REVIEW – Tank! Tank! Tank!

Game – Tank! Tank! Tank!

Developer/Publisher - Namco Bandai Games

Version – Wii U

Price – $49.99

Obtained – Review Copy courtesy of Namco Bandai Games

Well hot of the heels of my ‘Rise of the Guardians Triple Review‘ comes my review of Tank! Tank! Tank! While it wasn’t an amazing game, it certainly offers much more fun and plenty of replay value than ‘Guardians.’  On to the review!

Tank! Tank! Tank! is an arcade game port straight from Namco Bandai Games.  There is no story to be concerned with, nor does it need one.  The premise of Tank! Tank! Tank! is that the city is under attack from a series of huge, daunting beasts.  You have 3 options of gameplay to engage in.  First off there is a four player split-screen Free-For-All mode, a co-op mode, or a single player Campaign Mode.  Unfortunately, I was unable to try out multiplayer as I am a lone gamer in my home.  However, I can tell you from the videos I have seen and my own experience in the Campaign Mode that I believe Free-For-All and the Kong Mode look like they could be fun when you have some friends over.

There are a total of 35 missions to complete, numerous tanks to unlock and well over 400 medals to earn.  In the beginning, there are a few missions already unlocked, but fairly early on you will see that the missions are locked until you earn a set amount of medals.  Medals are earned by completing a level.  You can only win a medal once per tank, so in order to receive more medals you will need to reply levels multiple times, switching out your tanks as needed.  This does get quite a bit repetitive and is a major downfall of the game.  The tanks are pretty cool and diverse.  The more you play, the more XP you earn which in turn, levels your tanks up.  Each tank handles and shoots in its own way.  There are also two types of sub-weapons that your tank can use if you collect the necessary power-up.  Some tanks have better sub-weapons than others, but all in all they are pretty cool weapons to use.  I think the weirdest thing I found was towards the beginning.  There is a tank with a horn (as in the musical instrument) as its primary weapon.  Every time you shoot, multi-colored musical notes shoot out as your ‘bullets.’

It is worth noting that the combat is fairly simple.  Your tank will auto target which is really a big help when you just want to drive around blasting away at the bad guys, but this can be a minor annoyance when you want to shoot a particular enemy but the auto target goes somewhere else.  Oh and every level is timed, so you certainly get the arcade feel when playing.  The face buttons all fire and the two thumb sticks control your movement.  Overall, the game controls are very simple and easy to use.

The art style and visuals are all very ‘cartoony’, which is totally fine for an arcade game like this.  The animations look good, the giant monsters are pretty cool looking.  The only complaint I have is the destructible environments.  When you destroy a building, it comes crumbling down, but then you are left with a flat playing field.  I suppose it would have been more desirable to have some rugged landscape after you destroy the city.  This is just a minor complaint.  Otherwise, I’m happy with the visuals and sound.  None of it will blow you away, but it is pretty neat seeing these giant creatures, plus it’s cool creating an avatar using the goofy templates combined with your picture from the Gamepad camera.

Final Score: 5 out of 10