Tank Brigade (Panda)
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Entry posted by DoctorSpuds
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Tank Brigade otherwise known as Tanks But No Tanks falls under the same category as Strategy X as being so challenging that it's addictive. This game was put out by Panda inc.. Panda was definitely one of the lesser known publishers on the 2600, mostly because most of their games were either stolen or licensed from Sancho. Several of their games were later re-sold by Froggo, yeah this is the level we're at here. I don't know if this game was stolen from Zimag, or if Zimag stole/licensed this game from from Bit Corporation, the details get very fuzzy this deep in the rabbit hole. Despite having the same basic code as Tanks But No Tanks, Tank Brigade has a few differences, at least in the graphical department.
This game is ugly... This seems to be a trend with these really challenging games. The color scheme is a very ugly grey on cyan, The walls are cyan and the floor is grey, the numbers that are displayed are a light-ish brown color. The 'tank' you control is the same light brown as the numbers, and the enemy 'tanks' are a lighter blue color. You'll likely have noticed that I've put the word tank in quotes whenever I refer to the 'tanks' in this game, I'm putting the 'tanks' in 'quotes' because THESE AREN"T EVEN TANKS!!! Since when did tanks have four wheels? The Zimag version's tanks look way better than these travesties, they got it right why couldn't panda!?! These things don't even have gun barrels! They should have called this game Combat Cars 'cause I sure as hell don't see any tanks here. At least the wall color changes between levels the second levels walls are a nice deep blue, which I like. Oh and on a side note, the sprite flickering is absolutely atrocious. ONTO THE SOUNDS!!
This game barely has any sounds. You shoot, they shoot, explosion... That's all, three sounds, two shots and a boom, story of my life.
The gameplay is the only reason you'll be coming back to this game. This game has a simple premise, there are twenty enemy 'tanks', you have five lives, destroy all the enemy 'tanks', don't let the enemy tanks shoot your spawn point otherwise it's an instant game over. Sounds simple right? well it is, but then level two happens, and that's where the challenge is. Level one is a fairly simple maze that the enemy 'tanks' can't hope to navigate since their AI makes a brick look like Einstein. Getting through level one is no problem but level two is much more open than level one, and I'm fairly sure that level three is even more open than level two. With the confining walls of level one removed, the AI can really let loose and stretch it's legs. The enemies have a tendency to use a pincer maneuver to surround you on both sides, and remember one hit on your spawn is game over no matter how many lives you have. The AI can be extremely unpredictable as well, instead of travelling in straight lines they move about in a sudden and erratic fashion causing your shots to miss. Missing is the one thing you DO NOT want to do in this game, since, much like Atari's Berzerk, you can only fire a single shot at a time, and if you fire at an enemy and miss the shot will slowly travel it's way across the map and when it hits the far wall then you can shoot -and likely miss- again. This couldn't be emphasized more than in level two again where the level layout is so open that 'cross map misses are frequent, leading to many game overs. (If anyone can confirm this I'd appreciate it, I just played Tanks But No Tanks to level three and there is only a small horizontal line at the top of the screen for cover, I'm fairly sure that Tank Brigade level three is the same, these are just fuzzy memories, any confirmation would be appreciated.)
This game hates you, this game hates all of existence, it challenges you to beat it, to step up to it's challenge. You will answer the call, you will play the game, it will win, it always wins. Then you'll realize that the Zimag/ Bit Corp. version is far superior and play that instead. The real problem with this game, and the Zimag version as well, is that it's so expensive. Only buy this game if you are a hardcore collector, this sentiment applies to all of Panda's 'games', they are all super overpriced anywhere you go, Ebay in particular.
Since strangely enough I have a larger audience here than on twitter (crazy I know) I'm gonna put another chiptune at the end of this review.
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