Tank Racer is yet another attempt at making a racing game fun for the whole family. There is nothing to this game besides driving and shooting tanks that are invulnerable to your every attack. The game is too straightforward, but some might like the fact that the only differences throughout the game are different sounds and textures.
The versatility of Tank Racer is slim. The animals that you run over do not even bleed let alone explode or even look real because they are cardboard figures. The only animal that has some real life to it, are the bird's that fly away when you are about to run them over. Graphics in Tank Racer are about equal to any other game out right now. This is the only thing that would make people actually download this thing because of the 3DFX graphics that have hypnotized them into downloading only things that look and act the same in every aspect. I truly hope that you do not fall into this category. The same sound effects are used too much throughout the game. The crunching of a car, the wind, the lighthouse foghorns, all are used over and over again without any variance.
Front ends are really important in a game and this one fails in every aspect. When you first turn on the game, there is a rendered picture of a tank and then it takes you to a very rudimentary, Atari-like interface. You have to use the enter key to get from one screen to another and it pulls you every which way to different screens. If you decide to go back, you have to use the backspace button. Setting up the controls can be a tedious task. As you prepare to play the game, Tank Racer shows you a choice of only four tanks. These tanks are all rated for acceleration, handling, grip, top speed, etc. You must decide what you really want throughout your career as a tank driver. I found the tank with the best top speed to be the best, because there are plenty of power ups spread throughout the track to enhance speed.
Controls often take away from a game and Tank Racer is no exception to that rule. Not only is setting up the control a major task but if you were to just use the keyboard; you would be in for a world of torture. Not only is it hard to corner in any tank with the keyboard but it is not easy to shoot and drive at the same time. AI in this game is run and gun. They are rather easy to track down and knock around a bit but they are out to win the race. The AI in the first few levels is easy but as you progress, it does get a little tougher. There are no difficulty levels, which cuts down on the replay value of the game.
This might be fun for all those die hard tank fanatics who like to just drive tanks for hours on end, but this is not me. I can definitely say that I will not be playing this game a month, a week, or even a day from now other than to show my friends how easy it is to put a bad game on the market.
Tank Racing? Now there's something you don't see every day. Well the good people from Grolier have given you the chance to experience such an event with their new title Tank Racer. Choose from 12 tanks over a multitude of tracks, racing either single-player, multi-player or deathmatch and have the added bonus of a full 360-degree turret at your disposal.
Now, if I was a relative newbie to the combat-racing sim scene, I'd say it was good. It's fast, there are plenty of powerups and the tracks are creative, offering a wide range of surfaces to thrash your suped-up tank around. But sadly I'm not. After playing TankRacer for a while certain aspects of the game becoming quite annoying. In today's 3D world, 2D objects made to look 3D just don't cut the cheese. Imagine racing around a corner to see a couple of motionless, cardboard cut out cows in your path. Now it's fun to run a 2D cow, or sheep, over the first time, you should try it, but after a while the pleasures fade.
What's also interesting is that the cutouts pop up all over the place, lap after lap 2D jeeps, 2D police cars, and if your lucky a 2D Jet will fly over head - albeit in the same place, at the same speed and in the same direction. Are they there to distract us from something? I wonder.
Then after a while I began to ponder what the purpose of the turret was for, yes you could turn it right, and left if you so desired, but that's all its really good for. Blasting the other tanks achieved nothing except to knock them off course (ever so slightly I might add). I sat behind a tank frantically pressing my spacebar, bang, bang, bang. Meanwhile, the little green man inside the other tank had turned his turret and was firing at me, bang, bang, bang ... this carried on 'til we had to turn then we resumed the drill, bang, bang, bang... bang, bang, bang. Arghh, pointless.
I'd be interested to know if indeed this initially was a tank combat/racing sim or if it was just a pretty crappy racing sim in dire need of something different. I don't know, but there's one thing for sure if you need a game that this one tries to be, go download RollCage.
People who downloaded Tank Racer have also downloaded:
Test Drive: Off-Road 3, Test Drive 4, TOCA Race Driver (a.k.a. Pro Race Driver), Test Drive, Superbike 2000, Test Drive 5, Taxi3: Extreme Rush, Tellurian Defense
©2024 San Pedro Software. Contact: 
, done in 0.003 seconds.