Saturday, August 17, 2013

#62: Super Battletank: War in the Gulf

Who is Garry Kitchen?
Does the video game industry create games glorifying current wars because they think that's what people want to play or because they're in some way propaganda? I don't know, but there were plenty of Kuwait/Iraq war games when I was a kid. I hadn't heard of this one before today, but from the name I expect to be driving a tank in the gulf.

FIRE!
Yep. I am in a tank. I am driving around, finding other tanks, and blowing them up. As far as SNES era tank games go, though, this is actually pretty good. I have four different weapons with ammo levels. It makes use of all 8 buttons on the controller! (Accelerate, decelerate, open map, shoot weapon, turn left, turn right, select weapon, and pause.) There are all sorts of gauges and doohickeys that make it feel like I might actually be driving in a tank.
SCUD!
The game has an overarching plotline that I assume mirrored the actual campaign in the gulf war in some way. Maybe? I don't actually know. But sending in a tank to take out a SCUD launcher sounds like the sort of thing that would have actually happened.

The game controls well, and matches the theme well, but it really isn't my cup of tea. Maybe I would have played it a bit as a kid, but I'm pretty confident it wouldn't have been a two-renter. I died on the second mission this time (I tried to figure out what an icon meant on the map by driving near it, and I think it was a mine field) and decided I didn't really want to start over. This game is what it is, and what it is isn't for me.

Rating: C-

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