Looking for a PS1 tank game

[CaptHawkeye]

Battlezone was the shit. I remember playing that game when I was like 10 years old and thinking i'd never find a game as awesome. Luckily Flashpoint happened, but it almost didn't.

What Stark said is all true. Battlezone really was a game that just did so much right. The AI was kind of spotty and the unit command interface was kind of a pain in the ass. (Flashpoint level douchebag UI) but it was far from game breaking at any point. God that game was just so awesome.

[PeZook]

Ah, damn. Turns out I no longer have the CD. Sucks

[Stark]

Hey hey, it wasn't OFP bad; basic orders like 'go' and 'attack' were single presses and there was context-sensitive stuff. OFP was WAY worse than that... but BZ had no grouping or quick selecting. Oh well.

And PeZook, seriously, who cares? I have no idea where my physical disk is either, but I own a licence to use the game (since bloody highschool) and they can eat my balls. I'm not going to dig around all these boxes to find a disk I don't even need to feel better about playing a game I sunk my teenage years into.

[PeZook]

Hey hey, it wasn't OFP bad; basic orders like 'go' and 'attack' were single presses and there was context-sensitive stuff. OFP was WAY worse than that... but BZ had no grouping or quick selecting. Oh well.

Actually, I'm almost certainly sure BZ had grouping. I will have to check, though. The command system was wonderfully streamlined by 1998 standards, though, it followed all the proper standards: commands that were most used were near the top, you could give them with context-sensitive stuff, units automatically did what they were supposed to after production...

And PeZook, seriously, who cares? I have no idea where my physical disk is either, but I own a licence to use the game (since bloody highschool) and they can eat my balls. I'm not going to dig around all these boxes to find a disk I don't even need to feel better about playing a game I sunk my teenage years into.

Well, no disc -> no music -> awesome game becomes t3h suck, or at least much suckier.

[Stark]

Man, the old days of actual cd tracks for music are really a pain these days. Crazy old Metal Fatigue had the best terrible music ever, but imaging my disks and losing the originals means I'll never hear it again.

And yeah when I was playing I -wanted- to group select units, but I couldn't remember how to do it. A modern version would just steal RTS grouping with an onscreen status widget, which would make keeping groups together and sending tactical orders easier.

[PeZook]

Man, the old days of actual cd tracks for music are really a pain these days. Crazy old Metal Fatigue had the best terrible music ever, but imaging my disks and losing the originals means I'll never hear it again.

Tell me about it...anyway, having played for a bit before getting annoyed by the lack of music, the game is still awesome. Some things are ridiculously 1990s: the units are barely animated, chunky low-poly models, sprite-based explosions, etc. but the graphics do hold up way better than...well, any other game ever. It has really fun vehicle dynamics, too, with each vehicle you can ride feeling completely different, and as ridiculous as it sounds, some games today still can't make a better command interface

The presentation is also pretty tight: voice acting is decent (I thought it would totally grate me after a decade of playing big-budget blockbusters, but it doesn't), the sounds have suitable ooomph - you really feel like you're speeding along in your massive hovertank over Venus or something.

The first missions are ridiculously easy, though, I completed the American moon sequence in like 15 minutes with zero casualties. I wonder how later ones will stack up.

And yeah when I was playing I -wanted- to group select units, but I couldn't remember how to do it. A modern version would just steal RTS grouping with an onscreen status widget, which would make keeping groups together and sending tactical orders easier.

I confirmed it does have unit grouping. You use function keys for it instead of numbers, but it works just fine, especially since resource limitations and unit firepower are constructed in such a way that you mostly operate rather small groups of four-five vehicles.

What I rather dislike about the mechanics are the fact your factories have to use geysers for power, which are conveniently located around the map in groups of three, forcing you to stay in one place despite your main factories being mobile. It seems like an odd decision: you can theoretically pack up and leave any time, but the only places you can move to are the ones with geysers, and you lose all your advanced buildings and the resources invested in them. So in practice, you don't ever move.

[Stark]

At kind of thinking led to Battlezone 2. . There are reasons to move your fabs forward, especially your armoury, but until the later levels where you get the RTS map it's fiddly to actually do it especially if you have a turret swarm. It's sorta an AI thing; in the SP missions it's trivial to lck down a spot, but many maps in MP are far more open to sneak attacks etc.

[VF5SS]

As far as the OP goes, Mobile Armor was a pretty fun Playstation tank game.