Battlezone

To start I will go over the basic scoring and patterns of Battlezone

Enemies:

Tank - 1,000 Points

Missile - 2,000 Points

Super Tank - 3,000 Points

Saucer (UFO) - 5,000 Points

Extra Lives:

You will get an extra life at 15,000 & 100,000 points, there will be no lives awarded past this point until 10,015,000 points! Ideally you want to score at least 200k - 250k per life, but this isn't always possible due to various reasons discussed later.


General Strategy:

Note - You will never face more than one enemy at any given time.

You will need to be comfortable with driving in reverse and forward for extended amounts of time!

1. Tanks

These guys show up from the start of the game to around 30-50k, and then again ~800k. Scoring is slow when these guys are on the prowl. You want to reverse until you make visual contact with the tank. From this point start working in a diagnol direction towards the tank, the goal here is to ram the corner of the front of the tank with your tank. Ideally you want to touch the corner of the tank with the middle of your tank. Once this is done you want to count to 1-2 really fast and back up full speed. The tank will shoot as you are backing up and it will miss you, This is when you turn toward it and blast it away.

2. Super Tanks

The faster, deadlier version of the tank. These guys show up from ~30k - ~800k. You want to keep the same general strategy as with the tank. The only exception is the ram count, I would ram it and just say "one" fairly fast and then back up full speed, it'll miss and you'll have an easy kill every time. Now occasionally the game likes to play jokes and spawn a super tank directly behind you, if this happens then there is really nothing that can be done but trying to turn away from the gun quickly. Just remember be aggressive! These guys are faster than you are, so never try to shoot a UFO or turn away from a super tank! You want to get rid of these guys as fast as possible.

3. Missile (appear from 10k onward)

The deadliest enemy in the game, thankfully you can predict with nearly 100% accuracy of what they'll do. When you hear the missile "buzz" you want to immediately turn toward it. Turn your scope about a tank distance to the left of the missile. Look at what direction the missile is facing when it falls out of the sky

First Missile always comes straight at you, no need to move your scope left.

Second and third ones can sometimes be a bit random, so it's best to judge the situation when you see them. After that the usual patterns go into effect

Stays Straight = it'll come right down your scope, easy 2k points.

Turns Right = The missile will cut right when it lands, then it will make a sharp turn to the left. You need to fire about half a second after it cuts left to destroy it.

Turns Left = Fire as soon as it comes into your scope, or it will go to the right side of the screen and cut in front of you to the left...then you will need to pop it just like the right.

There is one very rare pattern that i could never figure out, the missile looks similar to the left pattern except it will hit you instead of cutting in front of you. Not sure if this was due to misreading the pattern at the start or what.

There is also another way to take out missiles, you can back up continuously until they dance into your scope. I didn't do it this way, very risky, Smileypsb has a great replay on Game Room using this technique.

4. UFO

These guys are harmless, but they can get you killed if ignore other enemies to try for the fast 5k. Only shoot these guys if they are directly in your line of fire, or if your turning to attack a tank in the distance you can try for a "pot shot". Just fire once, don't get carried away, lives are worth more than 5k.



This is a video of me playing on MAME a few days before I got the achievement, probably a lot more helpful than text!





This achievement is definitely possible with practice. Your high score may go up 100-200k per day if you play long enough! It really comes down to mastering the missiles, because they are your biggest danger. The super tanks are not that bad once you get the technique down, although sometimes you will back into obstacles or get a bad spawn.

It's hard to find any gameplay strategies about this game online, so I hope this guide helps a bit!

Not impossible, more highly improbable. Requires hours of your time, patience, skill and the knowledge that there are no continues or checkpoints, once you run out of lives that's it game over, you have to start again all the way back from the beginning.

Not really much advice I can give other then keep your eyes peeled for those red dots on the radar and take cover behind or use the buildings/structures to your advantage as much as possible.

Good luck.