Z :Commander Zod scores a hit!

Some gamers may remember Z fondly as one of the greatest real time strategy (RTS) games ever made by the even greater Bitmap Brothers. Alternatively if you’re anything like all my friends, you’ll take one look at it and ask, ‘is that Command & Conquer?’ – No it bloomin’ well isn’t!

Granted Command & Conquer may have come first, but it was tentatively finding it’s feet in 1995 with its blocky graphics and rather conservative storyline, but Z instead opted to take the R.T.S genre in another direction, namely being well hard to master and generally taking the piss. How many other games can honestly claim to having cut-scenes comprised entirely of incompetent droids shouting “dude” and getting pissed on beer while wielding a machine gun? Not many that’s for sure.

To put the game briefly into perspective; it’s your run of the mill R.T.S game but without all the unnecessary kafuffles you would normally be subject to. So no need for making radar stations or sandbags and whatnot, just build units, capture buildings to make more units and blow up the wave after wave of enemies. Simple.

Graphics wise the game ain’t too bad either,but don’t expect any additional thrills, spills and polish because what you get is pretty much a like for like port of the original PC game. However don’t sigh at the lack of flourishes, because it’s a blessing in disguise when compared to the more cartoonish and almost laughable Command & Conquer app that currently exists on the apple store.

However the biggest plus point going for Z is it’s incrediblelongevity. In truth, I didn’t even know what difficulty I was playingat until midway through the game because the option is sneakily hidden in the iphone settings (worth fixing?). To my surprise however, it was only set to easy, so needless to say if you up the difficulty you’ll certainly be at this game for weeks/months because it’s no walk in the park. What’s more, with 20 levels to complete, there’s plenty of hours of entertainment at your fingertips regardless of what difficulty you opt for.