Pros: Original idea, wide selection of tanks, in-depth gameplay, great soundtrack
Cons: Steep learning curve, only one game mode, no lobby
In World of Tanks, players buy and upgrade tanks, and then take them into battle. The gameplay is well-designed - depending on where you get hit, sometimes your tank's treads break, or your engine explodes, and crew members can be hurt, reducing your tank's functionality.
There are five types of tanks available, as previously mentioned, and each of them has a very specific role to play for the team. Light tanks are scouts, getting close to enemies and sending their location to the SPGs (artillery), which open up on the enemy, usually destroying it in one or two hits. Medium and Heavy Tanks make up the front lines, making sure that nothing gets close to the Artillery. Tank Destroyers are stealthy, perfect for ambushes, and have big guns that can often two or three hit kill, but they can't take many hits if they're spotted.
 |
| Splodey bits! |
Tanks can be upgraded in the "Garage", researching things like barrels, turrets, treads, and engines by using experience and buying them with Credits, which are earned in battles. Vehicles are researched and bought the same way, with a tech tree including hundreds of different options.
Individual crew members also gain experience, raising their skills, which in turn raises a tank's passive abilities like speed, view distance and shell loading speed. Once they've leveled up to 100% experience, they can gain "Qualifications" such as camoulflage, firefighting, and repair.
The gameplay is the best and most original I've seen in a while, and it would be really fun to do battle with friends. The problem with that is that there's no lobby, and you can't specifically choose to play with any one person in a normal game. There are separate game modes to fix that, and instead of playing a "Normal Battle" you can choose to select other players to team up with against another similar team. But there's a set number of players on a team, and if you don't have at least two friends to play with, you can't play with them at all.
Another problem with the game is that there's only one game mode, a team elimination sort of thing, where you can either eliminate all your opponents or take over their base by waiting in a certain area for long enough. That kind of limits its value, because the gameplay is pretty much the same every time you play it. The game's only in beta, though, so hopefully we'll see more soon.
 |
| How to deal with Tank Destroyers. |
There are no respawns; once you're done, it's all over. This makes for a more realistic player mindset, though; you won't see anyone spriting down the middle of the road in real life, thinking "I'll respawn later". And it really adds to the end-game. When the 15 vs 15 map has been narrowed down to 3 vs 3, your enemies could be anywhere, including in the bushes behing you. There's just no way to know. Even when you do catch a glance at your opponents, they're usually only there for a few short seconds.
Lastly, the music is definitely worth mentioning. The game's soundtrack is awe-inspiring, and it seems to know exactly when to make dramatic changes. It seems that every time at the end of the match when all the enemy tanks are hidden that you see a tank for a second and it disappears again, the music turns very suspenseful. It adds a lot more to the game than you'd think, even when it's mostly drowned out by gunfire and explosions.
Score: 9/10
I'd really like to give the game a perfect score, and for its concept, gameplay, and music that's what it deserves, but the lack of more game modes really limits its lasting value takes away too much from a perfect game. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone remotely interested in the tanks of World War II, to anyone interested in teamwork and tactics, and to anyone who just wants an original game, different from the other MMOs you see on the Internet.
More Screenshots:
Click to Enlarge
More coming soon!
Videos:
No comments:
Post a Comment