14 DAY TRIAL // 
There are robots to control, tanks and gatling guns to move around, forts to take out, and zones to dominate, which makes the entire experience sound like something modern and interesting, but in fact the game that features all these elements is Z, a classic real-time strategy that has been revived by the team at Tick Tock Games.
The DNA of the title can be seen in many modern games, from Dawn of War to RUSE, but the re-release delivered via Steam is not a great experience and it should probably be avoided both by long-time players and by newcomers.
Z was initially launched in 1996, during a period that can be seen as the most fertile for the real-time strategy genre, and quickly impressed a lot of people with its pure focus on gameplay, which means that there was basically no story and that players were asked to focus on simply fulfilling their mission with no distractions.
This was a breath of fresh air in a gaming world where the lure of Full Motion Video was high and plenty of developers spent more time working on cutscenes with known actors and big effects rather than focusing on the delivery of cool levels and solid gameplay.
The quality of the videos included in the re-release of Z has not been enhanced in any way, and most modern gamers will quickly be turned off by the blocky characters, the pixelated environments, and the bad acting.
There’s a certain nostalgia value to seeing them again in 2014 after first playing the game around 1998 or so, but there’s no value in actually buying or playing it.
Z’s gameplay is pretty simple and it’s easy to understand the core ideas: there’s no base building or resource gathering and the player needs to only focus on directing his robot squads to their targets, with the final objective of taking out all the enemy units or destroying the enemy fort.
The map for each level of the real-time strategy title is divided into sectors, which contain a number of industry-related locations, and players need to get someone to the flag that shows ownership in order to gain control.
That transfers production to the faction, with longer times needed to launch more complex units and actual grunts coming out pretty quickly, which leads to some interesting imbalances in the forces of the two sides based on the territory they manage to control.
The idea is to try and control as many sectors at a time while constantly harassing the enemy to interrupt his production before, finally, an assault can be delivered on his stronghold.
At the start of each level there are also some vehicles and turrets without any owner on the map and gamers can capture them to get an early advantage, which seems to be important when dealing with the CPU, which has access to some more troops early on.
In Z, tanks and jeeps can be captured if their driver is dead, and there are various types of grunts with different behaviors to control.
Territory control can be hard to achieve at times and there are moments when the entire real-time strategy experience feels frustrating, but the AI is not too smart and there are plenty of moments when the grunts and even the vehicles get stuck on scenery or refuse to fire.
The game has a nice flow to it, but many of its ideas, which were very interesting in 1996, no longer feel fresh.
Again, nostalgia is the main driving factor for those who choose to play Z and the mechanics are interesting for a couple of levels before everything becomes pretty repetitive and boring, especially on the default speed.
In the graphics department, the title looks as it did in 1996 and the increased resolutions of modern PCs only mean that it’s much easier to see that there’s no way to play this in 2014 and be satisfied with the visual aspect.
The game might be interesting to a new audience with new textures, an improved user interface, and upgraded cutscenes, but the presentation of the current version is very poor and prior knowledge is a requirement for those who want to get past the first cinematic.
The original title had multiplayer, which the re-release also features, and I seem to remember that it was both fast-paced and tension-filled, although that might just be rose-colored glasses on my part.
Z is a bad re-release of a once good video game and it’s a pity to see that no effort was made by the team at Tick Tock Games to create something that can actually appeal to a modern player who is interested in experiencing a piece of history of the real-time strategy genre.
The one positive element is that the developers seem to be ready to listen to the community and are deploying patches for the game.
Sure, old fans might pick up the title in order to try and return to the days when it was launched and relive their positive memories, but the game in its current state is not worth anyone’s money.
It would be interesting to see what a Z-like experience for the current generation of fans would look like and whether it could be seen as a classic in another 20 years.
