Via Eurogamer comes the news that Z, the 1996 Bitmap Brothers RTS for PC, Sega Saturn and PlayStation, is being remade for the iOS platform.
Z was a pretty unique take on the RTS for the time and was a lot of fun, even if it was also brutally unforgiving and occasionally frustrating. It’s great to see it getting a new lease on life.
The main reason I am posting this is because I’m amused by the idea of AJ, an enormous Bitmap Brothers fan, buying an iPhone. I think his feelings about Apple may be even stronger than his feelings about Sony, the murderers of SEGA.
While I’m at it, though, I also want to link to Zod, an ambitious open-source remake of Z that actually builds on the original game and adds a level editor and persistent online aspects including competitive and co-op multiplayer. Hopefully the iOS re-release won’t see this project issued a takedown notice – but just in case, perhaps you should grab it while you can.
Comments
5 responses to “Short Despatch from the Robo-Trenches”
Fuuuuuuuuu….
Where do I get an iPhone exactly?
I think you need to go to http://www.n-gage.com.
So I caved, I really love Z, and installed the Zod stuff.
Boot the game, an exception comes up from windows 7, the program overrides it and then gets stuck in some kind of limbo with me being unable to do anything as my mouse no longer works (I can't accept the exception, can't close Zod). I reboot my PC and ponder for a few seconds then boot the game again.
Everything is running too fast, I get slaughtered without even realising why (literally the AI is moving faster than I can see and the audio is struggling to catch up). I go to another map and start doing alright considering I just have to rememeber the AI routines from 15 years ago. Then I realise i can't scroll down only up, left and right. The keyboard keys don't work, none of the quick use icons work either.
I quit out and uninstall launcher and kick myself for bothering with PC gaming.
Kneel before Zod.
Ahaha. Good times. When I take a look I'll let you know how I get on!