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Tank Beat

Posted June 27th 2007 by Stephanie DeSiena.

The world of tank warfare is one of complexity. When considering the choices of weaponry, the struggles of the "big-fish vs. little-fish" structure of battle, and the underlying drama that affects squadrons and their motives, it's no surprise video game developers rarely have the gall to tackle the subject of ramping provocativeness that we often overlook. But if you're looking for something that exists outside of the box ― something that challenges us as thinkers, strategists, and lovers ― then let me tell you a little bit about Tank Beat.

Tank Beat is an unpopular tank simulation game developed by MileStone Inc. (Chaos Field, Radio Allergy). O3 Entertainment has decided to further penetrate the tiny niche gaming market for the Nintendo DS by localizing the game for American release mere months after its Japanese debut. As our newest staff member and niche Japanese game extraordinaire Oliver Chen recently informed me, the fact that it is a niche title developed by a company that normally makes vertical scrolling shooters tells the world of niche gamers that this title is clearly marked with the formulas for success. That is a fair assessment. Luckily for those gamers who aren't in this niche, Tank Beat does well enough on its own merits that I can recommend it to anyone looking for a bit of explosive fun in their otherwise dud lives.

The story goes something like this: you play as a young man named Vill who is accepted into an elite tank force just as his territory (Kyushengaard) is invaded by the army of another country (Codusal). During training, his squadron is attacked, misplacing his squadron's comrade and supervisor. Vill rides alone until teaming up with a renegade group of tank pilots interested in re-taking Kyushengaard towns from the opposing country's military, and putting a stop to General Zalietwin and his evil Codusal army. In between all of this, Vill is determined to find and protect his family, who lives in the capital of Kyushengaard. There are also a few scenes (appearing in-between missions) that depict betrayal, the importance of teamwork, and rising sexual tensions between main characters, and they are all incorporated into the main storyline well. The story's problems lie in two specific areas: the dialogue and the near-lack of definitive character development. It's hard to care about any of the characters' plights because their personalities shift so much throughout the course of the game that none of them seemed to have a voice of their own. Complicating this further is the awkwardly translated dialogue scenes that are sometimes almost silly to read ("I've been thinking, sir." / "You look serious, what have you been thinking about?"). Luckily, these issues don't destroy the storyline entirely, and while I wouldn't consider Tank Beat's tale a particularly interesting one, it never gets so boring that you'll want to skip all of it entirely. After all, it sometimes helps to have a leg-up on the enemy's intentions before you press start.

As mentioned, Tank Beat is a tactical warfare simulation game that mainly focuses on the use of tanks that shoot each other. The setup is fairly formulaic ― there are the good tanks (you) and then there are the bad tanks (them). If you're a tank game aficionado, just think BattleTanx with a slightly different control scheme. Instead of controlling your tank's movement using the traditional face buttons of the DS, most of the game is controlled using a map on the touch screen while the action is shown on the top screen. You move your tank by drawing a path, which leads your character to his desired destination. As you progress through the map, enemy vehicles will appear on the radar as red dots, and you'll be able to switch freely between battle mode (where tanks shoot automatically at selected targets) and movement mode (where the tank moves along a path drawn on the touch-screen) in order to maneuver around your opponent while employing the use of your tank's weaponry. There are dozens of tanks to unlock and acquire as you progress through the game's 30 chapters, and each has distinct advantages and disadvantages. For instance, one tank might have great range and defense, but very slow speed, making it difficult to dodge enemy attacks. Most tanks come equipped with a machine gun and a cannon of some sort, although other weapons include heat-seeking missiles and this particular author's favorite ― the laser.

Even though there are plenty of tanks to pilot and unlock, they each have a maximum of two stock weapons that cannot be altered. You'll usually find yourself with one controllable tank (you) and one other CPU-controlled tank in every mission. The vast majority of the missions are "destroy all enemy" endeavors, and while there are a few that vary in objectives, most of the game is based around the combat system. This makes for a mediocre tank warfare simulator. On the flip side, it's an excellent action game, as it forces the player to make quicker decisions on who to target and when, as well as demanding some strategic planning in order to sustain the least amount of damage from opponents. Your choice of tank is critical in each mission, although the speedier ones tend to wield greater results if you can master the aiming system, which is mostly based on predicting the opponent A.I.'s movement by aiming your weapon slightly in front of enemy tanks' paths. The opponent's strategy never gets much more clever than that found in the first few stages, but the sheer number of enemies and tank power is sometimes enough to force a chapter repeat (like, for example, when you face the laser tanks). That being said, the game never gets so hard that it becomes frustrating, and each chapter ends fairly quickly, meaning the single player campaign can be beaten in a brisk five to six hours.

Aside from the single player campaign, there's a Skirmish mode which allows you to replay past missions and beat your high scores, and an entertaining multiplayer mode. This includes offline single- and multi-cart matches and online battles via WFC. The score keeping in multiplayer battles is fairly fresh, although it's easy to exploit. Rather than keep a kill/death tally like most fragging games, Tank Beat's score is kept based on an attacking system that evaluates what you used to attack your opponent and where it hit, with a score bonus for kills. This makes certain tanks unstoppable in multiplayer mode, as a some weapons inflict multiple hits with a single shot. WFC battles are smooth and although only friend/worldwide battles are available, and each player has access only to the tanks they've managed to unlock in the single player offline modes.

In terms of visuals and audio, Tank Beat is solid yet uninspired. The top screen is in full 3D, and while it's inoffensive to the eyes, it certainly won't impress many with its blocky graphics and low-res textures. The sound effects are mostly familiar "war" sounds like explosions and gunshots, and there is some decent voice acting, although it is sparse. The music is clearly done by MileStone's in-house audio crew, as the background songs sound just like some of the upbeat electronic tunes found in Chaos Field, and it's actually very cool. Otherwise, the menus and 2D bottom screen radar are average. Not spectacular, but they do their jobs and you won't notice them much anyway.

The single player game is fairly short, but some gamers with short attention spans might lose interest if the battle system never clicks for them the right way. Multiplayer games are enjoyable, but random matches are unfortunately difficult to come by on WFC, so you're either stuck playing against your friends or not at all. Because of these issues, I'd have to gauge the long-term replay value of Tank Beat to be fairly low. It seems unlikely that any player would unlock every tank in their first go-through of the single player campaign, though, so completion freaks have a bit of an incentive to try again. Score attack lovers will certainly gravitate towards the Skirmish mode and try to get a perfect score on each mission. If you have some kind of ADD (it's popular with most gamers), then you might not bother.

Steady Beat - THE BEAT GOES ON! ONLINE THAT IS!!!!

Weak replayability aside, the game's assets are solid enough that its merits out-weight the disappointments. It's a good game for people who wish to chip away time with some mindless fun on the bus or train, and there's enough substance in multiplayer mode to get curious gamers interested in some online fisticuffs. And like I said, it's got a tank with a laser gun. You can't get much cooler than that.

Posted in: Reviews