Death Tank Double Review

Written by DarkArmada & SuperKlue Thursday, 26 February 2009 09:41

SuperKlue's Musings.

I think it's fair to say that after having watched several trailers; I wanted to give this game a go. And why not? It looked like a blast, quite literally. Geometry Wars on land with tanks, rockets and giant shapes hurtling through space, at least that is the impression the videos gave me. Death Tank is very similar to an old DOS game called Scorched Earth; many of you have probably played flash games of the same name. There have been more game mechanics introduced to Death Tank to make the game a little more exciting. For example, in the original Scorched Earth it was a turn based affair, whereas in this arcade release player's fire simultaneously, as well as having mobility in the form of jetpacks.

Death Tank 2

The action takes place over 8 different terrains including: desert, polar caps, snow capped mountains and rolling hills. Up to 4 players can battle it out on the same console or up to 8 players over Xbox Live in co-op, team of free-for-all. Each match lasts 20 rounds. After each round you have the opportunity to spend money in a shop on better weapons and perks. This money comes from destroying other tanks, pulling off hard shots or surviving the round. The games longevity becomes an issue after 20 rounds as it becomes quite repetitive. There is no long term goal to work towards, nor any permanent tank upgrades or perks to choose from. There are the standard leader boards but that's nothing to write home about.

The tanks themselves look rather plain and explosions are very last generation. The smoke trails are somewhat impressive and offer some guidance for your next shot. Players have the choice of 8 weapons and 4 perks. These range from machine gun rounds, to super fuel (to help your tank move faster), to nukes. The game has sold itself short by only offering this mediocre selection of weapons. By increasing the range of weapons to choose from each match could involve much more thought and strategy. As it stands, simply buy as many nukes as you can.

Overall, the price tag on the game is outrageous for the content. For example, the GTA IV DLC: The Lost and the Damned cost 1600 MS points (roughly $25). Death Tank costs a whopping 1200MS points (roughly $20). The GTA DLC contains roughly 15 hours of game play plus new multiplayer modes, whereas unless you are highly dedicated you may only last 30 mins to an hour of Death Tank matches before it becomes monotonous and stale. The multiplayer aspect of the game may increase its longevity but not hugely like Uno or Bomberman. In conclusion, unless you have more money than sense, stay away from this release

TGV Score: 46/100

Dark Armada's Thoughts.

It's with a constant shuddering that I bring you this review for the recently released Death Tank for Xbox LIVE. I admit my experience with the game isn't huge, but to continue playing this game anymore than I already had may have had some dire consequences for my wireless controller, my TV - or both.

I make sure that I go into every game I review with an open mind, ready to soak up the goodness of whatever title screen I'm pushing START past and Snowblind Studios' latest arrival on the Xbox 360 was no exception in fact, I was really excited to get into my death tank and start the killing!

Oh how wrong was I, but let's not get into the super bad stuff first off...

The game itself looks brilliant, the menu screen is clean, well explained and easy to navigate. The visuals of the gameplay are amazing, crisp, HD and so easy on the eyes. The audio is all very much what you'd expect from a this-gen title on XBLA and goes extremely well with the beautiful visuals.

That's it. There is nothing else I can think of... wait! The matchmaking was quick and lagfree. Yep, that's it. As far as gameplay goes words like woeful, unbalanced, cheap, frustrating and unbalanced (did I say unbalanced?) come to mind.

The gameplay, while reminiscent of the typical power/angle shooters, doesn't feel like there's any structure or method of improving your skills. There's no obvious way to take into account wind speed or direction, nor to ensure that where you're aiming is where you want to be aiming.

Add this to the completely unfair and unbalanced scoring system and I feel the fun has been completely stripped out of the idea. Whether it's Multiplayer or Single Player against AI, you'll enter the match and guaranteed there'll be another player that is faster and more skilled than you. That's fine with me, I love the challenge.

What is terribly unbalanced is the constant rewarding of said skills with weapons that make it even HARDER to beat them! Imagine that in Halo 3, as a reward for completely dominating in the match, you are given rockets/sword/overshield while everyone else is left with rusty spoon and a glass of water. It was only after a few games of this, that I had been completely turned off the game and felt like there was no way I'd ever improve with the leader of the last match having nukes with projected path of the missile sitting right on my face.

Considering this game was labeled "Premium" for XboxLIVE at 1200MP I really feel like MS need to at least play a game before approving the premium pricetag. It ise so unfortunate that my experience with the game was so soured by this unbalanced approach the developers have went with, my new saying is ‘Yeah, that sucks, but at least it's not as bad as Death Tank'. Seriously.

TGV Score: 20/100

Death Tank