Herzog Zwei Memories

Hi,

Round about seven years ago I saw this game in a video rental store, and for weeks I picked it up ... looked at it, and moved on. Then one day I decided to rent it. And like Mr. Keppler, I turned it on and put it in one player mode...And said to myself WTF!!???. Once I put it in TWO PLAYER MODE, Then and only then was I able to see the true brilliance of this remarkable game!! I have labeled it the BEST VIDEO GAME of all times. Even back then Herzog was way ahead of its time. Now that I've bought Dremcast I'm crossing my fingers for the sequel.

-L0vestyle@aol.com

Howdy!

Number one, all Zweiheads owe a debt of gratitude for putting the Herzog MP3’s up! I’m listening to them as I type, and I’ll soon be listening to them /really loud/ in the CD player of my car. You’re the man.

What I first remember about Herzog is that my friend Gary had gotten it and proceeded to whip my butt at it every time we played. I hated the damn game, that cursed SOS klaxon ringing painfully in my ears as I would lose yet /again/. Then he made the fateful mistake of letting me borrow the game…I would show him! I played all the time, spending many hours mastering the Zen of Zwei. I was ready. The next time we played, he expected yet another easy win. Far from it. Quickly I started dropping infantry, taking over bases, taking /him/ to school! I quickly demolished his base with a few well dropped tanks. This one skirmish would ignite a long series of absolute /epic/ battles stemming our high school years. Our games would last literally hours as one player would /refuse/ to let the other have even /one/ base. So the entire war would be fought over one small piece of land, no quarter was given, or expected. It was great. When we learned how to make the dreaded “Cross” formation with the anti-aircraft units [imagine a + with a SAM launcher on each point, then drop a supply unit in the middle, neverending pain!] our battles would stretch even longer.

I also remember when the computer was being an absolute /bastard/ to me. Just coming in when I was dropping my fourth guy and waxing me with those damn “you can’t get this firing angle with yer crappy thumbpad” shots. Then proceed to retake the base and cause me all kinds of grief. It (he?) did this to me like 3 times, at critical junctures in the game he would be right there, all over me. Totally evil. So I was gonna make that silicon slut pay. I proceeded to grind him down, took over all the bases and surrounded his base with SAM’s. Once I had the supply trucks in place and saw that everything worked, I turned the monitor off and walked away. For 12 hours. That’ll show him. * grin * When I turned the monitor back on, everything was the same. He’d reform, be totally annihilated with a barrage of missiles, reform, annihilated…you get the picture. I put him out of his misery with a couple of tanks, and was satisfied when the end tally showed that he had been blown up something obscene like 5,000 times! Payback’s a bitch.

So why does Herzog Zwei rule so much? I’ll tell you. It’s the perfect balance of action and strategy. All these real time strategy games today have you totally disassociated with the combat action, and your men. I’m tellin’ you, you get attached to your units in Zwei. They’re not faceless multitudes, cranked out by some factory. You placed them, can protect them, heal them. They’re your little brothers and you’re responsible for them. And when they start getting hurt, you can come play big brother. Kick whoever’s hurting them’s ass. Your boys getting shot up by some tank? Land right in front of them, take the hits that would’ve killed ‘em, and wax that sorry SOB tank. Try that in some other Real Time Simulator. In Herzog you are taking part in the battle, strategy can revolve around you, and your actions. No other game has this feature of you actively taking part. You hear your infantry getting slaughtered? Get your butt over there and /do/ something! Wax the bad guys, heal your guys up, send ‘em reinforcements.
Win the game. I love it.

Still playin’ Zwei when I’m old and gray,

Kevin Sproul
rx7pilot@hotmail.com

Herzog has to be the all time greatest game in my opinion, that ever came out on the Genesis. I will add that I've played thousands upon thousands of games, and for some reason Zwei has always struck a cord deep in my heart. I remember a long time ago reading a crappy review from EGM about the game (I have it around here somewhere), and I was thinking not to buy it. Then I saved up the 50 bucks I needed to buy a new game (which to me at my age at the time was a hell of alot) and looked around at the local video game shop. I stood there for hours looking and looking at what game I was going to buy. Knowing that this would be the only game I could affor for a long time to come. I saw Zwei and thought about the reveiwers opinion, and ignored it. Then all of a sudden, I just felt that I needed to buy the game. I LOVED IT, and will forever be memoriable to me. Back then I had a hard time sitting my friends down to learn how to play, but once they caught on, we had weeks of gaming enjoyment. Hehe, I remember especially laying about 12 gunturrets around your friends base, and everytime he would regenerate blam he would die from the missle volley. And I had refill units roaming all over as well so the turrets never ran outa ammo.Eventually I lost my entire Genesis unit and all my game, but what I wouldn't give to get a old Genesis just to buy Herzog and relive the rush all over again. The fact that you can control your troops and get in the battle, first hand is the #1 thing about Herzog Zwei, and has yet to be duplicated on ANY RTS game. If a sequel ever came out and they kept this feature, with new graphics, more multiplayers, and a troop que system...Herzog Zwei would reign supreme in the RTS world! Sending the copies of the original thru the roof in prices though.

-omendr@hotmail.com

Herzog Zwei is indeed my favorite game of all time. Back around 1990, my very best friend got. I remember playing that game for hours on end. Two years later, he moved and I was in the dumps. Later, a kid down the street got a Genesis, and I decided I should share the fun of Herzog. After at least a month of searching, he finally scored. I never got a Genesis, as my parents wouldn't let me. That was in 1993. Now, another friend of mine is moving and he gave me his Genesis. At the same time, the kid whom I helped get it is now selling his games, because his Genesis went kaput and he is getting a Nintendo 64. So I'm going to buy it from him, and have a piece of my old friend. Oh yeah, Herzog Zwei is German for something like,"Two Leaders". I looked it up in a German/English dictionary. Keep the page going and do not take it down! I mailed this from school, so the return address is not correct. I'll put MY email address below. Thanks and great meeting another lover of Herzog! Rich Smiley rsmiley@alaska.net

Yes sir, Herzog is by far the best Genesis game ever. I can recall countless hours waging war against my friend. In fact I can still hear the "SOS" alarm ringing as I write this! Hey I've got a page nearby, all you Herzog fanatics should check it out. It's called HIGH SCORE: http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Alley/7000
Let's just pray for Herzog Drei!!! -BJ McWild <bjmcwild@geocities.com>

2 years ago, the video store near my house started renting out Genesis games for $1. After renting Warrior of Rome II about 3 times, I decided to try Herzog Zwei. From the box, it looked pretty strange, but I tried it anyway. I popped it in my Genesis, started a game, and I didn't know what the heck was going on. I began thinking it was some kind of top-down action adventure game. "SOS" started flashing and It got annoying, so I turned off the Genesis and didn't touch it again until the next day. Curiousity got to me the next morning, so I turned it back on. I put it on 2 player mode and started getting the hang of it. This game rocked! You could build little guys and tanks to march into battle and tell them what to do! I played it until 6:00 pm the next evening. I spent a whole day trying to find a copy of it somewhere. The cheapest one was $80 in a magazine. I then tried video store and asked the manager if I might buy it for $25. Although it was his rental copy, he said "ok." From then on, I played it continuously for weeks. One time I turned it on and it printed a ROM error, I reset it and it worked fine. I panicked. I didn't want the best and rarest game I had ever played to break on me. Miraculously, the EB in the mall had 2 Herzog Zwei's in the pre-owned bin for $15 each. What were they thinking? I bought both, of course. Herzog Zwei was twice as good as Warrior of Rome 2 which was 10 times better than Populous which was 5 times better than any other game for the Genesis. I found just two games better than Herzog Zwei since then: 1)The platform-based fighting game Metal Warriors for SNES. 2)C&C for PC. Herzog Zwei will always be known as the first real time strategy game which led the way for games like Total Annihilation coming out this Fall. --Luke Keppler <dlm.sac@internetmci.com>--

Just another H-Z fanatic here. I was delighted to see that someone took the time to devote a page to it. I think that if an internet playable game with H-Z's mechanics and maybe a fantasy theme, with 4 people playing at once was designed, it would sweep the market. I got bored of other real time strategy games like C&C and Warcraft but I never tire of HZ!!! -- Nanoo, Nanoo!

I bought my first genesis 8 years ago. 3 years later i sold it and bought a snes. after i've sold this unit too, i didn't play video games for the last 4 years. and then, 3 weeks ago i bought an used genesis again and in the last few weeks i bought a lot of good software incl. herzog2. i played it for the first time 3 days ago and love it. i have also dune2, nhl, fifa soccer and shining force but i think h2 is still the best. and the best thing: a friend of mine has bought herzog2 1 week ago too. and now we're still swapping the codes and keep on training for our first 2-player battle...bodo/frankfurt/germany/europe.

I will have to say that Herzog Zwei is one of the best video games that I have every played. Bored one day, found it, loved. My friends and I have made up some rules on how not to attack at the beginning or no taking over other peoples bases. What we usually do is set up a huge defense consisting of bout 30 to 40 guys. We use the rest for the attack. When the game gets too long, we decided to let the money run up and we send everything we have on final attack.
Michael (xs1136@hertz.njit.edu)

This game is worth the cost of a Genesis. If you don't have it, GET IT. Of course this depends on what you like, but it's the C&C of console games (then AND now!) and that says something. And don't mail it UPS in a *blizzard* and break it like my aunt did. Many of my friends and I then had to cry (we spent hundreds of hours loving this game). Another similar great game is Military Madness for the TurboGrafx 16... I really wish this game (or a sequel) would be ported to a newer console or upright. -- seismic@geocities.com

I love this game! It's the only sega game I play just about! I wish it was on PC I would have it! I want the music (In midi format please) I have play a game lasting for 23 hours. Hey, I have alot of free time and I had lost 50 units total! I love this game! It's nice to see that someone else plays the game that started it all! Please I want this game's music it kicks! GeeKeR (cgreen@ionet.net)

Herzog is the best game on any home system for all time. I cannot even begin to estimate how many thousands of hours of play time this classic brought to me and my friends during the 90/91 school year. At the Univ. of Minnesota my dorm-room in Comstock Hall was Herzog central. We even organized a "mini-season" of Herzog gaming which culminated in a sweet sixteen player single-elimiation tournament. Many hangovers and sore thumbs resulted, but not much study time. I deeply regret my selling of my Sega system and games to Funco Land... perhaps its time to buy it back. I wonder how hard it would be to hack a Sega Cartridge to be JAMMA compatible so I could plug it into my full size Double Dragon cabinet. - Baxter (baxter@black-hole.com)

This is the BEST game (next to the FF series) That I've ever played! I want a Sega just to get this game.

-Balrog Hunter

I rented Herzog Zwei on an almost-daily basis as a youngster. Unfortunately, I lived in a miniscule town in the middle of nowhere and had no means to purchase this game. I almost cried the day the game was 'swapped' out of the store. Afrer moving to the city, I purchased it for $120 at a shop - the only copy in the city. The demons of near-bankruptcy struck me, and I was forced to sell it along with all of my other games. I haven't played it since. It's been almost three years. I can honestly say, ever since the 18-hour marathon tournaments from the early days, Herzog Zwei was (and is) in my opinion the best Genesis game ever made, and one of the finest video games of all time. I still miss it. I still want it. I will have it again. -Adam Lawrence (guruman@interlog.com)

Boy, does this bring back memories! I rented Herzog one weekend (not thinking much of it), and after playing it, I had to go out and buy it. IMO this is one of the best Genesis games ever! Of all my Genesis games (and I had quite a few), Herzog got played more than any other. Sadly, I had to sell the system a few years ago and since then I have been trying to find this game again. Herzog will be the only reason I will own another Genesis. BTW, great site & keep up the good work! I would like to see some more .WAV files if possible (the music for this game is GREAT). Thanks! Eric-esargent@digimag.net

Just thought you may want to know: This is the one game that has been played the most out of any game for any system I own. It is the best example I can give for a game that has "replayability". You can use so many differant strategies and the game is never exactly the same each time you play it. For many years I had wishes they would make a sequel and they never did. I had people search Europe and Japan looking for a sequal and nobody could find any "real" evidence that one exists. I was quite thrilled when Command and Conquer came out for the PC though. This game was almost the same game with an easier to use interface and additional strategies like base-managment. Now I am a devoted C&C and Red Alert played and am happy as a lark to see real-time strategy games be the "fad".
-Todd 75107.2645@compuserve.com

Greetings! FINALLY, someone else who has good taste in video games! _Herzog Zwei_ is one of my all-time favorites, and I'd gladly play it over most of what appears on the Saturn and/or PSX. When the game was first released, it was accepted with little or no enthusiasm by gamers (probably due to the high learning curve on it). But once the basics were second-nature, the game was infinitely more fun to play, simply because it's a fresh game every time. Okay, enough with the advocacy; you and I both know that _Herzog Zwei_ kicks major ass. Good luck on your page, and, if you get a lot of stuff on it (music, more screen shots) in the future, I'll be more than happy to link it to mine. :) Later!
-robertl@dad.bgsu.edu

Herzog Zwei was an amazing piece of work, well ahead of its time. This is STILL one of my favorite games of all time. It was a bit obscure, which probably hindered its popularity, but once you caught on...pure gaming nirvana.
Greg Legowski gregleg@pobox.com

Well I'll be damned... I was flipping thru pages of meaningless Spam on an Atari Newsgroup, and was in the middle of logging off when I noticed out of the corner of my eye a post about a Herzog Zwei site... which was laughably surprising! So I just had to check it out... Looks great. :) (And how'd you get those cool screen shots?) I'm heavily into console games, to the point where I spend several hours a week not only playing my favorite ones, but writing up FAQs and help files on 'em as well. And while I never got around to finishing a FAQ on Herzog, I do owe my gaming lifestyle to it. Herzog was the reason I bought a Sega Genesis in the first place, and the Sega turned out to be the first of a dozen gaming machines in my inventory. Two other Sega games that I like as much as HZ are Star Control, and Dune: The Battle for Arrakis (two games, incidentally, that I DID write up huge FAQs on), and I can recommend those Sega carts to anyone who liked Herzog as much as I did (and still do. ;) Anyway, take care and keep up the good work. :) --led ledmeister@aol.com

I'm glad to see that there is some other fans out for Herzog's. Everybody that I know looks at the graphics and says that this game sucks. But to me it probably is one of the best games of all times. I'd just like to thank you for giving the game the respect it deserves. >From Bones: P.S. I'm still looking for a real challenge. -Jim Prhne (jprhne@webmrkt.com)

Hey, I rented Herzog once, when it first came out, and loved it. Then I kinda forgot about, and finally about three years ago, I saw it in a used game shop. Had to have it. It is the BEST game. I know it could be a lot better, but one thing it has always had over all the current crop of realtime strategy games, and always will, judging by what's still coming out, is the INTERFACE! The fact that you are actually there, and involved in the battle, hand-delivering your troops instead of watching from some blimp in the heavens, makes all the difference. It also adds a hell of a lot of urgency when you are way out in the field and your base is suddenly under attack! Like everybody else, I think this game needs some sequels. I can't imagine how incredible it would be on one of the new consoles. Mike Hommel (mhommel@calpoly.edu)