Around 1997-1998 the game world was in roar. 3D stuff was coming, and it was coming fast. And I was there, waiting for one particular game to be released.
The particular game was Crack dot Com's Golgotha. I had really enjoyed CdC's first game, Abuse, and when I heard Golgotha was supposed to be something like "Quake meets C&C", of course I was excited. I had played the Golgotha demo already, which had lead to one of the most hindsightually amusing fanboyish mispredictions I've ever made.
"Golgotha sure looks sweet. When Bitboys releases their 3D accelerator, I'll get it to play Golgotha."
Yes, I honestly thought so. Doesn't that sound amusing? No? Imagine if anyone on this day and age would say "Duke Nukem Forever sure looks sweet - soon I'll be playing it on my Phantom console" in dead seriousness.
Fortunately my attention span was quite short, which enabled me to be distracted by a game mag ad hawking dirt cheap 3DFX Voodoo cards, which soon enabled me to play Quake the way it's meant to be played. And, of course, Golgotha demo ran extremely sweetly.
Well, Golgotha was coming up slow (I kept myself amused by reading Jonathan Clark's .plan - I still remember him rambling something about somebody getting an inflatable balloon "as big as a person" as a birthday present), so soon, I was playing another game that seemed to look and sound and play like what Golgotha was meant to be.
Battlezone.
I played Battlezone pretty intensively for a few months. It was definitely a game that I... ...er...
...I have very vague recollections of the time I spent playing the game. Only now I'm starting to remember some memories from what the game really seemed to be about. Seems like I was so awed by the game that it might have been traumatic in some form, and that's why I buried in my game shelf and haven't been able to touch it since. (That, or the fact that I've been needlessly worried about DirectX compatibility. Or the fact that on my machine DirectX was busted for a long time.)
What can I say? Battlezone was definitely one of the most amazing, really really complex, yet definitely action-packed games I've ever played. Extremely varied gameplay, multiple different modes of play. Great graphics. Great music.
The game was just simply too far ahead of its time that it fried my mind.
And, regrettably, the game seemed too far ahead of its time that it wasn't a big commercial success either, which means that now that we are ready for such games, none will be made.
If there's one game that should be dragged out of the cabinet, Battlezone would be it. I heard they made a sequel. I think time might be ripe now for Battlezone III. Just a thought.
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