Z Rant & Review - Is it Worth a Buy?

[@TheDrgustaf]

I love your reviews and rants, you're one of the only honest people on the internet

[@anon746912]

I near instantly bought this when I saw it on Steam, but then I thought "hang on... let's check WAB." You took a bullet for me, Mack. I won't forget this.

[@Nihlus12]

I'm sorry for your loss.

[@boeos]

With the last 2 updates for this game, they have modernised the mouse controls, you can now change resolutions, and have done a bunch of various other fixes if you check the news section of the steam / Z section. Also they do plan or have stated to impliment multiplayer.

[@ImAlsoBen]

i honestly dont care about any of these games. i just love your personality, the voices, the emphasis you put into your sentences! 10 / 10 man

[@farnebrink]

There's always the Zod Engine...

[@renovatiovr]

The concept has been brought back with warhammer 40k dawn of war series as well as unreal tournament 2k4 onslaught mode.

[@Xavathos]

Mack, you should try AirMech, it's a very much like Z, but you control the battlefield personally with a hero unit and has multiplayer PvP and co-op survival TD style. I think you'd like it, if you haven't seen it before already.

[@AntificationAdam]

I loved this game back in the day. My friend and I done the same thing as you, we linked up our 28.8 kbit dial-up modems to play this and many other games. Until my bloody Nanna would call up and disconnect me. May she rest in peace.

[@catsthatbark4156]

Check this reply From the developer to your Review Mack ! ( its over on the steam Forums ) "The first update has now been released which fixes the most commonly reported input issues and a few other things too. We've not been able to reproduce the bug with the audio in cut scenes and we've only seen a couple of people report this issue. The game was also fully rewritten in C (as the original was written in x86 ASM) so the comment in the video about the developers doing the bare minimum amount of work made our programmers laugh ;-). Multiplayer is something we hope to bring but we need to implement lobby and matchmaking systems, as well as give it a thorough test on high latency internet connections (since most people played the original on a LAN or with PCs connected via serial connection, so no latency!)."

[@Alte.Kameraden]

I often compare Z to Company of Heroes. Claiming "It was the Company of Heroes of it's generation." RTS game that was more involved, forced you to venture out and take ground even if it meant sending Grunts to take a flag, being closed on by a "Tank" then hiding the grunts hoping the tank will ignore them, and you can recapture the flag after the tank leaves. LOL Game was so "hot." BY THE WAY this is actually a port of the "Mobile Phone Version" of the game.

[@sinephase]

How did I never hear of this game back in the 90s? I loved RTS back then D:

[@Carnagath82]

Try right clicking and dragging to select groups instead of left clicking. This is basically a reissue of Z with no multiplayer, fucked controls and black bars around everything. It's not a remake, and it's not very good, but it's like 5 bucks and it's the easiest way to play through the original campaign right now. You can always use Zod Engine for multiplayer.

[@foxfire1112]

Dude, you're awesome. Please keep these up. You'll get a huge loyal fanbase in no time. I spend my money only after listening to YOU dude!!

[@davevti9]

This takes me back, shame they didn't honour it like it deserves. How I loved the intro with the robots drinking beer in the drop ship....

[@Seraphyx]

So if they didn't change anything aside from making work on windows 7 was the actual game this bad as well? Is the game actually broken and functions worse than the original or what? Just not sure what your expectations were after you saw the game on Steam to make sense of this WAB. Were you actually expecting a completely remake with brand new graphics? Mostly what I gathered was you're upset about no multiplayer.

[@WorthABuyreviews]

I expected the controls to be redone as it was in the original and I also expected Multiplayer and the cut scenes to actually have audio. TBH I also expected the animations to be brought up to date, it currently chugs along when you scroll. It's just terrible.

[@Seraphyx]

Worth A Buy Makes sense and is a completely reasonable thing to expect but if you look at other "remakes" or "HD" versions it seems no one really wants to do that... Most notably Age of Empires and Age of Mythology, however, they did at least improve some things in those (graphics slightly, resolution options, animations still pretty crap). If this is a straight port that's... well, inexcusable quite frankly. I'm sure if someone wanted to play the original they can just emulate it or something.

[@tentor8501]

So the original had better controls and sound in the videos? It wasn't exactly clear from your review. And it's lagging ... maybe your PC isn't powerful enough to handle the graphics?

[@ValravnPrince]

TheEocene Obviously not. Crysis 3 has nothing on the sheer graphical majesty that this...remake.... has.

[@FangSylux]

Seraphyx The original Z is better. This steam release is a port from the tablet version of the game.

[@TheMaw365]

I still play Red Alert 2. It's just so much bloody fun. All the new RTS games just seem shallow even the new command and conquer games just seem like mindless mass and zerk rushes. That allied campaign final mission in RA2 lost a few veins playing that lol. Never played this game though, looks like it was based on the original red alert, but with a type of tower defence style element added.

[@dargrotek]

If you have your old disks still kicking about you can get the old Z working on a Virtual Machine running Windows 98. It's amazing how many old games you can get running that way. Some with funny results as they run at 10x normal speed!

[@jasonthai3077]

mack i love your reviews .so hilarious lol .

[@vgk12345]

I love you so much man, never stop doing this. You are by far my favorit youtube personality.

[@tralalakk]

love your rants Mack i always want get out BBQ put some meat on it and wash it with cold beer while watching your rants :D

[@garasandor6299]

just download d-fend from sourceforge net and the Z game from emuparadise and play it on dosbox.

[@Dragonchu98]

I love the Mack Rants.

[@japsniper1980]

It's really sad to hear this port wasn't done properly. I loved playing Z back in 1996 on my friends PC. Many an hour was spent enjoying this great game, what a missed opportunity.

[@ColdplayVocaloid]

Can you try reviewing killing floor?

[@EroceanTV]

Mack you should check out Unturned, I know its free but I was thinking about trying it out. Might as well, its completely free and actually looks fun in a silly way. Would love to see your review on it... your reviews are awesome keep up the good work!

[@RealThundar1]

Hey you should do a WAB on visera clean up detail :P Its strangely addicting lol

[@Tribunilus]

You could argue that the company of heroes games use the capture and hold land model that z uses...so yes it has been modernised.

[@aluphoss]

Loved this game when I was a kid. fucking hell I was 14 when I first played it!

[@GetDunkedJin]

Don't blame the Bitmap Brothers for this, blame TickTock, the people who released this version. Bitmap Brothers went down the drain almost 8 years ago.

[@boeos]

The sound works for me in the cut scenes, However it would of been nice if the developers put some effort into the game to allow you to rebind keys and modernise the controls, but you can adapt back to the ways of old, although shouldn't have too I admit. But yea the loss of mulitplayer really is unforgivable, when there's community sites of Z that work for window7 and have working multiplayer, so I really don't see why this couldn't of had it.

[@TheSeth1126]

Can you please review unturned. Thank you

[@Nguroa]

Scroll without Keys! Fuck that shit. I never played Z back in the day, I was a Star Craft lad. But when I saw this I did think for just a moment, "maybe I should...." Thanks Mack

[@TheMarcodiator]

I remember this.. oh so many centuries ago :|

[@dasdfsdfddf]

What about a review of unturned

[@captainhindsight8113]

Your Awesome Mack!

[@Hollers444]

'Rant' not worth a buy then lol

[@sev_elm]

Yea i knew from the title it would end in not worth a buy. Maybe he shouldn't include "rant" in the title, gave it away.

[@Ouch.]

Such a shame.....I too was a mahoosive fan of Z and played this game for hours! Why oh why couldn't they spend 10 minutes and give this a brush up? I shall wait and buy it when its £1

[@CorDharel]

That comment down there in the video xDDD

[@Wubbeyman]

These are the people who made steel soldiers isn't it? Loved that game. Z was before my time sadly but I loved steel soldiers. It's humor and cutscenes would crack me up and the gameplay was awesome hours of fun. Sad to see a money grab like this, they make the other game devs look bad for doing something like this.

[@DyoKasparov]

hi Wheatley

[@TERMINATORssd]

i couldnt stop laughing man. I love it, i feel your pain but god its hilarious

[@dimitre316]

I don't get it, modern machines still use wav files, I mean they don't but could, Macintosh don't but windows can.., so why no sound? Also how hard was it to run an imaging software and revamp the images, its not like its using 3D models.. fps this is why the new gen gamers think old games were garbage.

[@rhbvkleef]

I really think we should try the original on a MS-DOS emulator with some serial (AND SOUND) integration. I bet it will work better than this.

[@ahuramazda8479]

Looks like Company of Heroes, Mack. Try it out.

[@ChristianLopez-zs6ob]

reminds me of advanced wars and the original warcraft

[@beetboxboy]

looks like an 8-bit version of halo wars

[@ReapingHarvestGames]

Remakes are hard to pull off successfully. Very few can do it.

[@tomaka121]

wtf is up with that minimap? its like 10x10 pixels :D

[@snikesblue]

What a piece of crap, sorry you had to go through this Mack! Also, just for the rant fun you should do an angry review with Angry Joe lol

[@RevanNaut]

I don't think Mack is THAT well known to suddenly join up with bigger youtube celeberties. Who knows? Maybe Mack would just call him a 'angry, fat, american, c**t'? :P

[@snikesblue]

lol that would be hilarious though :)

[@bodonbaby]

***** Actually Mack knows of Angryjoe, he even found joe's review of a harry potter game hilarious. :)

[@snikesblue]

lol that's awesome then

[@RevanNaut]

Lazarkos Oh, didn't know that...also didn't know that AngryJoe did a Harry Potter game. Okay, I can just imagine it now: Joe's about to do his next review when, suddenly, his screen in the background shows Mack's pimpin face. Joe asks what's going on and Mack saids that this next game either made or break him (depends on the game Joe's reviewing) and how he's gonna also review this game as well with him. Then a little joke about Mack's rabbit and how it's sneaking about in the background. Mack would then beat the crap out of the rabbit and tell him to screw off. Joe would be left weirded out :P ...OH and the call center rings Mack halfway through the review and Joe has to do it solo for a few minutes while occasional cutaways show Mack playing with the call center guy.

[@Mogsey1972]

Really pissed off with this, i was looking forward to playing this after soooooo many years. Bloody terrible.

[@BigZapfer]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO - oh man, I used to love this too. If you like this game type check out Dragon Commander has it has as similar combat game of rush and grab

[@WarRadish]

Yep: looks like a pie of shite. I was also around when the Bitmap Bros were the bees knees, but these recent ports and conversions are balls.

[@RawMantix]

I still got it :DD

[@MrRick1719]

Isn't there somewhere you can get red alert and it has online mutliplayer and its free strange they didnt do it with this it seems that being a developer these days is just being as lazy as you can and get paid for it

[@TheBloodiac]

I remember this game and how I sucked at it. ^^

[@Drain_Life_Archive]

Another classic game buttfucked to make an easy buck on Steam. This is happening more and more.

[@aluphoss]

So glad I didn't buy it. Thanks for saving me money and disappointment Mack.

[@aliendoggy1]

Was about buy this to!

[@clyax113]

Looking at your other reviews, this one seemed to have a lot of genuine rage and hardship in it. Are you ok now that time has passed and, while what Bitmap has done was still wrong, you might be able to move on with your life?

[@GorbadIronclaw]

Was considering buying this, but i suspected it was going to be a pile of shit. Thanks for confirming.

[@nviso209]

Glad I recently found a physical jewel case cd-rom copy for just $0.99 b/c they clearly f*cked folks on steam! Will be playing it on an era correct Pentium system as well... I hate it when games are redone and screwed up.

[@AKzach97]

atleast its not 14.99

[@victoriavonheals2384]

Ah Command & Conquer, such good memories. Hell March is still one of my favorite game tracks to this day. :)

[@MrDendevil]

Remakes of old games are mostly scams, think of SC HD, AOEII, AOM, RON,.. Those games I bought with great nostalgia to discover afterwards its not worth the money, I played them so much back in the day that the little improvements aren't worth it. I know they do it for easy money, but this should've been free updates for the original games. Either u make them cheap to buy or don't do it at all & invest your time into developing new games.

[@jackboot6344]

I reckon AOEII is great.

[@MrDendevil]

Well yeah, it's nice they put decent multiplayer in so u don't have to use Hamachi anymore or some other program. But I'd rather play starcraft 2 or C&C RA3. They promoted the game as AOEII HD, well i bought AOEII just dunno where the HD is...

[@MrDendevil]

And that's why I started to view gameplay reviews before buying a game to make sure I don't add games to my library that I don't play. Since it came out, I played 2,5h..

[@mixedreactions714]

I like Stronghold Crusader HD, it was only $3 at the time so I can't be mad even if it was bad. It's still great.

[@ElizaberthUndEugen]

Anybody else who really dislikes the "let's read"-part? :/

[@swcz]

I actually like it. He reads the game description and then compares with what you get ingame. Great.

[@ElizaberthUndEugen]

swcz Everyone knows descriptions are BS anyway! Edit: Oh great, you deleted your comment, or what? And now I look like a fuckin' weirdo talking to myself... thanks...

[@swcz]

yes, BS games do usually have inaccurate and misleading descriptions.

[@WeAreSoPredictable]

I think it works well. It gives a starting point, often provides a few good chuckles (since most game descriptions are comedy gold, and almost outright lies), and it's Mack's schtick. Actually, maybe I should spell it 'shtick' so it sounds less foreign.

[@mrwamble]

I liked it.

[@ghastous]

was shit in the 90s so will be shit in 2014

[@MarkHorp]

Bought this back in the day.. and it fucking sucked then, and I bet it sucks now!

[@unnown1337]

Thanks, was thinking about getting this. Gonna pass.

[@MrJamyphill]

such a shame the original was awesome

[@Cityj0hn]

Aaaaawwwww Fuck.

[@ThePandemic101]

zee not zed

[@ThePandemic101]

Santosh Subr Angry?

[@santoshsubr6649]

***** Aren't we all? *Slams bell*