Battlezone

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Description

Commonly considered the earliest progenitor of first-person shooters (FPS), Battlezone is a 3D tank game initially released in the arcades, and later converted officially to many systems. Earth has been invaded, and you and your tank lead the defensive effort. You drive around the battlefield from a first-person view, targeting and firing at tanks, planes and UFOs. You have a radar to help you see where the enemies are in direction and distance. Objects can be used as strategic cover. Controls simulate the tracks of a tank realistically, so the direction and speed settings are varied - combining forward right and backward left movements (as you can on keyboard versions) sees you change direction more quickly.

Screenshots

Promo Images

Part of the Following Groups

• Battlezone series
• Battlezone variants
• Gameplay feature: Dual joysticks
• Gaming Service: Game Room

User Reviews

Relive the first first-person shooter in a surprisingly faithful reproduction of the original arcade game.

PC Booter

Trixter (9114)

Critic Reviews

neXGam	Atari 2600	Jun 27, 2013	8.3 out of 10	83
Tilt	Atari 2600	Jan, 1984		83
Eurogamer.net (UK)	Arcade	Oct 25, 2007	8 out of 10	80
ST Action	Atari ST	Aug, 1988	61 out of 100	61
All Game Guide	Atari 2600	1998		60
Your Spectrum	ZX Spectrum	Feb, 1985	8.5 out of 15	57
The Games Machine (UK)	Atari ST	Sep, 1988	51 out of 100	51
Sinclair User	ZX Spectrum	Dec, 1984	5 out of 10	50
The Game Hoard	Arcade	Mar 26, 2020	3 out of 7	43
The Video Game Critic	Atari 8-bit	Sep 23, 2007	F	0

Forums

Topic	# Posts	Last Post
The arcade original	1	John F Aug 23, 2007

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Battlezone appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott

Arcade version

Development of the original Battlezone coin-op was a team effort: Morgan Hoff was the project leader; Jed Margolin handled electrical engineering; Ed Rotberg programmed it; Roger Hector modelled all 3D objects as minimally as possible, and Howie Delman's vector-graphics generator was used.

References to the game

Battlezone units appear in the movies:

• Tron (1982)
• Joysticks (1983)
• The Philadelphia Experiment (1984)
• Running Scared (1986)

Volcano

Owen Rubin kept pestering Rotberg to make the volcano on the horizon active; Rotberg brushed him off, challenging Rubin to write the code for the volcano himself if he felt so strongly about it# The next morning, there it was sitting on his desk.

Awards

• Retro Gamer
  • Issue 46 - #20 in the "Top 25 Atari 2600 Games" poll

Information also contributed by Nélio, PCGamer77 and FatherJack.

Related Web Sites

• Battlezone's wikipedia page (You can find all sorts of info about Battlezone here.)
• Kumar's Gaming | Battlezone Review (A detailed review of Battlezone on the Atari 2600 gaming console.)
• The International Arcade Museum (extensive information about the arcade game machine)