Battlezone (1983) 
| Details (Atari 5200) | Supported platforms | Artwork and Media | |
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| Publisher: Genre: Author(s): Maximum Players: Joysticks: Language: Media Code: Media Type: Country of Release: Comments: | Atarisoft Shoot 'em Up Atari 1 CX52 Joystick Eng CX-5239 Cartridge UK, USA The Atari 5200 port was scheduled for release in November 1983, but was cancelled. | Click to choose platform: Atari 800 Atari 2600 (VCS) Atari 5200 Atari ST Commodore VIC-20 More from other publishers: Commodore 64 Sinclair ZX Spectrum |
| Videos | Screenshots (Atari 5200) |
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| Your Reviews |
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| Cheats | Trivia |
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| There are no cheats on file for this title. | From AtariProtos.com: It looks like Battlezone, it sounds like Battlezone, it plays like... did I mention it looks like Battlezone? Battlezone starts off promisingly enough with a nice 3D lettered title screen and a really cool rendition of "Ride of the Valkyries", but after playing for only a few minutes one can see that Atari still had alot of work left to do on this game... The first thing you'll notice is that the cool vector mountain range in the background has been replaced with some solid blue mountains, Atari was forced to resort to a raster background due to the limitations of the 5200 hardware. This isn't a big loss, but I miss the neat erupting volcano. Thankfully Atari decided to stay true to the arcade original and do the rest of the game in vector graphics, unfortunately it quickly becomes obvious that the 5200 just wasn't up to the task. Instead of the objects on the screen slowly scaling (growing larger or smaller) to simulate movement, they seem to just jump from one size to the next. What you basically see is an object go from small (far away) to large (right next to you) in only a second or two instead of over a period of several seconds. Not only does this make the graphics look ragged (objects don't tend to look good when they jump rapidly), but it gives the game a very choppy feeling. While one can overlook the scaling problems (this was the 5200 after all, nobody expected it to be perfect), the collision detection still needs some major work. For some reason your shots don't seem to hit the enemy tank about 50% of the time, this could be due to a error in the collision detection or be caused by the afore mentioned scaling problem. There have been times when I was nose to nose with a enemy tank and had my shots go right through it and drift off to the left or right (which I think has something to do with the scaling). Although you may have a devil of a time hitting them, the enemy tanks don't seem to have any problem hitting you. Assuming your shot actually hits the enemy, you're treated to nice explosion of parts which is a surprising since most home versions tend to leave out little bits of eye candy like this. Although tanks can consistently be destroyed with some practice, the flying saucer appears to be almost impossible to hit. While the flying saucer was rare to see in the arcade, it seems to appear way too often in this version (accompanied by it's annoying sound). If you actually manage to score a hit, it will simply fade away with a weird 'bong' sound. Gameplay problems aside, the sounds and graphics are top notch (for the 5200 anyway). The sounds appear to be all there (including a neat little sound when you run into an obstacle), although seem to be a little sparse but that's how they were in the arcade game as well. The graphics are very nice vectors, which other than the scaling problems, seem to mirror the arcade fairly well. One minor gripe is that when you get shot your screen doesn't crack down the middle like it does in the arcade, instead you're treated to a weird little starburst pattern that has a line connecting them. While it's interesting to see the computer draw them (it draws one starburst, sends out a line then draws another, sends out a line, etc.) it's nothing like the arcade. I have no idea why this was changed; perhaps the programmer thought it was more interesting? Another gripe is that you can see some glitches in the vector shapes on the screen when you force them to scale at a rapid rate; this is probably a result of the 5200 pushing too many vectors at once. |
History
This title was first added on 6th February 2007
This title was most recently updated on 22nd March 2017