Battle City (1985)

Battle City has you controlling a tank, shooting at other tanks. It's a mix between a field shooter and a maze shooter (older arcade-defined subgenres for shooting subtype). The controls work well and are responsive, making lining up shots quickly not too hard. Defeat the wave and protect your base. You'll need good reflexes in this one.

While on the surface this game doesn't look impressive (it looks like a black box NES game such as Wrecking Crew with a very familiar and generic title screen, in-game level construction editor, and ability to choose what level to start on), I found that I really do like this game and the way it's made.

Having played a lot of older games from this era, many that were poorly programmed or designed, I can easily appreciate and enjoy a game like this where that isn't the case.

One might describe Battle City as Combat (Atari 2600) on steroids. It very much resembles the classic top-down tank shooting original, but with oodles more features and elements in this updated design. It also feels inspired by Namco's very well-known Pac-Man, slightly in the sense you are running around a maze, chasing and avoiding enemy attacks, and collecting bonus items for score.

The goal is to eliminate enemy tanks as they spawn throughout a round (four enemy tanks maximum at a time) from three different spawner locations from the North while protecting your base from attack (one shot and it's toast!). There is a surprising amount of strategy the player can utilize through how they position themselves between terrain. You can use the brick walls and steel walls as cover to help protect your base, There is also water to force enemies to take certain routes. Trees limit visibility. Once you figure it out you'll try to funnel enemy movements through certain routes (conceptually similar to the cover spots in Space Invaders but works much better here in my opinion). So, there is an element of block-breaking action-strategy similar to what is found in other games (Dig Dug, Space Invaders, Yar's Revenge, Arkanoid, etc.).

You also will start to recognize the four different enemy tank types and select the most active threats to eliminate first. There are several different power-ups that randomly will appear on the screen (collect 3 stars to increase the speed, firepower, rate of fire for your tank) This makes for a game that has enough going on that it's fairly interesting for a while despite being a rather very simple game based on an old design.

All in all, this is a fantastic game with lots of really interesting design elements inspired by other games and (technically this is a deluxe version of Namco's original arcade concept of the game titled Tank Battalion) manages to feel fresh. Its nice to see a port that plays well and doesn't feel like a watered down version of something, but feels like a fully fledged game.

Highly recommended for those seeking arcade-like games that are designed well, or fans of Pac-Man-type gameplay or any other classics seeking something new. This is a good pick-up-and-play type of game, best enjoyed in small bursts. It doesn't really have an ending (at least I don't think so?) - it simply repeats the levels again. I'm tempted to give it 5 stars but the game has no music (at least that i recall) and visually looks about as bare bones as it gets, but it's gameplay and design, level editor, and co-op support all more than make up for it IMO.

Look: 7/10 Overall disappointing. It looks like very early arcade or Atari games... However I did like the brick font for Game Over and Hi Scores. And it certainly was all functional. Plus, the terrain tiles reminds me of RPG Maker type tilesets heh.

Sound: 6/10 The Sound is disappointing, it's like Atari 2600 not NES. Well actually scratch that, this is far more annoying than any Atari game heh. And yet I kept the Sound on >.< I really must be fully used to retro games' sound :-p To think I used to mute even SNES and PS1 games cuz I wasn't used to their sounds.... I suppose some of the sounds did kinda remind me of Zelda dungeon sounds like when you find a secret etc.... when I had this game at a low volume heh

Play: 8/10 The NES really is so impressive for its time. Its controls always parallel the contemporary arcade games in responsiveness and tightness. I love that. Good variety of power-ups (and frequency). And I always love when you can shoot away enemy projectiles in shooters. Always makes for fun and kneejerk gameplay, cuz you can almost always survive a situation (instead of inescapable deaths) if you shoot away a bullet or dodge etc. I was not so in love with the variety of enemies and terrains, just didn't interest me much, tho I do like how much the terrain "tiles" lent themselves to a level editor :-p Only big goofinesses I noticed was power-ups can spawn on any terrain, including water heh

Feel: 8/10 Cool you can choose your level and that it has a level editor. Also nice to see a coop instead of competitive 2 player tho i think competitive could be fun. Will I actually play through all 35 stages despite this definitely not being that interesting to me, and the sound/look being meh?!

Attachment: 8/10 The fact enemies always spawn at the top row seemed a bit too forgiving... and exploitable. (Right after typing that, Stage 7 made it apparent they were going to end that exploit :-p ) Welp I got Game Over at Stage 15 with 72300 Score, and it was time to go for a walk. But the fact I was eager/curious about the last 20 stages, despite the fact it was repetitive and only so many terrain pieces and quite simple gameplay (And frustrated that I died cuz I had gotten rid of some of the white blocks that enemies don't go through, like the fool I am heh I had gotten too confident), says a lot about the game. Seems I will continue anyway--and it's nice they let you pick your starting Stage indeed! Maybe I'll end up with an even higher score, indeed. (I like the Look of this Hi Score flashing animation screen too heh )

Those deliciously tight controls helped keep my interest, with close-call dodges and projectile-shooting-away. If I'm seeing correctly, it just re-cycles like arcade games tend to do, I even played a couple more stages to confirm. Ended with a nice hi score and a good feeling about the game overall! If only there were a proper ending!

Completion: All 35 unique stages, Highest score in one run - 115, 700 Playtime: ~1h 10m

Tank Warfare always fascinated me. My dad always watched war movies & docs and read about the great wars; both of them. I had this 42-in-1 GameBoy game that we bought on vacation abroad, with a little yellow button on it to switch games - on that cartridge was "Tanks". Over the years I've seen it called a few names, Battle City I guess is the official name.

You're a tank taking out other tanks. The enemy tanks are also trying to attack your shield at the bottom of the screen, an Iron Eagle. You can pick stages and levels and the layouts change a bit depending on what you choose. You can pick up armour for your Eagle crest, armour for yourself to become invincible for a while, as well as freeze the enemy and other perks. It's a fun game that gets pretty hectic at times and I remember always coming back to it to try to beat as many levels as I could before dying three times! Battle City, aka Tanks etc etc, still actually holds up!

A classic NES game where you fight with a tank against another tanks. Simple as that. You can upgrade your tank by collecting power ups when you shoot a special purple enemy tank. The goal is to defend your base and destroy all enemy tanks on each and every map.

I think I used the word 'tank' way too much. But that symbolizes the monotonous tone of this game. Just shooting tanks, smaller and bigger ones. If you are good at it (which isn't hard), then you can spawn kill them making it even more easier.

I used to love this game as a child, but now that love mostly faded. I can still enjoy a few levels at a time, but I wonder how could I complete this game in one sit as a child. Times change :)