World of Tanks

We’ve started to see more freemium games migrating to the console market in hopes of building a larger audience with disposable income (or they're parent’s credit card). This isn’t a bad thing to happen as we’ve seen what a game freemium game can be like. The impressive and surprise hit Warframe showed us how good a freemium game on a console can actually be.

World of Tanks creates a massively engaging online multiplayer with an enticing concept. Players take control of some of history’s most lethal war machines to traverse land and battle one another in a competitively vicious yet strategic manner.

World of Tanks has a great deal of innovation when it comes to building your own death machine, with a great deal of customisation which you can buy with silver which is earned through completing challenges and gold, which is bought with real money (from your parent’s mastercard). The aspect of just building up your dream machine of death and fighting online is an enticing motive to check out this game. Even to see that many of the unlockable perks are fairly priced and most of the items that require gold purchases are usually visual stimulants. World of Tanks thankfully doesn’t abuse the system and fairly prices and rewards player progression without landing massive paywalls in the middle of game time.

Overall the concept is great, but sadly the execution is lacking in a few areas. There is a good amount of content for players to dive right into, including a neat mini game which you can play while waiting for the main game to install. But what World of Tanks offers is various game modes that feel too similar to one another without any major altercations or dynamics to change the state of play. In other words, they’re just different types of death-match. Whether this is team style tank battles, defence with death-match feature, attacking enemy bases (basically capture the flag) or just plain old death-match.

Nothing wrong with this and indeed there are many elements to make the games feel a little more dynamic, such as introducing various classes of tanks that possess particular characteristics, skills and overall uses for the battlefield. From using a fast moving MS-1 scouting tank to locate enemy units and call in artillery fire to fighting the enemy head on with a brutalising Church Hill III. World of Tanks indeed presents the player with an engaging tactical and strategic warfare shooter that can be enriching playing as a team or working alone. Along with the large open areas, this overall gives a great scale in battle variation and tactics used.
But the main problem is that World of Tanks is highly repetitive and a grind to play most times.

Everything comes as no surprise after a few games and you’ll see yourself putting down the controller, losing a great deal of interest as it’s something you’ve not paid money for. From modes that offer little diffraction to one another and most of the dynamics only being seen on the tanks means it’s grip on the player being lost. The lack of dynamic battlefields, greater use of destructible environments, major historic events or changing weather means that each game feels the same and often it’s a hammer your fire onto a single enemy until they’re dead. But I didn’t expect much and shouldn’t have as it’s a free game.

World of Tanks is graphically appeasing to observe good with a high amount of detail on the Tank designs and the world itself. Yet I found there to be a few poor animations and the organic nature of the destructible environments was also lacking in anything spectacle.

My biggest problem was how dumb down some modes were, the ones which could have made the game much higher to recognise. “Hunt the E-100” had potential as a real thought provoking one on one cat and mouse hunt. But we’re massively let down due to the developer taking the task away from destroying a highly advanced enemy and pushing a majorly repetitive fight and kill off 10 dim witted tanks one after the after which often drags out a little longer than needed.

I had hoped that World of Tanks would’ve missed out on the lazy animations, repetitive nature of gameplay and the modes that don’t really differ from one another. Yet the title is by far worth checking out (as it’s free) and indeed offers a great means of battling your friends with a game everyone can obtain and get into fairly easily. It has some great moments and ideas, but nothing I would advise will satisfy many gamers.