Battlezone

After a leaden sleep last night I awoke at around 6am with a start. I was distinctly aware of having just experienced a curious dream in which my vision was relatively similar to the graphical style of an old classic 3D arcade game called Battlezone. In it, I was capable of moving at great speed across an unfamiliar (but rather pleasing) vector terrain. I started to think about this game and very soon found myself on the trail of its original designers. I was not surprised to find out that it was a creation of Morgan Hoff, Ed Rotberg and his old team – A key games design outfit for Atari in the 1980′s.

The trademark style was achieved by using coloured glass panels with a black and white display to denote the lines and also by using a very basic form of the 3D environment with line graphics. In many respects, this game was the first virtual reality arcade game. Not bad for 1980. Indeed, the Disney film Tron, which would be released two years later would give a special ‘thanks’ to the Battlezone programmer, Ed Rotberg in its end credits.

Interestingly, the US military wanted to sanction a version of the game called the ‘Bradley Trainer’ to be used as an early combat simulator for its Bradley fighting vehicles. Many of Atari’s developers (including Ed himself) refused to develop the military version and only two prototypes were created under duress, one of which was found in the skip outside Midway games. The original arcade version featured a ‘ yoke’ which was based on the real gun-sight of the Bradley. For me this was a selling point to the arcade version as it allowed the user to block peripheral vision out and become completely immersed into the world of a tank driver – albeit a weird vector world complete with an eerie spitting volcano.

Anyone wishing to remind themselves of just how far 3D graphic environments have come in computer games design should probably head to Atari online to play Battelzone again right now. Yes now.