You are now one as the tank. Dodge through barrages of artillery fire, and lasers while enemy tanks chase you down. All because you want to collect some yellow flags so you can proceed to the next level. But don’t worry you are driving the finest hover tanks to date with neat weapons at your disposal. Tankz is an action pact, fast pace tank driving game for the iPhone / iTouch.

Game: Tankz

Released: Aug 18, 2009

Seller: Click Gamer Technologies

Price: $1.99

Size: 16.2 Mb

Objective

Choose one of four tanks with different features ranging from speed, artillery power, or strong defense and put them to test on four different terrains that have five levels. The objective is to capture the flags that are scattered on the field in order to proceed to the next level by either how fast or by how many points accumulated.

Gamplay

Tankz is technically a driving game with guns. If you have played the game Twisted Metal, you will realize that both games have similar concept but not totally. First off when the game starts, the game gives you options to set where you want to take the battle to, set the difficulty, and the game mode. There is no story mode in this game, so it’s more of an arcade type game.

The hover tanks in the game have different personality and look pretty cool. Each tank has their own special features, such as the Striker tank, that is a sleek stealth looking vehicle that is very fast but has low projectile damage or the X10 the very slow tank that has the best projectile damage and of course all the other tanks in between.

The game has four different terrain stages, a desert arena that reminds me of the planet Mars, Valley Arena, where you set at the bottom of the valley and towers from above fire down on your tank.  Of course the game won’t be complete without an ice level, where driving on ice adds a little challenge, and finally a bunker zone where you’re inside a military building I am guessing.

Tankz has two game modes, Best Time and Best Score. Best time mode is collecting all the flags as fast as possible. Best Score is how by how many points you can get from killing and collecting everything you find, in an allotted time.

The game has three difficulties, easy, hard and crazy. Crazy mode is just insane, the enemies are constantly bombarding attacks, and hard is a toned down version of crazy. Easy was just right for me.

Now for the actual gamplay itself. The tank ONLY has two weapons, the main weapon is regular artillery fire, and it’s not unlimited but can be collect on the field. The second weapon is a homing missile that will take out any target that is in front of you, whether up above or on the ground. You will not find any other weapons in this game, which is a bummer.The aiming cursor in third person view can not be seen from afar, but when up close to an object the cursor will appear, it’s kind of like a laser pointer gun. In first person view the cursor can be seen and aiming can be more accurate then in third person. Aiming in first person can be difficult too because the cursor remains static in the middle of the screen meaning you can’t fire enemies that are high above and no freedom to aim anywhere you please, so it all depends on the driving.

You have three lives in game and a life bar. Life can be regenerated by parking the tank on top booster pad that needs to found.  The area is not a safe zone so you may be under attack while regaining life.

Finding the flags is easy, the left gamepad seconds as a map when it’s not touched. Just find the yellow flag icon and drive up to it and touch it. You can also see where all the ammo and missiles are at as well. The only thing that’s stopping you from getting the flags are towers bombarding artillery when in range and tanks that patrol the area. There are three types of enemy tanks that have their own ability, but can be easily taken out. Some flags in the game are on higher ground,  like on top of canyons. The only way to get to these higher up areas is using the jump pad. The jump allows the tank to jump in the air like a trampoline.

I find the jump pads to be unnecessary in the game, I found my self stuck on a couple levels trying to jump to higher areas because my tank can barely get on the ledge.  Getting on top of higher areas will  take a lot of trial and error.

Once finishing the level another level will be unlocked. It doesn’t matter if you beat the stage in High Score Game or Timed Mode. The levels do get difficult as you progress meaning more ledges and more frustration.

After beating a level the game will take your score and rank it on a Global Ladder System. The game also ranks you on how many tanks, and towers you destroyed compared to other players which adds more replay value to the game.

Tankz is also directly connected to twitter so you can microblog high scores and best times too all your twitter buddies.

Controls

At first I thought the controls were pretty bad, I had difficulty maneuvering and trying to jump to higher levels. The d-pad moves the tank while tilting the iPod will steer the tank.  The tutorial is very helpful when first starting out the game. I just dove right into the game when I first got it and I was  completely lost at first. So I highly recommend reading the help section.

The controls can be change to your liking in the options menu. You can change how fast you want the tank to turn, the steering and many other options.

Graphics

The graphics in the game are pretty bland. Not much details and the color are pretty dull. The graphics fall in between detailed realism and cartoony, if Tankz went to the extreme with the graphics the gamplay can be even more enjoyable that it is now. I do like the HUD interface, very clean design and user friendly.

Sound

Tankz game music is looped through the entire game. The music is a mixture of rock and techno music from the future. It’s pretty manly and it fits the theme of the game. You will be hearing the music on all the levels, option screens, and everything else The music can be turned off so you can listen to music thats already on the iPod.

Replay Value

Tankz ladder ranking has potential for the gamer to come back to play the same levels again to up their score or times to be the best of the best in Tankz. But I think unlocking all the levels and  is a pretty hard task already. With that being said Tankz will require some patience and endurance.

Conclusion

Tankz has lots of potential and some fine tuning, but it is still a fun game when there’s 10 minutes to be killed. I think $1.99 maybe to high for Tankz. There is no story mode or any upgrade of tank abilities or customization, it’s just capturing flags, destroying tanks, and towers, with no reason behind it other than to get a fast time or high score. I think 99 cents is the perfect price for Tankz. So the truth is out Tankz is DYNO-MITE! and received a score of 7.9 out of 10.

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	Voltron		Jessica Chobot		Tomena Sanner

This entry was posted on Monday, September 7th, 2009 at 1:13 PM and is filed under Action, Arcade, Driving, Games, iPhone/iTouch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.