Z

I'm usually not a fan of real time strategy games, however when I first checked this game out, I immediately fell in love with it thanks to its quirky premise of having robot armies fight each other over alien planets as well as how easy it is to master the game play.

If I had a complain here, it's that the game is far too short as the entire campaign can be completed within a few hours even on the higher difficulties. That might be due to said difficulties only consisting of the intelligence of the Ai as the easiest setting has intelligent good guys and unintelligent bad guys and vice versa on the hardest setting. As such, it can be frustrating to see your units take the most inconvenient method possible in completing a task only for them to instantly complete it should you adjust the difficulty setting mid game (which you can do here despite it being unheard of at the time.) That's where my complaints end as like most real time strategy games, the game play itself is rather simple as you order your units around to defeat the enemy on each map. It's the humour and presentation that helps this stand out as both are charming as hell even when you're in a losing position in game, in fact this is one of the games where I'm not frustrated whenever the commentator tells me how much I suck given how she says it with so much sass that's it’s impossible to hate on her. It could also be the wave of encouragement your troupe give you when you're winning as their confidence in you is rather touching, making this a game that actively rewards you for doing well and chastised you for doing poorly. I'm guessing z stands for commander Zod who the robot on the cover of the game is, he's a ton of fun as he embodies the strict general stereotype that was popularised on films such as an officer and a gentleman and full metal jacket which this game clearly has a lot of fondness for. The story is pretty basic, however it’s his interactions with the two delivery robots who provide the robot units in game that make it worthwhile.

It's a shame this game has fallen onto obscurity (likely due to how difficult it is to google it) however I hope it receives a surge in popularity soon as its one of the most underrated games of the 90s.