Z (computer game)

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Z
Developer(s)	Bitmap Brothers
Release date(s)	1996 in video gaming
Genre(s)	Real-time strategy
Mode(s)	Single-player / Multiplayer
Platform(s)	MS-DOS,Windows 95 Windows 98 Windows me
Media	CD-ROM
Input	Mouse

Z (pronounced Zed) 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. A sequel, Steel Soldiers, was published in 2001.

Contents 1 Gameplay 2 Atmosphere 3 Worlds 4 Logistics 5 Units 5.1 Robots 5.2 Vehicles 5.3 Guns 5.4 Buildings 6 Interface 6.1 Status Panel 6.2 Mini-Map 6.3 Command Bar 7 Game AI 8 Compatibility 9 Difference between Z and Z 95 10 Review 11 External links

[edit] Gameplay

Unlike other traditional real-time strategy (RTS) games, collecting resources or building specific structures is unnecessary for creating an army. Instead, regions and structures within their borders are captured by moving troops to their respective flags. Also, instead of using resources to build units, constructing each unit requires a pre-set amount of time. 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: either by sending a unit to enter it, or by destroying it directly. Alternatively, destroying all of the opponent's units immediately wins the game.

At the start of every mission, each side is given control of their Fort (the CPU) and a small group of units. A host of unmanned turrets and vehicles are usually scattered about the map and sending a robot to these will allow the player to add them to their army. However, the assigned robot will remain in the captured vehicle or turret as a pilot or a gunner.

The game is significantly different from others of its type: For example, vehicle drivers can take damage from enemy fire, and if the driver is destroyed, the vehicle they were commandeering will be unmanned and can be captured by either side.

[edit] Atmosphere

The game is filled with personal, somewhat humorous touches. If a mission is failed, the central unit tells the player: "you will fail, you are a dummy". When a robot has nothing to do, they begin to relax in the sun, play cards, smoke cigars, hunt rabbits, penguin (in the Arctic area), and other animals in the fields. The robots' attitude and expressions are very human.

[edit] Worlds

Combat takes place on several planets, with 4 missions on each. When one is successfully captured, a space ship transports the robot army to another. Worlds are divided into the following types:

• Desert: a dry, open and scarcely vegetated environment, in which units have trouble moving around freely. The player encounters rivers and islands as they progress through the battles on this planet. Some territories are controlled by flags on islands.

• Volcanic: a much more hostile environment. Lava flows are an impassable barrier.

• Arctic: a frozen world of snow and ice spanned by glacial rock formations.

• Jungle: a verdant world of menacing swamps and impenetrable chasms. Crocodiles in the swamps eat robots hanging around the mud.

• City: a decaying industrial complex where danger lies around every corner. Sewer monsters ambush robots moving across water.

[edit] Logistics

The supply logistics are simpler than the system used in traditional RTS games, such as the Command and conquer series: the more territories are owned (flags held), the faster the factories work and the more factories are available. Once a unit type is selected, production repeats automatically until a different unit type is selected.

The logistics issues centre more around getting forces to where they are required, as vehicles cannot cross water and even robots cannot cross lava.

[edit] Units

Which unit types can be produced depends on the building type (Robot or Vehicle factory), building level (number of stars displayed on the building) and game level. Fixed guns can be produced at either type of factory, while the Fort can produce all types of units, only limited by the game level. Higher level units are slower to produce.

[edit] Robots

Robots are produced in squads, the size of which depends on the robot type.

• Grunt: Armed with a rifle, weak, but fast to produce. Squads of 3.

• Psycho: Armed with a machine gun, stronger than grunts, also capable of shooting drivers out of their vehicles. Squads of 3.

• Tough: Armed with a bazooka, but very slow. Has the strongest armour of all foot soldiers. Squads of 2.

• Sniper: The fastest foot soldier unit, with a very long-range anti-infantry rifle. Snipers also have greater accuracy as gunners and vehicle drivers. Squads of 3.

• Pyro: Armed with a flame-thrower, one of the most destructive units against buildings and vehicles. Squads of 4.

• Laser: High level units with a fast and powerful laser weapon, but very slow to produce. The weapon has a long range and can be used to shoot drivers out of vehicles. Squads of 4.

Grenades: Robots other than the "Toughs" can collect grenades, using them to attack units or buildings or to blast through rocks.

[edit] Vehicles

All vehicles are produced with a grunt as the driver, though empty vehicles may be found on many game levels. The driver may be ordered to get out, or may sometimes be shot by enemy units.

• Jeep: Fast but weak and highly vulnerable.

• Light tank: The fastest tank, with the least amount of armor and firepower.

• Medium tank: Slower, but more powerful then the light tank.

• Heavy tank: Very slow, but has a powerful long range gun.

• APC: As fast as a light tank, and can be loaded with any single infantry type, allowing them to fire while the vehicle is moving.

• Missile launcher: Devastating firepower and range, but has slow speed and slow reload rate.

• Crane: Can repair bridges or buildings. Unarmed but has heavy armor and fast speed.

[edit] Guns

Immobile guns are produced with a grunt as the gunner. The gunner may be ordered out, or can be shot by enemy snipers. Guns placed on fort towers can only be destroyed, not taken.

• Gatling: A weak machine gun post, capable of shooting drivers out of vehicles.

• Gun: Similar in weapon power to a Medium tank, but has limited range (less than that of a Sniper).

• Howitzer: The longest range weapon in the game.

• Missile Cannon: Shorter range, but more destructive than the Howitzer.

[edit] Buildings

There are 5 kinds of buildings:

• Robot Factory: builds robots and guns.
• Vehicle Factory: builds vehicles and guns.
• The Fort: the cpu controlling the robots of each side. Capable of constructing robots, vehicles and guns.
• Repair Building: repairs damaged vehicles.
• Radar Station: capturing a Radar Station activates the mini map.

Each building has a preset number of stars from 1 to 5. 1-star buildings can only produce basic units, while 5-star ones have access to all the units of the type they can produce. Each building also displays its own timer, showing time remaining until the unit it is currently constructing is completed.

[edit] Interface

The Z interface displays the following information:

[edit] Status Panel

• Attack button: This flashes whenever a unit is under attack. Clicking on it will cycle through the units currently under attack. Pressing F5 has the same effect.

• Time elapsed: the clock shows the time elapsed since the start of battle. The faster the battle is won, the higher the winner's rank.

• Reporting Unit: This show the portrait of the selected unit, or one delivering a message from the battlefield. If the unit is reporting back but not selected, left-clicking on the portrait selects that unit.

• Unit name: the name of the currently reporting unit.

• Weapon/Vehicle and extra: this shows either the weapon type that the unit is carrying or the vehicle/gun that it is occupying. If the unit is capable of using extra object such as collected grenades, the number of remaining "extra" is also shown.

• Name of weapon: the name of the weapon the unit uses or vehicle/gun it occupies.

• Energy bar: this show how much energy the unit has remaining. When a unit is out of energy, it is destroyed.

[edit] Mini-Map

The Mini-map only works if the player controls a Radar Station. It shows units owned by the player and a rectangle marking the position of the battlefield view. It will also show the scanning range of any captured Radar Stations and the position of enemy units within the radar scan. The scanning range will increases with each additional territory captured, and decreases for each one lost. Brief descriptions of units and buildings appear on the mini-map as tooltips. Left-clicking on any spot on the mini map takes the player to that spot. Holding down the left mouse button while moving the pointer over the mini map scroll the battlefield view to track the pointer.

Overlay button: there are 3 buttons controlling mini-map overlay modes. Left-clicking on them toggles mini-map overlays on and off. The overlays are:

• T: Terrain Overlay. This shows roads, rock formations, water and other terrain features. Buildings are displayed and color coded to show whether they are uncaptured (white), or in possession of either the red or the blue player. The position of the flag controlling each territory is shown by a pulsating dot. These are also color coded, and are marked in white if the territory is uncaptured. Buildings and flags remain on the display even if terrain is switched off.

• D: Description Overlay. This shows brief descriptions of units and buildings in the form of tooltips. The descriptions are coded as follows:

• R = robot
• V = vehicle
• G = gun
• RF = Robot Factory
• VF = Vehicle Factory
• VR = Vehicle Repair Facility
• RA = Radar Station
• FT = Fort

• Z: Zone Overlay. This shows a grid marking the territories controlled by both armies.

A white frame on the mini-map marks the location of the current battlefield view.

[edit] Command Bar

• Cycle Unit Button :

Left-clicking on the R, V, B or G buttons cycles through the available robots, vehicles, buildings and guns respectively, starting with the unit closest to the one currently selected. The same effect can be produced by pressing one of the first four functions keys (F1: ROBOTS, F2: Vehicles , F3: Buildings, F4: Guns). The B button has an additional function if it is right-clicked on (or by pressing Ctrl and F4 simultaneously): this brings up the relevant build menu and highlights the building on the mini-map, but does not scroll the map. This allows setting up build orders while still concentrating mainly on the frontline.

• Army strength: Shows the number of units each side has.

• Menu: Pauses the game and brings up the game menu.

[edit] Game AI

The AI controlling each unit's reaction to commands is not very complex, so robots frequently walk directly into enemy fire. Units make this mistake whether they are controlled by a human or a computer player.

[edit] Compatibility

There are 2 versions for PC use, one for MS-DOS named Z and another one for Windows 95 named Z 95 & Expansion (that give Zeditor and Extension pack with additional challenging levels from 20 to 31. Each of these level are parallel; so 21 is the same kind as level 1 but with a bigger map and all Units available). The former used to require DOSBox (an open source MS-DOS emulator for various operating systems) to run on a modern Windows XP system. There is also a PlayStation and a Sega Saturn version.

A workaround for Z95's incompatibility with Windows XP which allows Z95 to run on a Windows XP system without any form of emulation was posted on the ZZone forums. The workaround, named z95forXP, involves disabling some protected instructions in the Z95 executable and contains a custom installer since the original Z95 installer refuses to run under Windows XP. In the concerning forum thread the z95forXP workaround is also reported to work under Windows Vista. The concerning forum thread on the ZZone forums can be found here: Z95 for Windows XP without emulation

[edit] Difference between Z and Z 95

There are few differences between the Z DOS version and the Z 95 version. Most of all Z 95 was made much more compatible with Windows 95 which was becoming more and more popular. Also some more levels were added to the so-called Expansion Kit. The Z DOS version has an interface for loading the game as its first step. In Z 95 the interface is still there but modified and is just a normal interface using APIs of Windows 95 without an eyecandy button. Z Dos version is much slower, which affects the game play, whereas the Z 95 version improves the speed and lets the game feel like a real time strategy field.

[edit] Review

Z was highly rated by various computers gaming magazines. For instance, it was awarded 92% by the famous PC Zone magazine, when it described Z as "a brilliant strategy game that is so hard Like all Bitmap Bros' games, there are loads of little touches that will amuse you, from the incompetent piss-head droids in the cut-scenes, flying you from level to level and crashing on the people flagging them in, to the voice which says, when you're struggling, 'You are so crap'. And you probably are. Z"

The old article is still available online: archived review by PC Zone

[edit] External links

• Zed section on the Official Bitmap Brothers website
• ZZone "Official" Zed fan site linked by Bitmap Brothers
• Z at The Bitmap Brothers Tribute
• Z at MobyGames
• Home of the underdogs, Zed review
• Vogon forum Thread , Zed under Linux
• Strategy Planet, Zed fan site
• Z-Zone, Running Z on Windows XP using DosBox
• Z-Zone, Z95 for Windows XP without emulation