Retro Gamer

Battleclon­es

The games that owed a lot of tanks to Atari’s arcade blaster

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stellar 7 VARIOUS

While quite obviously borrowing heavily from Battlezone, Stellar 7 managed to do things so well – varied, exciting action with power-ups like a cloaking device and even some level of story behind it – that the game ended up beloved in its own right. Remakes and sequels followed, and the series is still fondly remembered.

encounter! VARIOUS

Notable for being designed by Mercenary’s Paul Woakes, Encounter! took the first-person combat of Battlezone, switched out tanks for alien… well, balls, and replaced vector graphics with scaling sprites. It was heralded in the day as a technical marvel, with a superb pace to play and exciting action throughout.

tokyo wars ARCADE

Namco turned back time to the dawn of arcade for its inspiratio­n with Tokyo Wars,a straightfo­rward – and genuinely satisfying – game of tank combat seeing one team facing off against another. Of course, there was a gimmick – players would sit in a chair that, on firing the main cannon, blasted back with the ‘force’ of the shot.

ROBOT tank ATARI 2600

This entry also counts Battlezone 2000 for

Atari’s console and Battle Tank for the 8-bit family, with each being – to varying degrees – a clone or take on Battlezone. Robot Tank added weather conditions, Battlezone 2000 (released well before the completely different Lynx version) was a strategy title, and Battle Tank was… not very good.

Bz/bzflag PC

Originally created in the early Nineties as a passion project – and one inspired by Battlezone

– what was originally known as BZ has been modified and updated frequently for over 20 years. Nowadays it’s a niche, beloved online capture the flag shooter as famous for its number of volunteer developers as it is the blasty action.

hostile waters: antaeus rising PC

While 1998’s Battlezone wasn’t the first to bring RTS and shooter systems together, it certainly reignited a passion for the subgenre. So it was no surprise to see the likes of the brilliant Hostile Waters. This gem has seen a resurgence in popularity, possibly thanks to BZ ’s Hd releases.

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