Summer Is For Writing About Tanks

Yesterday I realized the summer is upon me, as subtle clues signified its inevitable arrival:

- Mild temperature shifts - up to 40 degrees at 9 AM.

- Heavy, moist, savoury air, filled with (mostly insectoid) life.

- The calendar.

I'm not very observant. In my defense, yesterday I awoke after a short hibernation, following an exhausting June-July exam terms. After initially being awe-struck by the infamous Outside, I decided to return to my air-conditioned hidey hole and start writing, away from heat and mosquito bites.

To celebrate, I'll provide you the sample review of World of Tanks I wrote as part of a job application for Rock, Paper, Shotgun. It's rather short, but it should be. It's a sample.

Wot I Tank: World of Tanks

One of my favourite pastimes these days is ramming a tank into artillery. The grim thrill of my bloated metal monster bearing down on a helpless, exposed foe at 60 km/h, while his teammates desperately try to shoot me down. The squealing and screeching of twisted metal, as my mass times velocity rips through his thin excuse of an armour. It’s just too much fun.

World of Tanks is a lightning-fast crawl-speed MMO action simulation of WWII armoured warfare, with some light RPG progression and strategy game elements. I will elaborate. All of the tank models (currently, there’s about 130 of them) are based on their historical counterparts, but their performance and behaviour are tweaked to accommodate dynamic and balanced arena based fights. History is Gameplay’s Bitch too? They are slow and bulky steel constructs, but not at all difficult to navigate.

It takes getting used to the awkward manoeuvrability of vehicles, and seconds long reloading between shots, but after a few confusing hours and a dozen or so matches, you’ll begin to grasp its slick combat system and have some genuine fun. Choosing the right type of ammo and switching it on the fly to counter different opponents, positioning yourself to maximise the chance of hostile projectiles harmlessly ricocheting of your armour... Or you can just shoot stuff. Whatever.

It lacks the grand strategy of an RTS, but it’s far from the hectic brainlessness of your typical manshoot. Partly because you’re not shooting men, but mostly because tactics, experience and raw wit dominate over reflexes and button-mashing – especially on higher tiers of play. Rush too early and you’re croaked. Camp too long and you let the enemy outflank you. But there’s more immediate tactics involved. That heavy in front of you just fired and you have a few seconds until he reloads. Do you try to squeeze another shot at him and risk being dusted? Do you take out his tracks, leaving him immobile and vulnerable to your artillery, or do you aim for his gun to increase your chance of survival? Do you trBOOM! Fuck.

The game adopts an ever trendy Free-to-Play model, with microtransactions ranging from premium account (which gives you an option to create tank companies, and a 50% XP and credit boost), to slightly better ammo and equipment, to premium only tanks – which don’t have to be unlocked with XP, unlike other vehicles.

So there’s a constant urge to buy that Löwe – a humongous crawling fortress with a 10 meter phallic symbol on top of its head, but somehow it feels like cheating. No matter what they tell you, there’s no grinding in World of Tanks. Only learning. And learning that complex battle mechanic takes patience and perseverance. Observe, devise, execute, and fail miserably. Time and again. So spending a quid or twenty on that monster of a heavy will sure bring you to play with the top dogs, but the sheer skill of those who grinded their way up will make you feel cheated and dumb.

World of Tanks might not be for everyone, but anyone can play it. IT’S FREE. It’s a great free game, and it’s constantly being updated with new content and bug fixes. Developers promise new lines of British, French and Japanese tanks coming soon, as well as some infantry to mow with the currently useless mounted machine guns. Go, try it out! Ram your tank into some poor chap’s artillery. For free.