Is The Red Odyssey a big disappointment?

[Grendel]

In my oppinion, the missions are simply too hard to complete, the chinese units look like they are built out of LEGOs, and the whole expansion has 'unfinished' written all over it...
I'd like to hear different impressions, so fire away!

[TheJamsh]

i never played BZ1, was too young for gaming at the time. BZ2 was my first BZ experience.

i can say im glad that BZC is getting closer to release. a good re-make of BZ1 in BZ2's engine. im pretty sure Avatar will eventually patch over TRO as well... would be nice to see what happened first

[Avatar]

TRO was very rushed, and there was a steep learning curve back then as far as creating ships and such.  TRO was done by "Evolve", a totally different group than the original BZ Dev Team, so as talented as they were they still had to learn everything from scratch.  The opening movie was farmed out, and Activision helped with things like booking voice actors and such. 

And, I personally know that the lead level designer is a sadistic SOB with no regard for human life, even his own.   We've killed each other enough times in Rogue Spear, so I know he'd as soon squeeze the trigger as look at you.

And he's mean.  Won't let me use Grenades at all any more.  I mean, c'mon, so I blew us up a few times, should be OK to do that among friends.   

Personally I liked TRO because the missions made me rethink my usual playing methods.  You can't sit back and build an uber-base in TRO, you have to micromanage and be everywhere at the same time.  Sure, some of the techniques are heavy handed (no Splinters, for instance, to thwart Mowerman's usual play style of "If it moves SPLINTER it!") but in all it forced me to develop some new strategies.

For instance, when you see a herd of Stolis headed for your base wait until they're almost in range of your GT's and then THUMP them forward.  Make lines of minigun powerups in front of advancing Golems.  Snipe Bombers LONG before they get near you, once you find their staging points.   Cloak your ships when playing as Chinese, it makes them safe while sitting there. 

In short, rip up the box and start thinking everywhere at once, or you're dead. 

-Av-

[Axeminister]

I too found it too hard to finish.

[technoid]

I don't have TRO, so the only game I have from Team Evolve is "Zaero", an expansion pak/mod for Quake II.  Zaero was one of the very few Q2 packs, official or unofficial, to have become commercialized (you pay for) and with a storyline, although it was a little subpar than the 2 official packs that had a plot and story (i.e. The Reckoning and Ground Zero).  Hmm, I think I bought it at Frys.

[Grendel]

I never heard of BZC (I don't even know what it stands for???), but it sounds great - BZ1 with a new engine and perhaps a few improvements... If someone could shed some more light on BZC, I would be grateful!   

[Avatar]

It's the BattleZone Classic mod for the BZ2 engine.  I'm trying to recreate the Battlezone experience in a more modern, much more mod friendly engine. 

Originally I was just going to do the SP missions, but changes brought on by the 1.3 patch have stalled me long enough so that now it's pretty much a Total Conversion.  General BlackDragon is doing the MP side of things and has done a great job of recreating the BZ1 shell.

-Av-

[Grendel]

You have my full support! Can't wait to play it!

[TheJamsh]

cant believe people still dont know about it. weve been waiting for years lol!

[Grendel]

Well, I have first played BZ1 when it came out, when I was a kid. One day, with no explanation, it ceased to start. I was devastated because I couldn't buy it anywhere anymore, and in due time got over it and tried to forget... Only recently have I been able to download it from the net, and I'm now rediscovering all the wonders which I have missed so much!
Anyways, that's why I'm a bit out of touch    

[Grendel]

But seriously, the Chinese units look like a bunch of toys. They could have done a much better job. With more creativity... You can immediately tell which two armies are from the original!  

[Avatar]

I dare anyone here to make a full race (chinese), add new technology code(cloak), and a full set of SP missions including cutscenes and voiceovers, in three months.  Evolve had VERY little time to do what they did, which as I said had to start first with teaching themselves how to make everything to begin with.  They obviously didn't catch on to everything as anyone who's noticed the BDog Factory and GT animation flubs probably noticed.

-Av-

[Nielk1]

I could do it (with the help of a team of course), but I would have to forgo school, a normal sleep schedule, and possibly bathing...

[General BlackDragon]

and possibly bathing...

[Wraith]

I was able to beat that mission once on the Chinese campaign where you start as a pilot and get to the cca comm tower. Once you do that you get told to either go to the one of the two bridges of whatever they are. You have to avoid getting killed by mines, snipers, turrets and fighters which i find almost impossible. Then you have to snipe the crates to destroy the convey and get to a point marked by a nav to kill like 5 pilots by yourself with a couple of dropping ally pilots coming to help soon and thats it. Out of frustration i took the game off and not playing it again until someone tells me how to beat it without dying .