2010-10-14 13:01:11

this was posted in the battlezone topic, and was so completely awsome i thought it should get a place here for posterity.

I rather regret banning this particular spambot, sinse I want to find out what happens next, ---- but I suppose it's a necessary measure.

here's the story without it's spammy links:

REAL STORY OF BZ1 AND BZ2


Everything you've been told about the last 50 years is wrong. When the media looks back on this century, dividing it up, parsing it down to the top 10 or top 100 most important events, they'll be missing the real moments that changed history. For the men that really shaped the future worked behind closed doors, cloaked in secrecy, hidden with ruses about wars that never happened. Thousands of soldiers whose disappearances were written off as accidental or explained, actually died for their country, for their world, in a battle that no monument will ever commemorate. It all started in 1952, when a meteor fell from the sky. This was no ordinary debris from some distant star, this was bio-metal. It's impossible to describe the substance if you've never seen it-- and it can't be classified under any periodic table. It's metal, yes, but it's alive. It thinks, it remembers. It changes shape before your eyes. It has a soul. Both U.S. and Soviet scientists studied bio-metal diligently through the 1950s. Of course, their first thoughts immediately turned to how to use it in battle. And this remarkable substance became a weapon; one that would change the face of war forever. And so the world entered the age of Bio-Metal, though only a handful of people knew. This discovery would advance science and technology at a faster rate than the world has ever experienced before. But first we needed more of it. Lots more.

The tensions already existed -- they called it the Cold War. But this war became Hot, and moved into space without anyone ever knowing. The United States formed a secret organization, the National Space Defense Force (NSDF), under the auspices of NASA. The Soviets responded with the Cosmo-Colonist Army (CCA), and a war was on. The race into space became about much more than simply planting a flag on the moon. It became about finding more of the Bio-Metal, finding that elusive source that was sure to be out there in the solar system. Each new deposit of Bio-metal that was discovered fueled the fire, providing more spacecraft, more weapons for both the NSDF and the CCA to continue the war in space. One by one, planets and their satellites fell to one side or the other, each a pawn in the war.

While the raging battle took its toll on both American and Soviet forces, scientific experiments conducted with Bio-metal continued back on Earth. The most astounding of these were conducted by Commander Armond Braddock, a brilliant MIT scientist whose skills had been co-opted by the NSDF. Braddock took the dramatic step of combining Bio-metal with human flesh, using human scientific subjects in a kind of experiment that's never been attempted before. The confidential files called it "Project Pedigree." Braddock was given unprecedented access to funds and men, operating under the directive to deliver to the NSDF a "Super Soldier" that could tear through troops with an unparalleled fierceness, thereby bringing a swift end to the war. For the final stage of Project Pedigree, Braddock brought in the Black Dogs, an NSDF squadron led by Lieutenant Frank Burns. The Black Dogs were the best of the best already, the finest physical specimens trained to the maximum capacity of their ability. Braddock took these men and literally fused them into Bio-metal ships, creating a half-man, half-machine force. It's amazing the Black Dogs even survived this process, let alone maintained the strength to return to battle and fight. This new Squadron, now called the Furies, exceed every expectation and became the decisive force in the war, ripping the Soviet soldiers to shreds on Europa.

Sole control of a force such as this could bring the world to its knees, a fact that Braddock surely must have thought of as he watched his "progeny" excel. But Braddock could not predict the one unknown in this equation - the existence of a mind, a human will. Burns led the Furies in an uprising, using their super-human abilities to rebel against the man who made these abilities possible-- Braddock. Burns led the Furies in a revolt against Braddock, destroying his lab, and eliminating the Bio-metal plants that made further experimentation possible. To retaliate, Braddock brought the NSDF and the CCA together under the banner of one cause - defeating the now out-of-control Furies and driving them off the planet. The NSDF and CCA helped push this new enemy back, sending the Furies into the farthest reaches of the solar system. They dissappeared and were believed destroyed. Braddock was heralded as a war hero.

Riding on the wave of his success and his new promotion to General, Braddock spearheaded the creation of the International Space Defense Force (ISDF), which combined the NSDF and CCA together, crossing national lines to prepare for any potential alien threat to Earth. In conjunction with the ISDF, the Alliance of Awakened Nations (AAN) was created to deal with the problems of the existence of Bio-metal in modern society-- mainly, distribution of the scarce resource among all of the various nations that now wanted to get their hands on it. The AAN chose a regulated parsing method, which eventually distributed Bio-metal to all member nations in due time. Braddock, meanwhile, outside the purview of the AAN, had been secretly funneling ISDF funds in order to build a base on Pluto. Official ISDF operations had been sending out probes, policing the edges of the solar system. Until one day, official and unofficial worlds collided as the Voyager 2 probe was blown out of the sky, attacked by a fierce, unknown enemy. The attack coincided with a raid on the secret base on Pluto, and the resulting Mayday call opened Pandora's box, giving the rest of the ISDF an opening to discover Braddock's secret base. ISDF troops were immediately dispatched to respond to the distress call on Pluto, steeling themselves under Braddock's command to face a force like no other, a mysterious enemy with the power to wipe humans off Earth altogether....

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2010-10-14 17:12:04

I remember that game! The first one anyway, up to the point of defeating the Furies. They had this nasty habit of zipping up into the sky just as you got a bead on them, as if they were being yanked up on a rope. For some strange reason though the NSDF Razor scout's miniguns were especially good against them.

cx2
-----
To live by honour and to honour life, these are our greatest strengths and our best hopes.

2010-10-14 17:39:51

it's odd, sinse the only graphical game by the name of battlezone I've ever seen personally was a tank game on the Atari 2600 where you drove around shooting at other tanks. Being early 80's it was a very basic game indeed with only two enemies and one weapon.

I'm a litle surprised another company got to use the name for what was obviously a much different game.

I've never personally seen the point of spambots anyway, these days any sane person will know never to click on links in their posts for reasons of getting malware, ---- but there stil seem to be many around, just like E-mail spam messages.

I actually wonder what someone does if they do! want to buy Viag-ra online ;d.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2010-10-14 18:37:23

Well Activision actually gained permission for the game to use the name, which was still very much based on tanks just of the hovering sci fi variety. It had a good story with some interesting missions, and often made you use strategy having you use scavenger units to gather up bio metal in order to build units. It was an action/simulation game with a hybrid of RTS thrown in. You could even get out of your tank and use your sniper rifle to kill the driver of an enemy vehicle in order to nab it.

cx2
-----
To live by honour and to honour life, these are our greatest strengths and our best hopes.

2010-10-14 19:54:54

Very much so. The graphics were great, the story very well supported with both plot development in missions and the missions being well designed and interesting, and a lot of good gameplay mechanics. It was a very big deal at the time.

You could even swap to a top down RTS style view if you had a satellite uplink in order to give more specific orders over greater distances, though this made you show up very well to the enemy so you wouldn't want to do it in the middle of a battle. You had to decide whether to sit back and direct things, or whether to get directly involved yourself. You'd be making yourself vulnerable but being there as a player could really tip the balance.

cx2
-----
To live by honour and to honour life, these are our greatest strengths and our best hopes.

2010-10-14 21:16:11

I just find it interesting that Activision managed to get writes to the name, sinse even atari 2600 games were heavily copywrited. Then again, if it did involve tanks was there intended to be at least a homage to the original?

the plot certainly sounds cool, though it does rather remind me of one of those 70's cold war scifi stories, secret experiments that went too far, a big war betwene the Us and ussr fought in space over alien material etc.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2010-10-14 21:41:32

There were a few occasions where wire frame graphics were used in a kind of homage. The permission was indeed gained from Atari, and even back then it was a big piece of news that this had happened.

The great thing wasn't so much the plot in itself but the execution of the plot. The missions pulled you along the plot, for example having to chase down a stolen artifact the Russians had got... only you were too late. This lead to you having to somehow sneak around to get to the Russian base and its launch pad, quite tricky to say the least since it was very heavily defended so firepower wouldn't work, and "inspect" the launch pad to find out where they had taken it. There was also the incredibly fun mission where you actually have to eject into the enemy base, the ejection catapulting you over the walls, and steal one of their own tanks to take out a sensor array or something.

cx2
-----
To live by honour and to honour life, these are our greatest strengths and our best hopes.

2010-10-15 23:47:05

Yep, that sounds surprisingly fun, though hover tanks is deffinately an interesting concept ;D.

I also find it interesting that even in the late nineties they stil managed to have games with the evil ruskies! I thought that'd largely gone out in the 80's.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2010-10-16 14:48:33

Small point:
Red Alert, Red Alert 2, Red Alert 3.

They can still pull the evil ruskies card even today lol.

cx2
-----
To live by honour and to honour life, these are our greatest strengths and our best hopes.

2010-10-17 00:57:44

I actually didn't know that, though i suppose I should've thought of soviet strike.

It's amusing because people site mega man 4 as being quite ahead of it's time in the fact that though it had Dr. Kossak as the supposed main villain, it turned out Kossak was actually just being forced to make robots by Dr. wily who'd kidnapped his daughter, in fact Kossak becomes a good guy in subsequent games and makes some handy robots for the series.

People comment that though released in 1990, Mm4 went against the sterriotype by having a russian scientist who turned out to be on the side of right.

Obviously we haven't learnt ;d.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2010-10-17 15:40:20

Obviously not. I'll also add in the late 90's game Starlancer made, amusingly, by Microsoft which was everyone against the evil commies in space.

At least Battlezone had the decency to make it be a cold war conspiracy thing, rather than being in the present. It also had the Americans and Russians basically shooting themselves in the foot by fighting each other, and accidentally kicking over the anthill that was the Furies with their blundering. That has to say something about war and its value.

cx2
-----
To live by honour and to honour life, these are our greatest strengths and our best hopes.

2010-10-17 17:16:52

yep, well the furies thing did at least mean it wasn't jhust the evil ruskies and indeed has a point, that I think why it reminds me of some cold war era sf that had similar predictions (though not usually with cyber space tanks).

Microsoft making a game where you fight the evil commies is actually particularly amusing given that they are probably one of the most anti marxist companies on the planet!

Or should that be anti mack sist?

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2010-10-17 17:39:35

Well Apple, in terms of business practices, aren't much better. Their products just turn out a bit better than MS, Apple are how Microsoft wish it could be in terms of PR and quality control.

That was indeed my thinking regarding MS though, one of the biggest American global corporations making a game about the evil communist russians. Irony much?

cx2
-----
To live by honour and to honour life, these are our greatest strengths and our best hopes.

2010-10-17 17:54:51

Hi,
Ok, that spambot definitely did an interesting thing. It actually found the topic name and tried to be productive. Quite amusing.
As to microsoft creating a game about battling russians, well, they are also a game dev, and I'm guessing their company has many different branches for different things, and maybe the game dev part just acts like a normal game dev, just creating ideas, but at the same time, maybe not. I really dunno what to say.

2010-10-17 17:57:08

Oh I'm sure they were acting like a normal game dev, the irony is just fun all the same.

cx2
-----
To live by honour and to honour life, these are our greatest strengths and our best hopes.

2010-10-17 23:54:40

Well, it wouldn't be the first time politics or company rivelry got into games, ----- or religion for that matter).

Yoshi, apparently was heavily enspired by a packman style nintendo game called termigant about a litle dinosaur that hatched from an egg and chased demons around a maze.

however, the plot involved termigant going to hell, and power up pills were actually crusifixes.

somehow, this game never made it out of Japan, ---- though Yoshi of course did eventually.

Even more amusingly though, the Japanese version of smash brothers melee has one extra trophy, ---- the termigant trophy, which is stil! missed from the western versions of the game ;D.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2010-10-23 22:27:31

In a similar vein I just dealt with an absolute classic. Not awesome but just hilariously inept.

The spammer was advertising 32GB iPhone 3GS. There is no 32GB model for the 3GS, only 8GB and the discontinued 16GB. Plus they didn't even have a web site, they expected you to contact them through their @msn.com email address.

This is even more priceless because the account was actually registered using an @yahoo.com email address.

Come on, if you're not even going to try to look convincing then you might as well not bother in the first place. I wonder how much of their life they gave up writing the spambot or posting manually on forums, for all of the one minute it took for me to delete it and ban them.

cx2
-----
To live by honour and to honour life, these are our greatest strengths and our best hopes.