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Some facts about the Game:
Manufacturer: Atari
Year: 1980
Class: Wide Release
Genre: Shooter
Type: Video Arcade
Monitor Orientation: Horizontal
Type: Vector
CRT: Black and White with a Color Overlay
19-inch Electrohome G05 |
Conversion Class: unique
Number of Simultaneous Players: 1
Maximum number of Players: 1
Gameplay: Single
Control Panel Layout: Single Player
Sound: Unamplified Mono (requires one-channel amp) |
(This is a picture of the light-up marquee.)
Below: Some sample screen shots = Game
is based on wire models on a vector display with a green and red overlay. A battle
with opposing tanks, missiles and the occasional saucer is simulated among pyramids
and cubes. When you are hit, a simulation of a cracked screen shows as you lose a
life. The 1812 overture plays during high score.
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These images are shown in black and white as the monitors are all black and white
Vector monitors.
The color is actually like the green and red used in
this type. It is acheived by laying a colored mat over the monitor. |
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The bottom half of the transparent sheet is green, while the top is made out of red.
Then the image is projected through a mirror in the rear of the case. Technically
everything you see is a reflection. |
Game Trivia and History:
Battlezone was designed by Ed Rotberg at the same time as Red Baron,
hence the similarities in architecture. The designer did not use a structured approach,
however, and while shapes were displayed on the screen first in Red Baron, Battlezone
ended up going to market first. Collector Doug Jeffreys attempted to resolve the
differences between these architectures, but he found that Red Baron ended up being
a superset of Battlezone, even though either cabinet can power up the other board
set.
The Battlezone legend says that a military version of the game exists as a training
simulator for the Bradley fighting vehicle. |
The designer, Ed Rotberg did post to RGVA (before it became RGVAC)
that only two cabinets were made. The military cabinet in storage at their facility
and it had lots of extra buttons but the same basic cabinet. Battlezone had two known
prototype names before it was mass produced: Future Tank and Moon Tank.
Also a prototype of a cocktail version was developed, including full glasstop artwork
and control panel. Only one is known to exist as it was not released for production.
There is no color overlay for the cocktail version since the images needs to flip
for the second player.
Credit to www.klov.com |
Some basic cabinet Photos:
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The cabinet is very high compared to other video games. There is
a step mounted on the front at the bottom for children and shorter players to reach
the "periscope viewer". The game has to be high because the image is projected
onto a mirror that stands up in the back of the cabinet to create the 3-D effect.
There were also shorter cabaret cabinets that you looked directly at the monitor,
but I have no pictures of them here. I prefer thethe full size cabinet experience
during gameplay.
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Below: Battlezone Printed Circuit
Boards
Make sure the connections are cleaned regularly. Carefully remove and insert the
RAM and ROM chips as well. Bad connections seem to be the largest problem. they also
contain several switched which can be set for game difficulty, languages, coin per
credit, how long until missles show up, etc.
There is also a daughter board available at Mikes arcades & Blaze Technologies
(the creator) that makes the high score remain even after the game is shut off. It
was 50 bucks shipped and can be reset easily if you want. Best 50 bucks I spent on
this unit.
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Below: Control panel
| There are two tank-like control, levers with a thumb button in the
right one to launch the bullets. They move only forward and back giving the player
a tank-like driving experience. The levers get brittle with age and the rubber "O"
rings inside them tend to collapse or rip causing a weak or no return feel to the
controls. |
Advertising Flyer Scans:
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Game Tips, Hints, and
Strategies:
Here are some tips I came across through browsing for the game.
I plan to add the credit as soon as I can find it. I may add some things I have found
while playing the game. (Red Italic comments are
my additions)
general strategy:
1) The usual "run down the 45-degree line and kill" strategy.
2) Making sure there are no obstacles anywhere near you after each kill The key to
killing tanks is *not* to get jammed up against an obstacle, ever, so you can make
every kill a "conventional" one. The key to killing missiles is to make
them predictable. If you expect a missile to go one way, but it has to jump an obstacle
or steer around it, you'll miss your shot and die. |
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The best way to do both of these things is to keep a mental map of
where the nearest obstacles are likely to be, and to keep moving so that there's
(a) nothing near you, and (b) if you haven't moved forward in a while, assume the
computer's put an obstacle behind you and move forward to get away from it. (Yes,
sometimes the computer sprinkles the ground with new objects. This is known as the
"You trip over an imaginary invisible deceased turtle that a mad wizard teleported
behind you" method of dying.) (I have
been practgicing keeping a larger object close to me to keep between myself and the
enemy tanks. They usually will come right up to the object, then back up where you
get a quick shot to kill them while they are moving around the object. This takes
a lot of practice using radar and not getting stuck with a portion of your tank open
for his shot)
3) Ingore saucers whenever there's a supertank on the screen. One potshot is allowed
while rotating to kill the tank. Do not stop turning or moving - just take the shot
and hope for the best. Never chase saucers with supertanks on, because they move
to give the supertanks a better shot at you. (This
is entirely true. I have been experimenting with that to verify that the saucer always
lures you to a position with the supertank at you direct center of the rear of your
tank. It doesn't seem to do that with regular tanks)
(With missiles, it's similar - *one* shot at a saucer between
missiles. No more. And don't attempt to get a long-range kill on a missile if you're
taking potshots at the saucer.) If you hear the "saucer died" sound without
shooting the saucer, it usually means an enemy tank has shot it. This happens once
every half hour or so, but only in your field of view every 2-3 hours. (Sadly, you
don't get the points for letting the enemy kill the saucer for you.)
These strategies should get you into the 300-500K level, maybe 800K if you're lucky.
(I am currently only just below the 100,000
point level, but am practicing) You'll also learn little
tricks like seeing the fading dot of a new tank *before* the radar sweep hits him
and turning in his direction before the "blip", or seeing the little nudge
forward that a tank will make just before it fires its first shot at you, and being
able to take evasive action before his bullet is on his way.
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You'll most likely die by mis-identifying a missile, getting caught by a new obstacle
after a long missile-chase, or by trying to kill a supertank on those semi-rare occasions
where you miss your one shot at a tank who's forced you to run away backwards while
you wait for him to shoot-and-miss. |
For endurance play - do all this, and take steps to *not* get killed
by the "one-in-a-million dumb luck" things. Like saucers appearing directly
in front of you when you're about to kill a missile, or the tank that hit a pyramid,
turned, backed up, and moved forward... and did it again, only to be *facing you*
when it stopped and fired while you were rotating to keep up. Like supertanks appearing
right in front of you, facing you - and knowing instantly whether you can kill it
immediately, or if you have to turn *away* from it and run away for a second or two
before killing it "conventionally".
*if you're getting less than a million points per tank, you're probably making mistakes
that you can prevent*. Here's a partial list. Only the last two items on the list
are "accidents"; the rest are variations on operator error:
- Rotated too long when turning to face enemy.
- Turned to face enemy, fired, and missed.
- Didn't run enemy down line of sight correctly, allowing him to kill me.
- Ran enemy down line of sight just fine, but pulled back too long before rotating.
By the time I got him in my sights, he fired at point-blank range.
- Chased saucer.
- Missed missile and died.
- Missed missile and didn't back up to get enough time for second shot.
- Missed missile and backed up, but hit obstacle and couldn't get far enough back
for second shot.
- Obstacle in missile's path made missile move differently than expected.
- Thought it was different type of missile.
- Damn! I _always_ seem to get killed by "that type of missile".
- Thought I had enough room in front of tank to kill it head-on. Missed.
- Thought I had enough room in front of tank to kill it head-on. Didn't have enough
room.
- Didn't *listen* for enemy tank shooting at me while I took a potshot at the saucer.
- Didn't *listen closely enough* to hear enemy tank shooting at me within a few milliseconds
of me shooting at the saucer. Sounded a bit like an echo.
- Didn't *listen closely enough* to hear enemy tank shooting at me while saucer-exploding
sound
was playing loudly, mostly drowning out the noise of the enemy shot.
- Didn't *hear* enemy tank shooting at me because I fired _exactly_ at the same time
the enemy tank did and I _couldn't_ have heard it.
- Saucer was behind me and passed in front of me, covering 90% of the viewscreen
just as I was about to shoot the missile.
missile strategy:
1) Stop when it shows up. Turn slightly to the left. Identify the missile shortly
it hits the ground. Choose between long-range or conventional kill.
2.1) Long-range kill: Fire immediately and start backing up for a second shot. Many
of my "missed" first shots end up as either conventional kills, or "push
forward and hope it misses you because you won't necessarily have a round ready in
time for the side-kill type".
2.2) Conventional kill: Don't move, just watch the missile come closer. Fire on the
last move forward to you where you can't miss, or nail it with a sideways kill for
the one (or two?) missile tracks that have to be killed sideways. Move forward when
you fire; it won't hurt in the straight-in kills, and it might save your butt if
you miss the sideways kill.
3) Set up for next kill.
If you pulled back for any reason, move forward. There may be a cube that's now six
inches from your rear bumper that'll get you stuck when the next missile/tank appears.
If you turned left, rotate right a bit. Since each missile prompts a few degrees
of left-rotate, you may end up with an obstacle in your field of view.
Missiles come at you in one of (a small number? 3-5?) different possible tracks.
All but two can be defeated trivially by *staying still* and rotating your tank a
little to the left of the spot in the sky where the missile first appears. The missile's
final approach will be straight down your gunsights. The two "bad missile tracks"
are relatively rare by comparison.
One missile track has the missile doing a hard turn from your right, straight across
to the left, and into you. It seems to zigzag in the horizontal direction a little
more erratically early on in its flight path. It is best nailed (assuming you stop
as soon as a missile appears) by firing just as it's turning. The bullet will hit
the missile side-on. This missile track can be avoided by pushing forward at just
the right time during its horizontal move.
Another missile track appears to be very similar to the one above, and kills by making
a horizontal move and nailing you from the left side. Unlike the missile above, you
usually see the inside a corner of the missile as it turns into you.
(This may simply be the same missile track as the "shoot it in the side"
missile, but seen from a tank that's been turned 15-20 degrees to the left.)
Since you don't see either variation frequently, and since you can't see where the
missile "would have gone" on the "long-range kills", I'm guessing
that each of these types (or this type, if it's only one track seen from a different
angle) are more susceptible to the long-range kill. |
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