BattleTanx

"Hey Masters: Take off your pants and play this mediocre tank shooter!!!"

(Under normal circumstances there would be an introduction to the said game in this area: needless to say, these are not normal circumstances.)

Behold, foolish mortal, a revolution in gaming reviews! Something so earth-shattering, so mind-boggling, so pants-wettening, so squash-smashening, and so pumped will DJosef-ness that the scientific community has refused to acknowledge the possibility of its existence. Until now.

Behold, the future of reviewing: the “Potato Rates Various Random Objective Aspects of the Game” (or the PRO-VRAG) format will one day be heard in living rooms, university cafeterias, and shopping malls around the world, and lucky you has been lucky enough to stumble upon it’s workings on the ground floor. Congratulations, and enjoy this review of 3DO’s splendidly mediocre tank shooter, BattleTanx:

---The Ratings---

The Tanks: Let’s get straight into the meat and/or potatoes of the game. The tanks (or “Tanx,” as the game so often like to refer to them) are the high point of the game. Everything about them is great:. They’re painted in very shiny colors ranging anywhere from ROY to G, even occasionally making its way over to the illustrious BIV section of the rainbow, which serves as a pleasant alternative to the bleak world outside of gaming; they’re responsive to controls, and while they may not seem intuitive in today’s world of “Banjos” and “Metal Gears,” we must always remember that, sometimes, simplicity is key. Oh. And they can destroy stuff. Whatever.

The important thing is that they look good, they feel good, they sound good, and if it were at all possible I’m sure they would smell good too. -9-

The B-Movie Appeal: It is the year 2001. A plague has wiped out more than 90% of the world’s women. You play as a male, and, being a male, you do what comes naturally: you and your closest twenty-or-so friends hi-jack “tanx” and blow stuff up!

Yeah! Lock up them women! Whoo! Gang warfare! Yes! Women are almost like slaves, but sexier! Ha! Queenlords! Yee-haw!!!

My id is having a field day. -10-

The Literary Value: For the most part, I love the story. But it leaves a good many unanswered questions in my mind: where’s the theme, the plot, the drama, the intrigue, the denouement? I’ll tell you where. It’s non-existent. If you want plot, you can go read a book, ya nerd. -3-

The Scantily-clad Women that You Can Pick Up And Drive off With: While the barely-dressed women in this game play second fiddle to the gorgeous models found in such classics as San Francisco Rush, California Speed, Final Fantasy I-V, Final Fantasy VII-X, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dead or Alive, Dead or Alive 2, Dead or Alive 3, Crusin’ USA, Zombie Revenge, Shining Force, the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series, Barney’s Hide and Seek, or Perfect Dark, they still seem like pretty bodacious babe-ites.

What can I say? I’m a picky tuber. -4-

The Blow-uppables: For a game that’s all about blowing “balderdash” up, I’m sorely disappointed in the quality of the explosions. They are neither visually nor audibly appealing. They are icky; Instead of sky-darting to the heavens, an action which I assumed was necessary in a game like this, the buildings crawl to the ground in a manner that can only described as slug-like (or possibly sloth-like).

These are explosions in the same way that those little black snakes of charcoal that come in packages of fireworks are explosives. What are those, anyway? Who was the twisted mind at the firework factory who thought it entertaining to watch a piece of rubber with a strange propensity to look like feces slowly unravel before him? A sicko, that's who. -2-

The Aural Pleasure: As bad as the explosions look, they sound a good bit worse; with what should be a deafening “kablamm!,” the buildings clamber to the ground with all the glory of a three-year-old crumbling tissue paper. Messy. Messy. Messy.

The music is equally mind numbing. There is only one song. That song is repetitive. I did not like the song. I did not like the song because it repeated itself. It repeated itself often. There was only one song. And that one song was repetitive. –3-

Hey, Masters: Take off those giant MC Hammer pants of yours. Their violent glare is blinding me. –10-

ROB64’s Voice Acting: Before every level, ROB64 from Starfox 64, or what may be a close relative of ROB64, greets you with sounds of inspiration in his native tongue: “Gwoon Lawk!”

Its nice to see that there’s still room for people like him in this modern world of hustle and bustle. –10-

The Gameplay: Whatever. -6-

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 12/03/01, Updated 12/03/01