Game Reviews

Toy Tanks 3D

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Toy Tanks 3D
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| Toy Tanks 3D

When American stud John Wayne appeared on the silver screen in the much-revered World War II film The Longest Day, the Germans knew they had it coming. The man's tough talk was enough to cut through a Panzer. Unfortunately, he wasn't on screen long enough to turn his words into action.

Toy Tanks 3D talks tough too, ramping up the conflict between the nefarious dictator Yussuf al Fatal and sole force of liberty that rolls through in a tank.

While it sounds like a serious fight, though, it's more an adorable romp. This is far from the ardour of The Longest Day; instead, it's better tagged as a short jaunt through a colouring book world.

Manning a tank that trundles through nine levels along a set path, your focus lies in directing the cannon to blast enemies that line the way. Toy Tanks 3D smartly supports both tilt and touch controls for targeting, allowing you to toggle either from the options menu.

With the accelerometer enabled, tilts of the handset left and right move the top of the tank accordingly; touch controls, on the other hand, place arrows at the sides of the screen that can be tapped to position your weapons fire.

Lobbing off cannon fire takes a quick tap in the lower right corner of the screen. By default, you shoot basic rounds that can be rapidly fired with successive taps of the screen. Special homing shells found in wooden boxes in each level boost your offensive capability.

Beginning with a beachhead assault and ending with a blitz on a desert fortress, Toy Tanks 3D weaves through nine fairly easy levels. Good targeting will see you through the game in short order.

The boss battles that appear at the end of every third level mix things up, although they offer more variety than challenge. This isn't a difficult game and appropriately so. The appeal here is in the simplicity of play, the pleasant presentation, and quick fun.

Unfortunately, it's a little too quick. Toy Tanks 3D launches an operation that's over far sooner than we'd like. You can blitz through the game's nine levels in an hour or so.

Replay of the campaign is encouraged via starred scores of your performance on each level, as well as an Arcade mode that trundles through the same levels. These are hardly persuasive measures, though. Once you've finished the campaign, you're essentially done with Toy Tanks 3D.

Doubling the number of levels or including more compelling alternate modes would have extended value of the game. Instead, we have a great game hampered by a lack of value. Toy Tanks 3D talks tough, but can't walk the walk for longer than half a pace.

Toy Tanks 3D

Too few levels and modes hold Toy Tanks 3D from being the awesomely adorable tank buster that it strives to be, but it's still great fun
Score
Tracy Erickson
Tracy Erickson
Manning our editorial outpost in America, Tracy comes with years of expertise at mashing a keyboard. When he's not out painting the town red, he jets across the home of the brave, covering press events under the Pocket Gamer banner.