Let me start by saying that playing singleplayer was incredibly fun at some points. Most (definitely not all) of the levels were well thought out and very enjoyable, challenging, and intricate. Each tank being special is awesome and the amount of tactics involved is surprising for a simple looking toy tank game. The AI is incredibly complex, dodging shells perfectly (on higher difficulties) and using complex movements/strategies at times. If you have a hard time, using an AI companion (or 2 or 3) definitely helps, and sometimes they can just carry the entire match while you sit back and watch. After a bit, you might see a thing called "marbles". You can [spoiler] go to Tanky town (my first experience there was incredible), and it was amazing to go to the different shops to [/spoiler] spend marbles on cosmetics and map-editor items.
You read that right. There is indeed a map editor. You can make your own campaigns! And your own custom tanks FOR those campaigns! It's amazing!
Now, if I had such a lovely time and played for 28+ hours (at the time of this review, I still intend to finish the classic campaign), why did I put a negative review?
Well, there's a few reasons.
(There are spoilers blocked by black bars with reasons why they're marked)
1: Tanks behind a wall/roof have no outline, yet can see you perfectly. This is incredibly annoying and unfair, as some levels have deliberate roofs/large walls that block you from seeing enemies. Yet, if you happen to be under the same roof/behind the same wall, they'll see you and shoot you without any problems. It's only in a few levels, but it is quite unfair when it occurs.
2: With the classic campaign (and most other non-custom ones), there's only a checkpoint every 10 levels. And, you have to beat the boss/challenge-level of those 10 levels beFORE you get the checkpoint. Most games typically let you save before you fight the boss, but this game makes you play 9 levels AND a boss/challenge level before you get to save. You get an extra life every 5 levels, sure, but I don't think it's enough to compensate unless you're a hardcore player or you play on very easy difficulties. If you lose all your lives, you go back to your last checkpoint and replay up to 10 levels allll over again.
3: [spoiler] Green tanks. Absolutely stupid in any logical capacity. Sure, they don't move, but they can bounce their [strike] shells [/strike] rockets twice, and hit you with perfect precision. Incredibly hard to dodge them, and they can kill you by-themselves easily if you're not a good dodger. The worst part? They're not uncommon. If I had to estimate, I'd say they're in about 2/3 of the levels after you see them for the first time. Not every level that has them is littered with them, but levels that are absolutely suck if you're having a bad-reflex day. I'm fine with a special stationary tank that comprehends advanced ricochet angles in milliseconds without a second thought, but the rockets they fire need to be much slower so that it's actually a fair fight. [/spoiler]
(Spoiler text so as not to spoil an enemy you will fight)
4: [spoiler] Rocket Defenders. Absolutely great idea, absolutely horrible implementation. The ability to lob rockets over walls creates a sense of a complete lack of safety, and a need to move. I personally love that idea, as it breaks the loop of 'hide behind block, poke out, shoot, dodge, hide behind block again, repeat'. However, the fact that they have a (quite accurate) main-gun in addition to launching the rockets is unfair, and the rate/quantity in which they fire them is quite absurd. In addition, the projectiles are confusing to look at, as it is very difficult in the heat of battle (especially the Rocket King fight) to determine whether or not the projectile is a rocket you should dodge (main-gun projectile), or a rocket traveling to a target destination. I died countless times due to this confusion, and I believe that it should be made clearer what type of rocket it is. [/spoiler]
(Spoiler text so as not to spoil an enemy you will fight)
5: While minor and very rare, I did find a bug with mission 67 (not a joke) in the classic campaign. [spoiler] "Cavebust" [/spoiler] is the name of it. Upon a [spoiler] TNT block [/spoiler] getting hit, I died half a second later from an enemy shell. [spoiler] As the level was restarting, I heard it explode. [/spoiler] When the level restarted, [spoiler] the TNT was not there, and since there was no other way of destroying the stone, [/spoiler] I had to destroy my tank and lose another life due to being softlocked.
(Spoiler text so as not to spoil the level, but explaining the bug. I will say though that it is a very rare bug and I only saw it once, so don't let it deter you. Just pointing it out as something that hasn't been fixed)
6: Night levels. [spoiler] Some levels will take place during the night, in which case the entire map is darkened, enemies periodically blink a red light on their turret, and there are sometimes certain light sources that make parts of the map brighter. People with bad eyesight (such as a person I know) would have an incredibly hard time with levels like these, as the levels are quite dark and it can make it challenging to view the enemies, and especially difficult to see shells in the air. Conversely, the enemies suffer no penalty and act the same as they would in normal day-levels; effectively ignoring the problem that this poorly implemented mechanic causes you, and giving you an unfair disadvantage. [/spoiler]
(Spoiler so as not to spoil a game-mechanic. If you have bad eye-sight/have a hard time making out things that are dark though, please read this as this section affects you)
7: Multiplayer lag. Me and another person I play with literally play in the same house with 2 separate computers connected to the same internet connection. How is it that I'll see them visibly lag on my end, and they'll see me lag on their end? Every other game we play has no problem like this, but in this game, we've seen each-other visibly just teleport from point-A to point-B to point-C. Multiplayer is just not fun half the time, as the lag can be quite annoying. Immersion-breaking as it is, I have not actually seen AI (enemy tanks) lag like this in the multiplayer campaign. If you're just looking for a Co-op experience, I suppose this doesn't affect you very much unless seeing your friend(s) visibly teleport disorients you like it does with me.
8: Finally, on the topic of multiplayer, I discovered there's a bug in the map editor that is absolutely saddening to see. Remember how I said you could make custom tanks for custom campaigns? Well, if you decided that you wanted to make custom tanks for a custom MULTIPLAYER campaign, sad to say, you can't. For nearly 2 years, players (including myself as of today) have realized that custom tanks do not load at all in a custom multiplayer campaign. I also discovered that custom messages don't work either. I was planning on making an 80+ mission campaign with lore and context explained in these messages, special custom enemies for me and my friend to fight together, and to upload to the workshop. I made mission 1, tested it in a solo-multiplayer lobby, and none of the custom tanks appeared. Saw on a form nearly 2 years ago that the developer himself responded to, and said he would 'make a hotfix soon'. No hotfix was ever made, and the bug still exists.
A lot of the problems I listed were genuinely annoying, but ultimately tolerable. After I discovered #8 though? That was the last straw. It is truly saddening to make a negative review, and I hate doing it, but unfortunately I must. I cannot recommend a game with such bugs/oversights that easily could've been fixed. Seeing as the game itself hasn't been updated in over a year either/the developer isn't active on forms, I must assume the game is abandoned. I hope some of the bugs get fixed in the future...
To those that read, have a great day. :)
