by theygamesThe team at Retro Gears takes the explosive power of tanks and shrinks it down with the release of Tiny Toy Tanks. Featuring more than 40 missions and plenty of firepower, should players enlist for the cause?
Tiny Toy Tanks Review
Those looking to blast away enemy scum will be able to get the hang of the controls before too long. Your typical WASD setup is used for movement, with the left mouse button firing up to five bullets before a cooldown period and the right mouse button laying down bombs. There’s not much to it, but this is one title that was designed to be simple at its core. Just be warned that the controls are fairly rigid, but that comes with the territory.
After choosing from one of two chapters, players will have to contend with a number of enemy threats, with each mission cleared by destroying them all. The good news is that they go down in one hit, but the bad news is so do you. Those playing on Easy will be given 200 lives, while those who like to live dangerously will be given a paltry 10. Just be warned that even the most hardened of players will go through lives like candy.
It’s just a shame that the game is tedious and overly plain. Any sort of personality is thrown out the window by the time players get even a few minutes in. Generic music loops, tanks are recolored, and the world is made up of blocks. It is hard to get invested in its world, and even the inclusion of elements like steel boxes that ricochet bullets and lava isn’t enough to make this title not feel like a drag.
Tiny Toy Tanks is never unfair, but it does feel like it is a bit too rudimentary at times. Certain tanks simply sit there, waiting to be sniped. Other levels are overly simple, consisting of a narrow pathway and nothing more. The fact that certain missions can be finished in less than a minute detracts from the game rather than adding to it. It would have been nice to see some more intelligent AI added to the title, but as it stands it just doesn’t have enough to challenge all those who attempt it.
This lack of incentive extends to the other parts of the game. There’s no leaderboards, no multiplayer, and no achievements to speak of – what you see is what you get. The inclusion of this functionality would have given this title some legs, but as it stands, players can mark this one as complete in a little less than an hour.
Tiny Toy Tanks is overly simple at its core, which proves to be its greatest weakness. The formula simply isn’t taken far enough, and this rudimentary approach makes its many missions feel tedious before too long.