Anyone remember Zone 66 for the PC?

[simian]

I totally dug that game. The opening sequence was pretty cool (for the time it came out.) The gameplay rocked. Lots of ships to choose from, free-roaming levels.

I thought it was pretty hard, though. I still played it a lot. Never beat it for some reason ... some reason other than suckage, of course. Because, y'know, I don't.

Really.

How would that game be qualified? I guess along with Asteroids or something. Not really a vertical scroller (boo! hiss!) or horizontal scroller (yay! yippee!). More like ... uh ... asteroids ... if asteroids had scrolling.

OT: Have the folks at Epic Megagames ever expressed an interest in returning to their old work for updates and stuff? OMF2097 and Jazz Jackrabbit were big for them. Or are they just gonna keep with UT series?

[kemical]

i used to play zone 66 shareware, but I never really enjoyed it much due
to the multiple direction scrolling, i liked overkill (from epic) and raptor call of the shadows more.

the best shooter on the pc from back then though has to be Baryon, the graphics weren;t as polished as raptor, but it was from an asian developer and was way cooler than raptor.. raptor had the generic USA shooter (same with stargunner) feeling while Baryon was true shooter stuff...

[incognoscente]

...
OT: Have the folks at Epic Megagames ever expressed an interest in returning to their old work for updates and stuff? OMF2097 and Jazz Jackrabbit were big for them. Or are they just gonna keep with UT series?

Jazz Jackrabbit had a sequel in 1998.
Diversions Entertainment (the group that developed One Must Fall) released a sequel, One Must Fall: Battlegrounds in 2003.

I doubt Epic will revisit their older games. There is not much money to be made there compared to licensing Unreal Engine 3 tech (for example, yesterday's deal with Microsoft Game Studios) and sales of Unreal Tournament-and-related titles.


As for Zone66: I tried it, couldn't really get into it. I liked the music (C.C.Catch!) though.

[Ganelon]

I hated Zone 66. It was pretty much just an enhanced and modified version of Raid on Bungeling Bay for the C64. Couldn't stand the controls and thought the gameplay was incredibly boring and repetitive. Not to mention it's arguable whether it's actually a shmup or not.

Try OMF Battlegrounds if you liked OMF2097. I really, really digged 2097 and had a crazy tournament file with hundreds of wins and 0 losses. I played Battlegrounds and quickly realized the magic was completely lost upon the transition to 3D. Top players can do mad combos in the game but it just doesn't feel as smooth as it did in 2D.

Wouldn't mind another Tyrian from Epic as maybe a minigame in the next Unreal though.

[Ghegs]

One Must fall 2097 = teh greatness. I played it so much back in the day. My Jaguar was unstoppable. It was so much fun to upgrade the mech into lightning-fast speeds and beat opponents in a matter of seconds.

[Andi]

The other day, I saw a GBA cartridge of Jazz Jackrabbit. I was in a state of shock and was unable to utter "Where the hell did that come from?"

There was supposed to be a new One Must Fall game released for the PC several years ago. I lost interest in PC gaming and can't remember what happened to it, but it looked cool. Fully 3D and stuff.

[pixeljunkie]

Zone 66 sucked. I hate those free-roaming shooters like that. Plus I remember it having hefty hardware requirements. The intro was nice though, I remember the drum beat vividly.

early-mid 90's shareware = AWESOME