This is Battlezone II: Combat Commander with a shiny coat of paint. If you loved the original game, everything is still here - including all the old issues. There's still noticable lag in the campaign for many scripted events, the and scripted AI is still sluggish and stupid. The UI is at a higher scale, but exactly the same otherwise. I wanted more from this. Except for achievements and graphics, I've yet to notice an improvement. In fact, because of the much improved graphics, the things that haven't been improved *really* stand out. - Control sensitivity is still really sluggish and impossible to balance between pilot and craft. - The original cinematics are included, now with a massive border around them to prevent over pixelation. (They weren't that good looking in '99, and they haven't aged well.) - The original VO is still there. Lots of tinny, poorly mixed voices. - Some controls are still hardcoded and undocumented Minor fixes would have gone a long way to make this really really good. A few extra features (UI scaling comes to mind) would push it into 'you need to buy it' territory. Is this the best way to play Battlezone II? Yes. It looks shiny, but it's still the same game from '99 underneath, including all of its worst flaws.
I was immensely impressed by this game. The combat was enjoyable and the humor was on point, as I expected. What I did not expect was to be drawn into the story, but the plot was actually much much stronger than I expected. I might even call it compelling. The game is also a great length with decent pacing. My biggest gripe is the boss battles, which are really the low point(s). They are all samey and obvious. I do recommend a harder difficulty than Normal if you want a challenge, as well.
