Tank Hero: Laser Wars

Very few of us will ever get to drive tanks. While that's something we all have to come to terms with on our own, at least video games offer us the chance to pretend we're in control of glorious, trundling, armoured cannons.

Tank Hero: Laser Wars, the sequel to Tank Hero, allows you to slip into the snug cockpit of a weapon of death, and spray out your frustrations as globs of searing plasma.

Offering a more streamlined experience, and some impressive visuals, this might be more of the same but it's a welcome, slightly flawed addition to the series

You play as a single green tank, and it's up to you to clear a boxed-in level of other, possibly evil, tanks, who will do their best to shoot and destroy you.

Levels are covered with different kinds of scenery. Solid walls are invincible, but your glowing green bullets ricochet off them, letting you kill enemies with well angled bounces. Tapping on the screen lets out a volley of fire, and either a floating joystick or a series of swipes moves you tank.

Red fences harm you if you travel through them, and blue fences are impenetrable by any weaponry. In later levels, bullet-activated gates allow you a single shot worth of cover before they're sucked back into the ground.

Your accuracy, the damage you've received, and how long it's taken you to complete each level all count towards the star rating you're awarded when you've reduced your opponents to ash. There are 60 scenes to battle your way through, across two planets, and four difficulty settings, ranging from the sedate to the bullet-spongingly implausible.

Huge, bullet-sponge tanks occasionally impede your progress, and you're dragged into a war of death-ducking attrition as you chip away at their enormous health bars.

Weapon boosts and powerful shields appear from time to time, but there's no upgrading your tank like there was in the original, so the bonuses you receive only last for a level.

The phone version of the game lacks any sort of multiplayer content, although tablet users can engage in split-screen one-on-one shoot outs.

While the floating joystick is a perfectly workable control method most of the time, it takes up so much space in one of the bottom corners of the screen that it sometimes impedes your shooting abilities, leaving you wiggling on the spot rather than taking care of a meddlesome tank.

The swiping option is all but useless, as well, leaving you stuck with a control system that lets you down drastically on a handful of occasions.

It's a minor annoyance, and while it doesn't leave the game unplayable it's an oversight that should have been caught before release.

Other than that, Tank Hero: Laser Wars is a pretty decent sequel. Some might mourn the passing of the Micro Machines-inspired miniature world of the original, but if you're looking for a reasonably taxing action title to keep you entertained for a few hours you could do a lot worse.