Rob Rich

Remember Combat for the Atari? No, I suppose not. Well, it was essentially a game where two player-controlled tanks faced-off in an arena while trying to decimate each other for points. Tank Battles is sort of a modernization of the original; only now with nicer visuals, online play, and a bunch of ways for players to upgrade their performance. Unfortunately, the emphasis on premium currency makes it feel a little too modern.The single player in Tank Battles involves a series of increasingly difficult missions for players to complete. Each one has a total of three stars that can be earned by completing specific objectives (i.e. destroy everything, finish in under X seconds, etc.), and those stars will unlock even more missions or access to new gear in the shop. The general idea is to not get blown up while blowing up everything else, but sometimes the objectives will throw players a curveball and mix things up a bit. The basic controls will have players guiding the tank around a small arena using a virtual stick in the bottom-left corner of the screen, while tapping anywhere else to fire in that direction. A set of three item buttons is also preset at the bottom of the screen, and will activate whatever is equipped with a tap."Multiplayer is mechanically similar - what with the control scheme, wanton destruction, and small arenas - but in many ways feels more like a traditional deathmatch. Up to four players square-off and try to annihilate each other in order to get the highest score, while also keeping an eye out for random power-up drops like health and damage boosts. It doesn't earn stars like the solo mode, but it does allow players to compete for leaderboard status (and rewards), as well as some extra coins.