Open Source Gaming Review: Battle Tanks (Page 1 of 1)
Written by
Steve Lake
Posted on: Sep 03, 2007 at 04:57pm
Section:
Gaming
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Battle Tanks is a fun little arcade style combat game that takes an old clichéd concept and makes it more fun than you can wrap your little fingers around. When you first start the game, it seems like one of those cheap little popcap games (named after the company who’s made the most mini-games of pc use) you briefly entertain yourself with, but quickly grow bored of. Battle Tanks is not that kind of game. I actually found myself enjoying the game more and more as I played along. In fact, it got so addictive I had to literally force myself to put it down.
The concept of the game is very simple. You run around in either a missile launcher or a tank and blast away at your opponents to score the most kills! Its cartoony, old school style of gameplay, plus original music and fun maps makes the game more than just a little distraction. It becomes downright addictive. Another thing that helps to get you quickly hooked is its extremely short learning curve. About one minute. 
The gameplay is fast paced and keeps you on your toes. The weapons are also quite interesting. There’s four basic types of tank shells, including standard, bouncing, explosive, and believe it or not, a dirt gun. Yes, a gun that plows the ground. It’s weird, but when you see it in action, it’s actually kind of fun. Another thing that’s a blast is the warps. They look like little wormholes, and obviously they warp you across the map to different locations and allow for surprise or sneak attacks which can really add to the fun and make things a blast. (no pun intended)
For missiles you’ve got your typical smart and dumb rockets. But things don’t stop there. You’ve also got a boomerang rocket. This weird weapon flies out and just circles your tank or rocket launcher. Fire several of them and it creates a defensive ring around your vehicle. You’ve also got a gas and virus rockets which works well for stopping infantry. And of those aren’t good enough, there’s even a mini-nuke included in the game. It’s good for just flat out wiping out everything in a given area. Good for taking down hard targets with many defenders. There’s even some rather interesting, yet simple infantry and other weapons that make the game even more fun.
Setting up a game is very simple. Just click start, and on the next screen on the left side, select from one of ten maps, half of which are deathmatch levels, the other half are cooperative play levels. You can preview suggested tactics in the middle window here if you like. On the right side select how many players there will be, and if they’re human or AI. All that’s left is to click start. From there its just good old fashioned shoot-em-up gameplay. “Join Game” on the main menu allows you to join a game that’s already in progress. Right now there isn’t any available since they game is in early beta, but single player is still lots of fun and surprisingly stable for a beta.
Battle Tanks is also an open source game and is available for the Windows or Linux platform either from the Battle Tanks website or through your favorite software repository. Download it, try it out and have fun because Battle Tanks is a blast!
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