Review: Tron Tanks

Score:
81%

Author: Disney

Version Reviewed: 1.00 (0)

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But hold on a moment – where were the tanks in Tron Legacy? Well they are in the new film if you keep your eyes peeled, but there’s no tank on tank action, there’s no sneaking around and shooting up other tanks… so where did all this happen?

Well you could go with the simple answer of someone responsible for this app inside Disney or Nokia just wanted a good tank game and used the opportunity – personally I’m going with the theory that this is a tribute harkening back to the first film, where there was tank-on-tank, and very exciting it was too.

So what is actually on offer here? It’s a top down “combat/maze” game where you steer your tank around the world, opening gates and eventually finding the exit to the next level. Gates are opened by shooting them, and the final exit on each level opens when you have destroyed all the enemy tanks on the level. You’ve no choice but to engage in combat with everything you see. That at least cuts down on the tactics, but it does rob the game of a potential “sneak around” mode that the 1982 film had.

It also puts a lot of trust into the controls of the game – and they’re not the easiest to get to grips with. Using the touch screen, you have to use both of your thumbs to drive and fire. Under your left thumb are the direction controls to steer the tank, and under the right thumb you have fire – but it’s not a fire button, it’s another directional control, so you push your thumb in the direction you want the tank turret to turn and fire.

While it’s nice to have these two features decoupled, it takes a lot of co-ordination to get to the point where you can do both at the same time. Unless you’re a drummer or can work your hands separately (for example, if you’ve played Smash TV in the arcades of your youth), I suspect that you’ll end up playing this like general infantry... sprinting your tank to a suitable firing position, stopping, doing the firing, then moving again. Run and cover, fire and move, rinse, repeat.

I’m struggling to think of a better way to implement this on a touch-screen, and I think the problem for me is not the co-ordination, but the lack of feedback from the screen. With a game controller this would be a cinch for me to play - on the N8’s large screen, I’ve having to spend a fair amount of time looking at my thumb, and not my tank. There’s not much that can be done to sort this, so I’ll spin this as an increased challenge to the user looking for a game of skill.

What’s not in doubt is that this game looks the part. Lots of black highlighted with the trademark glowing neon, and snappy electronic sound effect and music. It’s clearly part of the same world as Tron Legacy - which makes the decision to lift a scene from the first movie and essentially make a top down version of Space Paranoids all the more interesting.

You’ve got the usual arcade essentials in here, from a choice of cannon shells or grenade launcher from your main tank gun, tokens to find that upgrade the weapons, extra energy for your tank, speed ups, extra lives... someone knows their gaming shorthand and has made sure everything is in this free download.

Normally movie tie-ins can be a bit hit or miss. Anyone growing up in the 80s will probably agree that they are more miss than anything, but Tron Tanks is a hit for me. It takes the subject matter and doesn’t slavishly follow a film, but sets out to be inspired by a few scenes and then build a game that works around that starting spark. Tron Tanks does have a control system that takes time, but once you get that rhythm sorted out, this is a blast.

-- Ewan Spence, Dec 2010.

Reviewed by Ewan Spence at 10:51 UTC, December 20th 2010