The Let's Play Archive

Battlezone 98 Redux + The Red Odyssey

by Lunethex, Coolguye, TheLastRoboKy, Jade Star

Part 1: NSDF #1 - Skirmish on the Moon!



Before you see the first video, there is this video I'll point out. The game had an install screen with some little tidbits back in the day!

The first two missions of the game take place on The Moon. We're introduced to the narrator, Grizzly One, who is telling the story after having already experienced it himself. Our first job is to hop in any vehicle we see fit, dance out to a seizure inducing rave gun, and escort a scavenger to pick up some bio-metal. It's not long before the Soviets kick our teeth in and we're already barely holding the line at our main base, Eagle's Nest 1, which we are forced to evacuate.

There's a lot of stuff to go over but I am hoping to do enough of that in the video itself so that it doesn't become unclear. If a vehicle has two cannon slots, or some other combinations I'm not remember off the top of my head, they can be linked, but it consumes ammo faster to fire both at once of course. Universal ammo means you need wingmen to get shit done in this game. At most, a regular NSDF Tank can take on at best two other tanks and at least three scouts or a bunch of turrets. Management of your wingmen's ammo and your own is vital, as is combining firepower in later missions. A great trick to use early on is the fact that your gun is higher up than you think and you can shoot over ridges and not be shot back, but we see/go over that and other things.

The main mod I should talk about is Pilots 1.8. This makes all pilots, not just me, move a little faster when not jumping, do some more damage, and have more ammo for the sniper rifle. This is not a cheaty mod and is purely quality of life. Sniping enemies in their vehicles is never worth it in a majority of the campaign missions and things that would be otherwise easy to snipe cannot be popped, like turrets. If you kill an enemy pilot, his vehicle is still marked as an enemy target and any friendlies will blow it away pronto. If it were possible to take out said pilots and properly recycle their vehicles then it'd be an interesting gimmick. I also get a second weapon which fires plasma balls that do a bit of damage, but aren't really changing the stakes. I fully recommend this mod if you start playing the game too.

I don't have too much to write up now because I am massively brain drained and I just wanted to get this going. It's been a long 4 or 5 days of just producing content!