What you have come to believe is wrong!
What if everything you had been told about the last 50 years was a lie? What if everything you had believe about the Space Race, and the Cold War, was all wrong?
In the alternate universe which is Battlezone that is the truth. Everything everyone believes about the Cold War and the events that followed was all wrong.
It all starts in 1952 when a meteor fell from the heavens. This was no ordinary meteor, it was so different, so unreal that it had to be kept secret, it had to be kept safe. The United States and Soviets Union were the only to nations on earth that new of this amazing meteors existence.
The meteor that had fallen had come alone. Many more like it fell to earth and much research was done on these meteorite's. If you hadn't already seen one it would be impossible to be told--
Bio-metal is what it was called, Bio -- which means living -- was a fitting name for this rock, for it wasn't a rock at all. It was living, it remember past shapes and forms it had taken. Immediately both the nations thoughts turned to how Bio-metal could be used in battle. But they would need more. Much more.
The space race was the worlds largest coverup of all time. The United States was able to sneak an entire army into space and not a soul new about it. Headed by NASA the NSDF (Nation Space Defense Force) journey into outer space and began the search for more Bio-metal. The Soviets had a similar force which they sent out as well, the CCA (Cosmo-Colonist Army).
While the raging battle took its toll on both American and Soviet forces, scientific experiments conducted with Bio-metal continued back on Earth. The most astounding of these were conducted by Commander Armond Braddock, a brilliant MIT scientist whose skills had been co-opted by the NSDF. Braddock took the dramatic step of combining Bio-metal with human flesh, using human scientific subjects in a kind of experiment that's never been attempted before. The confidential files called it "Project Pedigree." Braddock was given unprecedented access to funds and men, operating under the directive to deliver to the NSDF a "Super Soldier" that could tear through troops with an unparalleled fierceness, thereby bringing a swift end to the war. For the final stage of Project Pedigree, Braddock brought in the Black Dogs, an NSDF squadron led by Lieutenant Frank Burns. The Black Dogs were the best of the best already, the finest physical specimens trained to the maximum capacity of their ability. Braddock took these men and literally fused them into Bio-metal ships, creating a half-man, half-machine force. It's amazing the Black Dogs even survived this process, let alone maintained the strength to return to battle and fight. This new Squadron, now called the Furies, exceed every expectation and became the decisive force in the war, ripping the Soviet soldiers to shreds on Europa.
Sole control of a force such as this could bring the world to its knees, a fact that Braddock surely must have thought of as he watched his "progeny" excel. But Braddock could not predict the one unknown in this equation - the existence of a mind, a human will. Burns led the Furies in an uprising, using their super-human abilities to rebel against the man who made these abilities possible-- Braddock. Burns led the Furies in a revolt against Braddock, destroying his lab, and eliminating the Bio-metal plants that made further experimentation possible. To retaliate, Braddock brought the NSDF and the CCA together under the banner of one cause - defeating the now out-of-control Furies and driving them off the planet. The NSDF and CCA helped push this new enemy back, sending the Furies into the farthest reaches of the solar system. They dissappeared and were believed destroyed. Braddock was heralded as a war hero.
Riding on the wave of his success and his new promotion to General, Braddock spearheaded the creation of the International Space Defense Force (ISDF), which combined the NSDF and CCA together, crossing national lines to prepare for any potential alien threat to Earth. In conjunction with the ISDF, the Alliance of Awakened Nations (AAN) was created to deal with the problems of the existence of Bio-metal in modern society-- mainly, distribution of the scarce resource among all of the various nations that now wanted to get their hands on it. The AAN chose a regulated parsing method, which eventually distributed Bio-metal to all member nations in due time. Braddock, meanwhile, outside the purview of the AAN, had been secretly funneling ISDF funds in order to build a base on Pluto. Official ISDF operations had been sending out probes, policing the edges of the solar system. Until one day, official and unofficial worlds collided as the Voyager 2 probe was blown out of the sky, attacked by a fierce, unknown enemy. The attack coincided with a raid on the secret base on Pluto, and the resulting Mayday call opened Pandora's box, giving the rest of the ISDF an opening to discover Braddock's secret base. ISDF troops were immediately dispatched to respond to the distress call on Pluto, steeling themselves under Braddock's command to face a force like no other, a mysterious enemy with the power to wipe humans off Earth altogether....
Here are some key features of "Battlezone II: Combat Commander":
· Complete Control Over the Battlefield - Command over 30 unique types of troops , including tanks, infantry, air support and mobile assault turrets. Finely tuned interface and gameplay improvements -- including all-new squad commands -- allow you to more intuitively manage resources, execute full-scale attacks and identify strategic locations without missing a second of the hard-driving action.
· Advanced AI - Highly advanced AI allows enemies and friends to fight like a human opponent, strafing, retreating, and even choosing the right weapon for the current situation.
· Explore a Fully Interactive "Living" World - Interact with the planets' freely roaming wildlife thanks to an enhanced graphics system. Sophisticated physics models support a whole new range of tracked, hovering, and walking, in addition to realistic environmental effects.
· Amazing Graphics - Taking full advantage of the Intel Pentium III processor and 3D hardware enhancements, the unparalleled graphics of Battlezone II bring new worlds to life with fully explorable environments, and stunning custom 3D effects; including multiple lens flairs, specular lighting, localized ground fog, and volumetric lighting.
· Tackle Full-Scale 3D Action - Lose your vehicle in the heat of battle, bail out, parachute to safety, and call for someone to pick you up. Customize or switch vehicles right on the battlefield, all while wielding over 25 deadly weapons, including guided missiles, mortars and mines.
· Advanced Multiplayer Options - In addition to the original Battlezone's highly successful deathmatch (shooter-style) and strategy (RTS-style) multiplayer game modes, Battlezone II introduces new team play. Different people can have different roles - builder, defenders, attackers - and communicate with each other quickly and easily through the integrated command interface. New "lock step" anti-cheat measures have also been added to ensure the integrity of the game. Even after 2 years this game still hasn't been cracked!
What's New in This Release:
· Much greater MOD (game modification) support, allowing up to 26 total races to be active at once. Many MODders have been among 1.3 beta testers, and have been working to take advantage of the new features. [Their participation or nonparticipation is their own business; no support for 1.3 is implied or MODs promised by us.]
· Developed/Tested on Windows 2000/XP, DirectX 8.0-9.0b for much better compatability out of the box. Some testers are testing it on WinME.
· Many crashes/freezes fixed. Please note that not all bugs have enough details to figure out how they happened, and so it probably will be impossible to get all crashes fixed.
· Redone audio system that supports far more channels (up to 64) and DirectSound3D for a far more immersive experience. [Old Aureal code is gone; good riddance.] Note: not all sound cards on the market support that many channels; if the driver on your system notes a limit under 64, BZ2 will use that instead.
· Support for Ogg Vorbis compressed sounds - similar to mp3 files, but with higher quality.
· Some graphics tweaks: Maximum ingame resolution can be set much higher than 1280x1024 if your hardware supports it. Gamma (brightness) adjustment works on ATI cards.
· Enhancements to many parts of the game, including AI, craft handling, etc.
· Many more pregame options for IA, DM, Strat & MPI games (feature available to MODs to define custom options pages on a per-map basis)
· Bots in DM, and some additional DM gameplay modes.
· Strategy-CTF game mode -- capture a goal, tug it back to your recycler to win, on 6 classic maps. Finally a good use for tugs in MP!
· Over 50 additional Instant Action & Multiplayer maps by several mappakers within the BZ2 community, and tweaks to some existing maps to reduce bugs. As of 1.3PB2, there are 16 classic & additional IA maps, 98 classic & additional MP maps installed.
· Several additional security measures to make cheating in multiplayer much more difficult; deliberate remote crashing of games should be fixed.
· New BZ2 editor screen layout files contributed by testers to expose more functionality that was already there.
· Ability to rotate buildings (on 90-degree increments) for even more base-building fun
· Updates to the manual (located in the Extras folder where BZ2 is installed to) to give updated and more accurate information
· Includes an over 450Kb text file listing changes made since 1.2. This changelog contains our (minimalist) notes as to what changed for each version, and isn't guaranteed to be easily understood. But, it may be useful reading.
What's New in This Release: [ read full changelog ]
· Updated graphics engine that uses (and requires) DirectX 9.0c for the best balance of compatibility and speed. Hardware transform & lighting is now supported, allowing a lot of work to be offloaded from your CPU and onto your graphics card. New DirectX features like fullscreen antialiasing (aka multisample antialiasing) are supported to improve visual quality. DXT Textures are supported to more efficiently use graphics card memory.
· Music from the BZ2 CD is now distributed with this patch, in ogg vorbis format, allowing for better performance. You can also set up a random playlist of music to be played ingame, if you copy in .ogg files to the right place and the right name. (Note: other music needs to be user-supplied.)
· Much greater MOD (game modification) support, allowing up to 26 total races to be active at once. Recycler variants and Exta Options pages allow easy tweaks to gameplay with much lower chance of bad assets. Maximum vertex counts for models has been increased over sevenfold. Many MODders have been among 1.3 beta testers, and have been working to take advantage of the new features. Mods supporting 1.3 are not included in this download, but are available.
· Developed/Tested on Windows 2000/XP/Vista, for much better compatibility out of the box. Should work on Vista without requiring Administrator access. Limited WINE testing has been done as well. For Vista/Win7, should fully support being installed to paths with unicode, has high-resolution icon for Windows Explorer
· Many crashes/freezes fixed.
· Performance optimizations to DirectX 9 graphics, most noticeably in the terrain rendering. Satellite view should be far faster, especially on slower machines
· EMBM bumpmaps work once again. High res shadows are re-enabled, but still just as buggy as it's always been (since Battlezone II v1.0)
· Local fog should look better
· Various crash bugs fixed
· Max vertex count for models has been upped to 20,000 verts/model; old limit was 2730 verts/model. No stock assets have higher poly counts, but mods may take advantage of that.
· Redone audio system that supports far more channels (up to 64) and DirectSound3D for a far more immersive experience. Note: not all sound cards on the market support that many channels; if the driver on your system notes a limit under 64, BZ2 will use that instead.
· Support for Ogg Vorbis compressed sounds - similar to mp3 files, but with higher quality.
· Enhancements to many parts of the game, including AI, craft handling, etc.
· Many more pregame options for IA, DM, Strat & MPI games (feature available to MODs to define custom options pages on a per-map basis)
· Bots in DM, and some additional DM gameplay modes.
· Strategy-CTF game mode -- capture a goal, tug it back to your recycler to win, on 6 classic maps. Finally a good use for tugs in MP!
· Over 50 additional Instant Action & Multiplayer maps by several mapmakers within the BZ2 community, and tweaks to some existing maps to reduce bugs. As of 1.3.6.2, there are 20 classic & additional IA maps, and over 100 classic & additional MP maps installed.
· Several additional security measures to make cheating in multiplayer much more difficult; deliberate remote crashing of games should be fixed.
· New BZ2 editor screen layout files contributed by testers to expose more functionality that was already there.
· Ability to rotate buildings (on 90-degree increments) for even more base-building fun
· Updates to the manual (located in the Extras folder where BZ2 is installed to) to give updated and more accurate information
· Includes over 1.1MB of text files listing changes made since 1.2. This changelog contains our (minimalist) notes as to what changed for each version, and isn't guaranteed to be easily understood. But, it may be useful reading.
· More features, including weapon linking, thumpers, and variable gravity DM maps
· Many more modder features, such as 60-char ODF names, inheritance, tons of new tuning values, etc
· Performance optimizations - Streaming SIMD Extensions (SSE) are used to take more efficient use of your CPU
· Fewer resyncs, units (human & AI) should warp less online
· Easier to host games w/ automatic UPNP, Windows Firewall support(*)
· : requires router w/ UPNP support, and Windows Firewall as your primary firewall; other firewall software/hardware will still need some manual attention
The major changes for 1.3.6.2 Public Beta are:
· Upgraded to latest GameSpy SDK. BZ2 now uses the GameSpy QR2 communication protocol, the GameSpy transport SDK, GameSpy NatNeg technology for easier hosting w/o having to open ports in many routers, GameSpy Voice communication for ingame voice communication.
· Tweaked network code for better performance with lots of players in game.
· Tweaked network code for reduced lag/warp ingame.
· Various other fixes and optimizations.
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