REVIEW: Tanks Meet Zombies


Title	Tanks Meet Zombies
Developer	Titan Forged Games
Publisher	Titan Forged Games
Release Date	February 14th, 2018
Genre	Top-down shooter
Platform	PC
Age Rating	N/A
Official Website

Zombies, one of the most common archetypes for the undead. Love them or hate them, they left a permanent mark on pop culture. In recent times however, video games reduced zombies to mere fodder, being easily shot at, hacked to pieces, and getting blown up. Tanks Meet Zombies takes that trend to its logical conclusion, by pitting a tank versus waves upon waves of the undead, as well as spiders, bears, and even other tanks. Can this top-down shooter stand above the rest? Let’s run over some zombies and find out.

There isn’t much background behind the game. In the campaign mode the player takes control of Sofía, a tank. Sofía has a falling out with a zombie named Enrique, so our protagonist speed dates as many undead as possible. How does a tank date zombies? By running over, shooting at, and blowing them up, of course. Each map has three stages, with two simply being surviving ten waves. The third stage is a boss stage. There are five maps and you have nine lives total. Overall, the campaign functions more like a tutorial to get a feel for each map, introducing every enemy type and boss enemy.

Outside of campaign mode, there is arcade mode, survival mode, and versus mode. Arcade mode offers different objectives such as reaching a certain score before completing a number of waves, surviving an unlimited amount of enemies until the time runs out, and defeating a boss. Survival mode is simply surviving waves on a single map whereas versus mode allows players to compete against each other.

For replay value, the game has multiple unlockables such as alternate tanks, weapons, and achievements. However, the ability to unlock anything is rather unclear. Some unlocks can be obtained by simply completing campaign mode and satisfying some objectives in arcade mode. Otherwise, achievements only offer text to allude what mode the player should play in order to pursue them. For example, there is an achievement that revolves around doing mini-games. At best this involves arcade mode, but what are the exact requirements? Most of the time I simply unlocked weapons and tanks by pure accident. I understand these unlocks are titled as secrets but that means I’m playing game modes hoping I unlock anything.

Truthfully, gameplay variety is the game’s largest shortcoming. Enemy variety is decent but very few enemies stand-out. Bosses tend to devolve into popping out of cover to shoot at them then hide again to avoid damage. There are many weapons, but few are actually fun to use. Power-ups spawn randomly but tend to be more of a hindrance to the player. Based on my experience, the game attempts to offer a lot of content but struggles to make any of it substantial.

In terms of presentation, the game is overall unremarkable. There is nothing wrong with the in-game visuals but there isn’t anything noteworthy about them. The soundtrack sounds nice but isn’t exactly catchy or memorable. I haven’t encountered any glitches or technical faults either. Sound design is okay as well, where the only criticism is if a lot of zombies are killed, their death cries become obnoxious.

Overall, Tanks Meet Zombies is simply an average top-down shooter. For the most part there is nothing technically wrong with it, as the tank controls well and hitboxes felt right. However, it doesn’t feel like it has enough substance to keep the player entertained. There is a difference between having a lot of content and crafting a substantial experience. I played for about two hours before it already felt like I had seen everything the game had to offer. As such, the experience felt flat. Even for ten dollars, I recommend waiting for at least a minor price drop.