[REVIEW] Bugs vs. Tanks!

Marcus Estrada 
(3DS [REVIEWED])

Like many, I fell asleep during a great many of my history classes in school. There was just something about the classroom, and my professor’s droning tone, that made young minds completely shut off. Despite gathering maybe only 10% of the material, there’s at least one thing I’m sure of: the Axis powers never fought against gigantic insects. If you can forgo this one niggling bit of historical inaccuracy then you may find yourself interested by the game Bugs vs. Tanks!

It’s a game that initially seems as simple as the title. You play as German soldiers who have found themselves suddenly shrunken down to miniature size. Instead of working on their plans to fight the Allies, they simply must survive the sudden insect menace. For a while, all they go against are various sized ants, but much more of the invertebrate world comes into play, such as snails and spiders. Of course, pests such as mosquitoes and bees also will do their best to get in the way.

Players are tasked with different goals depending on the mission, but everything always boils down to driving around in a tiny tank, while shooting at bugs. There isn’t necessarily a problem with a simple game, but Bugs vs. Tanks! doesn’t know how to sell itself. For the first ten or so stages, you’re likely to be bored to tears with doing what feels much like the same mission over and over again. Even when there’s variation, it seems very minimal and easy to complete by learning how to drive efficiently enough to avoid unnecessary encounters.

With forty missions in all, this initially lead me to dread booting the game up. However, something happened after the first boss encounter — the game started being fun. Was it that my mind had shut off into zombie-like gameplay mode, or was it actually getting better? As it turns out, after the initial same-y levels, things do begin to change. Later missions include saving other tanks, defending against or defeating increasingly powerful bugs, and simply trying to get your tank out of a situation in one piece.

Along the way, players also discover abandoned tanks, win new parts and paint, and that is where another strong aspect of the game comes into play. The tank you start with is incredibly weak – unless you get the golden tank by linking your game with Liberation Maiden. Discovering new tanks increases or decreases your speed and shield strength. Of course, adding on better cannons increases your firepower (and the tank’s weight). Finally, players can goof off with the increasingly unrealistic paint patterns to adorn tanks with.

Although Bugs vs. Tanks! saves itself from a monotonic stupor, it is not quite able to absolve itself from the label of “average.” Because, despite a wealth of tanks to choose from, it’s still a very dull game. There is certainly fun to be had when dodging behind webbed insects to avoid a gigantic spider, or saving your platoon from wave after wave of hornets, but these are the only exceptions to the norm. In order to get to the most interesting levels, you must survive multiple, far less interesting side missions.

This issue is compounded by the fact that, if you miss some of the better tanks, then you’ll be seriously out of luck later in the game. Over halfway through the game is the first stage that requires a tank that can tread through deep water. This would be no problem if all tanks had this ability. As it turns out, they don’t. This isn’t helped by the fact that the game isn’t really interested in telling you this feature exists, or which tanks in your possession might have the ability.

Really, what this showcases is a lack of polish. Bugs vs. Tanks! was meant to fulfill some ridiculous idea and it does. However, it does not do so perfectly. There are many unfair moments in the game, such as being rammed off a tiny twig of a tree branch due to the sudden appearance of a bee. Also, lacking all of the tanks leads you to have an even harder experience.

There are reasons to like the game, as well as reasons to dislike it. When it comes right down to it, it probably depends on how much of a tolerance you have for playing the same basic thing over and over again. You also have to enjoy retrying levels in order to find all unlockable content to facilitate progress in later stages. If that sounds like you, and you love shooting insects in the face, then Bugs vs. Tanks! should satisfy your portable gaming needs for a few days.

[FTP REVIEW] World of Tanks

Innes Puszka

Tanks, tanks, tanks! So many tanks that you’ll be having to keep some in the fridge for sandwiches tomorrow.

World Of Tanks is a Massively Multiplayer Online Action Game (an “MMOAG”, now try saying that quickly seven times). The game is based around strategic combat between historically accurate digital reproductions of 20th Century tanks. Battles are team based skirmishes between two opposing sides, with a selection of basic objectives depending on the game type.

While the premise itself is fairly basic, the challenge that I found in this game was the learning curve of controlling a tank. The control scheme was well set out, and includes practically everything that makes a tank feel like a tank. For example certain tanks have a limited periphery in which they can shoot. That said, as someone who has never in his life driven a tank, this proved to be a challenge to overcome. To solve this you have to rotate your tank with the directional controls, reposition yourself, wait for the gun to reload, then fire once again, hoping that you hit the enemy. All of this while moving your ass to avoid getting shot yourself, and attempting to find a good strategic position to take cover in.

All of this plays into the team element of the game, as strategy really is the only way to win a match. With your teammates, you set out to destroy the other tanks, or capture the objective. Now, despite this game sharing the same principals as your basic shooter, do not expect to use the same tactics. As you are driving a slow as hell chunk of metal around, don’t do as I did and run straight for the enemy in hopes of delivering a quick blow and running away. Communicating with, making note of where your teammates are travelling, and picking spots near to them without being exposed is essential to your survival. Making use of cover in trees, behind buildings, and in built-up areas are your keys to victory. That said, communication is not the easiest, as trying to type “The enemy is over here kicking my ass!” while getting annihilated by a group of 6 hardcore players is not my idea of user-friendly communication. In my opinion, an addition of team voice chat in the random battles would be essential to make the experience a great deal smoother.

Between battles, you can return to your garage and have a good old customization session of your tank arsenal. This part gave me a little bit of nostalgia towards an online flash game (of which the name escapes me) about customizable robot battles, which I used to play back in the days of grade 7. Here you can spend credits and experience earned in your battles on buying more of the 150+ available tanks, research for more effective vehicular components, and changing your camouflage colour and aesthetics of your vehicles. As you level and gain experience, more becomes available to you, giving you that incentive to keep hacking away until you eventually get that tank that inspires the other team to defecate themselves in fear. This provides a satisfying element of progression to an otherwise simple game.

For me, I would play this game for a bit of casual fun every once in a while. Not that there is anything at all wrong with that; in fact, it is quite satisfying to sit down and just blow up a tank or two. Despite my personal take, I can see people really going for this and grinding their way through to get the best equipment. There is enough potential progression here to provide incentive to continue play, while it remains simple enough to pick up for an hour or so and put down afterwards. Overall World Of Tanks is a game with a little bit of something for you if you want to play for a while, and a little bit more if you want to invest your time into it.