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IGN Review of Tank Beat
Tank Beat should have been a decent game. Not a great one, but at least interesting and passable. The developer, Milestone (although a fairly new company) already produced two engaging, if flawed shooters in Chaos Field and Radio Allergy (aka Radirgy, one of the last prominent Dreamcast releases). Neither of those games was perfect, but their explosive visuals and bullet hell combat made them ideal for hardcore shmup fans and niche gamers in general. Tank Beat, their first handheld effort, fails to excite visually or in terms of gameplay. It's an empty, meandering excuse for a strategy action game that tries to put a twist on games like Advance Wars and Combat and loses the fun of both.
In Tank Beat, players move a 3D tank around on the top screen by navigating the 2D radar on the bottom screen. The stylus is used to drag a line from the tank's current location to the objective and once the line is drawn, the tank will start driving off. The game differs from most strategy war titles in that players are engaging the enemy in combat and moving their vehicle in realtime, with both actions independent of one another. This allows for sporadic combat so that while the tank is driving, players are free to rotate the turret in any direction (also with the stylus) and fire away with the L button.
Initial levels in the game involve tracking down enemy vehicles and blasting them to pieces. As the game progresses, some missions require reaching a specific area, or guarding another vehicle or base from an enemy assault. Teammates occasionally join the lead tank as a reinforcement. These vehicles can either be led around directly by players, in the same way that the main tank is controlled, or can have their AI set to patrol, guard or follow by tapping a little yellow icon. Given the lack of challenge in killing enemies with the main tank, though, it's easiest to just set the second vehicle to guard or follow and then forget about them. Strategic use of both vehicles isn't really required to progress through the game.
One of the biggest problems with the game is just how easy the combat is to exploit. When the playable tank is moving in any direction other than straight at the enemy (and sometimes even then), the playable tank is impossible to hit. This is most evident in the second or third mission, where players are asked to drive through hostile territory toward a goal location. The placed enemies do nothing because as long as players keep moving, they'll make it through the challenge unscathed and in under a minute. Equally disappointing, firing at enemy vehicles only requires resting the stylus over their red dot and holding down the L button. Reloading is automatic, swiveling the canon is automatic. This means that pretty much every challenge in the game can be beaten, almost flawlessly, by just locating the enemy, circling around them and auto-firing until they're gone.
Another problem with the game is that it can be played entirely on the bottom screen. Since every enemy within site appears as a red blip on the bottom screen, sometimes before they are even visible on the top screen (such as when hills and buildings are in the way), there's never a need to look at the top screen. In fact the urge to glance up at the more engaging 3D visuals will only result in lost battles. All players have to do to beat most challenges is draw a ring around the enemies, rest the stylus on the nearest red dot and hold down the L button until that enemy has been destroyed. If there had been some sort of importance given to the top screen, such as using it to spot enemies before manually marking them, or even aiming by lining up enemies with the center of the top screen, there would have been justification for using two screens on this game. Instead we have a harsh separation between bland, useful visuals and prettier, useless ones.
That's not to say that the 3D graphics in this game could be considered good. In fact the 3D tanks and environments are some of the most half-assed 3D art to ever grace the DS system, and don't even feature the level of detail of sprite-based military games. Effects are used minimally and look pretty clunky. Character portraits are a shameless rip-off of those from Advance Wars. The 2D art in the menus and maps is functional but so, so boring. It's a shame that players will be looking at the bottom screen for most of the game, because it's an ugly collection of green-on-green blocks and lines. Even factoring in that the developers wanted to emulate an oldschool military radar down there, it's very plain and could have been spiced up with a little more color and texture.
To their credit, the developers have beefed up their unremarkable game with some decent extra modes. Wireless multiplayer can either be done between 2-4 players with a copy of the game, or 2-4 players with only one game, using the DS download play function. Only one tank can be used in this mode, which is a shame since it's the bulkiest, slowest model with the slowest reload time. But with the horrible enemy AI out of the picture, the game becomes surprisingly playable. The multiplayer game is very similar to Combat on the Atari 2600, with tanks rumbling around between buildings and hills, looking for a clean shot at the other players. It's fun to sneak around seeking out the other tanks, and a firefight between two or more tanks spinning around in circles is pretty fun.
Multiplayer also works over Nintendo WiFi and allows players to find enemies either by entering Friend Codes or through random selection. Each friend added can have their score viewed or their profile deleted at the tap of a stylus. As one-note as the multiplayer mode is, and lacking in selection of tanks and environments, it's a lasting fun that completely overshadows the single player game. The other extra, dubbed Skirmish Mode, allows players to replay previously-beaten missions, although after yawning through them the first time I'm not aching to go back.
©2007, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
In Tank Beat, players move a 3D tank around on the top screen by navigating the 2D radar on the bottom screen. The stylus is used to drag a line from the tank's current location to the objective and once the line is drawn, the tank will start driving off. The game differs from most strategy war titles in that players are engaging the enemy in combat and moving their vehicle in realtime, with both actions independent of one another. This allows for sporadic combat so that while the tank is driving, players are free to rotate the turret in any direction (also with the stylus) and fire away with the L button.
Initial levels in the game involve tracking down enemy vehicles and blasting them to pieces. As the game progresses, some missions require reaching a specific area, or guarding another vehicle or base from an enemy assault. Teammates occasionally join the lead tank as a reinforcement. These vehicles can either be led around directly by players, in the same way that the main tank is controlled, or can have their AI set to patrol, guard or follow by tapping a little yellow icon. Given the lack of challenge in killing enemies with the main tank, though, it's easiest to just set the second vehicle to guard or follow and then forget about them. Strategic use of both vehicles isn't really required to progress through the game.
One of the biggest problems with the game is just how easy the combat is to exploit. When the playable tank is moving in any direction other than straight at the enemy (and sometimes even then), the playable tank is impossible to hit. This is most evident in the second or third mission, where players are asked to drive through hostile territory toward a goal location. The placed enemies do nothing because as long as players keep moving, they'll make it through the challenge unscathed and in under a minute. Equally disappointing, firing at enemy vehicles only requires resting the stylus over their red dot and holding down the L button. Reloading is automatic, swiveling the canon is automatic. This means that pretty much every challenge in the game can be beaten, almost flawlessly, by just locating the enemy, circling around them and auto-firing until they're gone.
Another problem with the game is that it can be played entirely on the bottom screen. Since every enemy within site appears as a red blip on the bottom screen, sometimes before they are even visible on the top screen (such as when hills and buildings are in the way), there's never a need to look at the top screen. In fact the urge to glance up at the more engaging 3D visuals will only result in lost battles. All players have to do to beat most challenges is draw a ring around the enemies, rest the stylus on the nearest red dot and hold down the L button until that enemy has been destroyed. If there had been some sort of importance given to the top screen, such as using it to spot enemies before manually marking them, or even aiming by lining up enemies with the center of the top screen, there would have been justification for using two screens on this game. Instead we have a harsh separation between bland, useful visuals and prettier, useless ones.
That's not to say that the 3D graphics in this game could be considered good. In fact the 3D tanks and environments are some of the most half-assed 3D art to ever grace the DS system, and don't even feature the level of detail of sprite-based military games. Effects are used minimally and look pretty clunky. Character portraits are a shameless rip-off of those from Advance Wars. The 2D art in the menus and maps is functional but so, so boring. It's a shame that players will be looking at the bottom screen for most of the game, because it's an ugly collection of green-on-green blocks and lines. Even factoring in that the developers wanted to emulate an oldschool military radar down there, it's very plain and could have been spiced up with a little more color and texture.
To their credit, the developers have beefed up their unremarkable game with some decent extra modes. Wireless multiplayer can either be done between 2-4 players with a copy of the game, or 2-4 players with only one game, using the DS download play function. Only one tank can be used in this mode, which is a shame since it's the bulkiest, slowest model with the slowest reload time. But with the horrible enemy AI out of the picture, the game becomes surprisingly playable. The multiplayer game is very similar to Combat on the Atari 2600, with tanks rumbling around between buildings and hills, looking for a clean shot at the other players. It's fun to sneak around seeking out the other tanks, and a firefight between two or more tanks spinning around in circles is pretty fun.
Multiplayer also works over Nintendo WiFi and allows players to find enemies either by entering Friend Codes or through random selection. Each friend added can have their score viewed or their profile deleted at the tap of a stylus. As one-note as the multiplayer mode is, and lacking in selection of tanks and environments, it's a lasting fun that completely overshadows the single player game. The other extra, dubbed Skirmish Mode, allows players to replay previously-beaten missions, although after yawning through them the first time I'm not aching to go back.
©2007, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved