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Z

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Warcraft, for example, gives you time at the beginning of a scenario to make allies and survey new territories while you wait for your town hall (or other structures) to be constructed. Z has no structure production or breaks in the action. Instead, there are unclaimed factories, guns, tanks, and grenades scattered throughout the battlefield. The first person to grab them owns them. Unfortunately, there isn't time to see what's lying around, so you're never really sure if what you're capturing makes the best strategic sense.
screen shot Another blip in this program is the fact that your troops occasionally take a completely ridiculous path to their designated destination. It's especially annoying if it occurs when the fate of the game is on the line. This is, however, a minor side effect of the troops' extensive AI, which usually prompts them to plow through a barrier or swim across a lake to complete an assignment. The blip occurs only about 5 percent of the time and works against you as often as it works to your benefit.
The fact that your troops meet no resistance when taking territories is, in my opinion, a lapse in game design. Why is there a bevy of unmanned, uncontrolled factories? And why are there weapons just lying around? At the very least, neutral troops should guard these resources (like the neutral cities in Empire or Heroes of Might and Magic).
I realize that one person's design flaw is another's bonus round, and I'm sure there are plenty of Lucys and Ethels out there who like their strategy dished out like chocolates on a conveyor belt. If that's the case, buy Z. I have no other complaints, and for all of my whining, I'm totally addicted. The AI is tough and makes the 20 missions a worthy challenge in single-player mode.
Z only gets better when you hook up with friends over a modem or network--the speed becomes more manageable when playing against humans, and games don't take too long because of the predefined territories. Finally, like all games designed by the Bitmap Brothers, Z has cool graphics, great sound, and a sense of humor. As your commanding officer, General Zod, might say, "Get your lard butt down to the store and get Z before I use your rusty hide for toilet paper, you sissy."

Hugh Falk is often credited with producing the world's first video-gaming magazine, PongWorld, which debuted in 1974. Unfortunately, an immature gaming market, a total lack of interest in Pong-related news, and the fact that he was six years old doomed the project to failure. Now he works as just another reviewer in the industry he founded. Send your gaming challenges to GamerX.

Facts

Z
Virgin Interactive Entertainment, 800/874-4607
Price: $50.00
486DX/66, 8MB RAM, 20MB disk space, VGA or SVGA, 2X CD-ROM drive, DOS or Windows 95; Sound Blaster or 100 percent compatible sound cards

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