BZFlag (an abbreviation for Battle Zone capture the Flag) is an online, multiplayer video game first released in 2007. It is a first-person tank shooting game, similar to Battlezone. It was originally written by Chris Schoeneman for SGI computers running IRIX, and has been ported to other platforms including Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, BSD and Solaris.
In a game of BZFlag, players drive around tanks, viewed from a first-person view, in a server-defined world (also known as a "map"), which can be modified. Tanks have the ability to drive through other tanks, but cannot travel through buildings or other world objects. The basic objective is to destroy opponents' tanks, which are tanks of another team's color. For example, green tanks are supposed to try to destroy red, purple, blue, and rogue tanks. Rogue tanks do not have any allegiances to a certain team and are therefore able to kill anybody.
There are styles of game play that modify the objective. Styles are server-based, as the server operator chooses what style to host. If there is no special style indicated by the server owner, the only objective is the above (to simply kill opponent tanks), it is called a "free for all", or "FFA" for short. There are three other objectives and corresponding styles (four in total): a style called "capture-the-flag" (or "CTF" for short) in which tanks try to pick up an opponent's flag and bring to its own home base (a small area marked with the team's color that simply is the home of a team), a style called "rabbit chase" in which the objective is to have every hunter (colored red and yellow)tank try to destroy a particular white tank, called the "rabbit," and a style called "King of the Hill," in which the tanks attempt to stay in a certain area for 30 seconds without being killed. If they succeed, they're "The King of the Hill." Servers can change the game mode and have custom maps made to fit the properties of the game. Certain thresholds are used to catch malicious players and kick them off the server, as well as message filters, and an entire collection of other anti-cheating features. There are around 250 servers active at any given time (although only about 10-20% have active players most of the time).
Review by AppleMatters:
I stumbled upon BZFlag and I now play at least twice a day during the work week and at least once during the weekend. Here’s the premise:
You: A tank
Goal: Blast your co-workers into smithereens
Sounds fun eh? The game consists of tanks navigating around a world of boxes and pyramids. The basic controls are arrow keys or mouse for moving, mouse button for shooting and tab for jumping. You have 3 cannon shots at any given time. Once the blast detonates, your tank reloads. (all settings and controls can be changed to your liking) Sounds like a glorified Combat game from the Atari 2600 days right?
But it’s more than that. The minimal graphics create a world that is just enough to pull you in and not enough to choke your processor. This is a great example of how you could have the most realistic type of graphics but if it isn’t fun, you won’t play it. There are many different types of games you can play. You could play a straight out melee where it’s every tank for themselves. There’s also a capture the flag game where you team up with tanks.
So why the Flag in BZFlag? Perhaps the most amusing part of this game is the introduction of Super Flags. Super Flags are white flags interspersed around the playing field. Picking up a flag can give you special weapons are powers. You can score a Guided Missile where you lock your opponent in the scope and a heat-seeking missile hunts them down. You could also land the coveted Oscillation Overthruster which allows you to drive through the boxes. But there are bad flags too and you don’t know where they are until you find one. These flags can cause your scanner to be jammed, they could make you extremely obese, or they could limit you to only making left hand turns.
The best part of BZFlag is that it is open sourced. What does this mean? It means that anyone who is compelled to sit down and hack the coding can create new weapons, behaviors, and battlefields. I’m not one of those people but after joining a game on the internet, I’m glad other people are. Online, there are battles that are happening right now that contain multi-leveled worlds and game play so fast you’ll get killed every 5 seconds. These guys are serious BZFlaggers.
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