Z
Too Funny Game #2
Type of Game
Twenty-episode docu-series about dumb, alcoholic robots who haven't the faintest idea why they're wandering through space. Addictive and captivating.
Release date on Our Machines
August 1996, to make sure it went unnoticed while everyone was squatting in a random campsite, far from the video game stores.
Developer
The Bitmap Brothers. A studio name I considered one of my favorites for a long time. Until I stopped kidding myself, since I've never tried any of their other games.
Publisher
Renegade Software. Basically, a company created by Bitmap Brothers to publish their games. Warner had already bought it when Z was released, but let it keep its name for a while.
Z : available on Steam, GOG.com and the ZOOM Platform. Not bad, eh?
During recess in the sixth grade, conversations alternated between our experiences with Command & Conquer : Red Alert or Duke Nukem 3D, and our thoughts on movies like Scream or Independence Day. A few digressions on the latest Eurodance hits were allowed, but that was about it. If anyone felt the urge to bring up other subjects, beware! At any moment, he risked the self-destruction of his status, his reputation, or the colloquially acceptable persona he was creating for himself. Eager to add a little diversity to the mix, or totally unaware of the dangers he was exposing himself to, a buddy named Todd Linguine would sometimes mention Z, his favorite video game of the moment.
Change of subject
We were polite enough to explain that it sounded cool, but we didn't really care. We didn't tell him, but the question of kicking him out of our group of friends for such an affront to C&C Red Alert must have arisen, and not just once. And yet, I couldn't deny that a spark of curiosity lit up in my head whenever he talked about those little robots that screwed each other over. Then came the day when, at great personal risk, I agreed to listen to him a little more carefully. I promised him I wouldn't say anything to anyone, grabbed the Z CD-ROM he'd lent me, stashed it away faster than my father-in-law stashed his filthy documents, and set up the game on my way home. By the next day, I too was campaigning for it to be included in our heated debates. Maybe that's why I was dismissed from this circle of semi-victims two years later. I should have known, damn it. Worst of all, Todd Linguine kept his place. Story about 360% romanticized, but still a little true, I swear.
RTS : Robots and Turbo Strategy (can't do better)
Even though Z arrived a little before the tsunami of strategy games that flooded store shelves, it was already getting hard to get your head around in 1996. Three-quarters of the developers wanted to make their mark by releasing their own RTS in the hope of dethroning Warcraft II and Command & Conquer, which were still capturing the lion's share of the audience. The small innovations brought to these various projects did not always justify their price tag. The prospect of washing the car ten weekends in a row to earn the four hundred francs needed to buy a simple, half-styled game mechanic, no thanks (I say no, but I did it anyway in the long run). And yet, those who fell for Z didn't regret the endless body rubbing. This game had much more to offer our insatiable little minds than forgettable features after two playthroughs.
First big surprise, you don't build a base! And second astonishment, we don't harvest any resources! What the... I'm sorry, what? Nothing differentiated Z so much from War Wind or Age of Empires. Instead, levels are divided into territories to be captured, and on which you'll find different types of buildings (or not). The more of these you own, the faster the units come out of your factories, especially if more robot or vehicle production lines end up in your lap. In the voice of the late Benoît Allemane, Morgan Freeman's official french voice actor, we could therefore declare that “there is indeed a resource to collect in this game. And that resource is: time.” Jean-Pierre Quote, writer of... timeless quotes.
Well, err, let's get back to it. Another thing I loved was the possibility of getting the driver out of a vehicle. Ah, unless you can only get rid of them by shooting them, I'll have to check later (I won't); I will just leave it in doubt, it's more fun. So, just remember that any kind of soldier can drive any kind of vehicle. And that makes for some cool combos, given that said soldier can attack with his own weapon, while manoeuvring, and also while firing his tank's cannon. Totally impossible in reality, but so cool. In fact, I managed to complete the penultimate mission of the campaign thanks to this technique, which enabled me to steal a heavy vehicle from the bad guys right from the start, as I was starting the stage over for the fourth time.
Finally, while the level layout only consists of flat land, water and cliffs, robots can cross lakes and rivers, and rock walls can be destroyed with missiles or grenades. Dynamic level design, buddy! It doesn't look like much, but it is, Little John. For me, these four crazy ideas should have put Z in the pantheon of real-time strategy games. But I don't think it met with the success it deserved, too bad.
Nervous Slowness
This game takes us into a futuristic universe, where two camps of robots clash relentlessly on different planets. But why? Uh, because some have been painted red and others blue? I haven't seen anything else that could have set off such a galaxy-wide mess. Definitely, machines and their baseless expansionist delusions... It's all the same in Total Annihilation. Here, at least, the cartoon graphics bring a little sweetness to things, and we quickly become attached to our little devices, which inform us of their actions at all times via a small communication screen. Far more than the humans in other RTSs, they're terrified of going to war, poor things. They scream in terror when we attack them, and yell at us when they consider themselves too weak to take on a much stronger enemy (and rightly so).
But victory makes them howl with joy. Yippee! The cutscenes interspersed with the missions rehash all the hackneyed clichés about the army: ultra-gruff captain, idiotic soldiers with permanent hangovers (even robots, of course), redneck vocabulary... The jokes sometimes made me smile when I was twelve. Today, I've tried it again, and I've had a really hard time. That said, the only other real complaint I have about the game is the extreme slowness of its units. They drag, but to an unimaginable degree! And they struggle to maneuver too, making micro-management exasperating, if not impossible.
At the same time, the very concept of capturing territory before the enemy forces us into permanent overdrive. Except HOW do you save complicated situations with anvils on sleeping pills as troops? Well, I didn't like the fact that we were faced with a rigorously identical opponent, both in terms of design and the types of units available. Except for the color blue. And there's no multiplayer either, nor independent scenarios outside the main storyline. Not enough to keep our beloved robots alive for very long. But it didn't matter, because we were having a good laugh.
Serial produc-sound
The soundtrack consists of four pieces, including the one on the main menu. In other words, it doesn't take long to get through them all. Especially since they all resemble each other so much that it sounds like a remix of the same song! Did the guys get lazy or what? Did it take three of them to come up with little more than a single composition each? You know what we call that kind of bullshit where I come from? Hey, I'm just kidding. Hehehe! Yes, the O.S.T. didn't eat much at the canteen, but that's okay. I love it so much I don't care. Just like in Worms, its oppressive vibes blend superbly with the urgency that got us by the throat; and we come to appreciate the light tone of the cutscenes to breathe a little, but not to the point of laughing either, eh. Finally, as with Abe's Exoddus or Total Annihilation, the soundtrack does its own thinking. The rhythms get carried away during the action scenes, and get us spiralling out of control, the tension it engulfs us in. Haha, engulfs. Like the flames that just BLEW UP my shiny new heavy tank! The rest of the time, it just reminds us that there's a new action scene coming soon, and that's not bad. To be listened to in MIDI format, of course, for that extra touch of charm. In any case, it seems to me that no other sound format exists.
Real-life strategy
Todd Linguine was so appreciative of my taking the time to discover Z, that he invited me over to his place to play a game together. Then, when it was time to go out and have some fun, we played as the game's robots, to keep with the theme. We hid in his garden, in ambush. Whoever managed to “kill” the other would transform into a more powerful unit, until they could play the biggest vehicle, driven by the most dangerous soldier.
We had to revisit the rules every three minutes to make it exciting, but we had a lot of fun that day. On the other hand, he never brought me back. And yet he won our little improvised life-size game. I must have disappointed him in some way. Maybe when he showed me another RTS, Conquest Earth, in which human bullies fight bullies from Jupiter. The Jovians. It struck me because I'd read that word in an Asimov book. Also, the same units could look different, like brown and blond. Unheard of! But that didn't stop me from letting this game go way over my head. I think. Sorry Todd. If I offended you sometime back in 1997 or 1998, I'm very sorry. Did you know that I still use a few phrases from the game on a daily basis? I say ‘Wipeouuuut’ when I finish the dishes, or ‘Smoking!’ when there's action or trouble in the street around me. Well, no, you wouldn't know, because I've never told you.
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