different paradigm than 1920x1080 with a 2k dpi laser mouse. The original battlezone wasn't designed for the latter, so it's no surprise if the redux feels a little bit kinky.

[Ded10c]

Don't mention refresh rates making things feel different in a thread with Sporkinator, he'll have an aneurysm.

[Novus Ordo Seclorum]

I've got a laser mouse, but it's set at 800 dpi, which I believe is the closest to a non-laser mouse. Higher mouse dpi levels are basically worthless, as there is a loss of the ability to aim accurately with the increase in sensitivity. The game may feel different at 60 FPS or more, since back in 1998, the game was designed to run at 20 FPS. No really... stuff had to be fixed in 1.5 because it was frame rate dependent! Notably the thumper weapon, the game's internal timing, and the furies.

[Bob Barnsen]

Same here. I really can't remember this game being so hard back then when i played it.

For example i had to restart the first mission several times to be able to know where and when exactly enemies will appear.

Failed the second mission a few times already too, as the dumb transporters just rush into the enemy turrets and some other enemies are also coming from behind.

I'm not sure about the controls, but i also can't remember them being so absouletely terrible back then. Even if you are on foot, it controls like you are in some hovertank.

[Ded10c]

Tip for those turrets; take them out early. You've got plenty of time between waves to leave your base, and you should only need one or two complements of mortars to take them out from range.

With the first mission, you should be okay provided you remember to stick close to the Scavenger you're assigned to protect and keep an eye on your radar. Everything else can look after itself.

[Phileosophos]

Originally posted by soopytwist:

It has been a long time since I last played this (very long time). I've got the difficulty on easy and yet I fail the first American mission almost instantly. If not me being blown up the scavenger does. I don't remember it being this hard, perhaps I'm missing something?

I don't remember having any difficulty with the original for the first several missions. But this one I lose the first mission seemingly for no reason. I blow up all the bad guys going after the scavenger and lose anyway. I don't get it.