Episode Originally Released: September 30th, 2011 ------------------------------------------ Artillery games weren't really anything special in the early days of gaming, but Scorched Earth was one of the more popular ones considering its massive number of features and options. Though one thing that may come as a surprise to some retro gamers is that this game is technically a clone of the lesser-known "Tank Wars" which I covered back in Episode 36, though really, both games have their pros and cons. Tank Wars is more approachable, better balanced, and has better AI, while Scorched Earth has more features and is more customizable. ------------------------------------------ Additional Information and Corrections: * Here's a quick link to Wendell Hicken's Scorched Earth page: http://www.whicken.com/scorch/ * About a year after I made this episode, the official Scorched Earth page was updated to allow downloading of every full version of Scorched Earth all in a single package! You simply need to make a donation of any amount to Wendell Hicken through PayPal and you get the download following! :D * There were a lot of features I didn't talk about. One of the notable ones allows you to play in a typical turn based fashion, or also sets it up so ALL players fire shots at the same time so that each player gets the same number of shots until they die. There's also a mode for simultaneous play, where players can aim and shoot in real time, but I've never been able to get it to work properly. :/ * Another neat feature is the teamplay options. You can set up standard teams which simply score together, teams which pool all their money together, or vicious teams which are like standard teams, but when all opponents are gone, the team fights itself down to the last man standing and that person gets the reward for winning the round! * Actually, as much as I dislike the AI in this game, old artillery games for the most part, don't have good AI. Scorched Earth's AI just happens to be one of the worst, and because it can glitch out and create a state where the game can't be played anymore... yeah. :P * Although there were a bunch of features I didn't mention, there was one in particular that a lot of people really enjoyed in this game: Talking Tanks. Essentially, there's two special text files with various one-liners that the tanks can be configured to randomly spout. One text file is filled with attack messages, the other with death messages. I didn't mention it because I usually disabled this feature and thus it skipped my mind. My reason for turning off such a beloved feature? Slows down the gameplay. :B ------------------------------------------ Pixelmusement Website: http://www.pixelships.com ADG on Pixelmusement: http://www.pixelships.com/adg Alphabetical Index of ADG Episodes: http://www.pixelships.com/adg/index2.html