Now Playable By Humans: War Of The Human Tanks

I imagine that - given the proper faculties and digits - it could also theoretically be played by tanks. Regardless, War of the Human Tanks is now available in our Latin-derived tongue of choice via Desura. You may remember that Alec was quite taken by its name, but does War of the Human Tanks, in fact, also take names? Well, you can find out for yourself, because there's a free demo. Or you can just read my impressions of said free demo, because there's, um, a lot to digest here. I have seen some things. Or rather, I've read them. I've read a lot of them.

War of the Human Tanks wants to an anime. I don't mean that in a derogatory way, either. Rather, it's divided into multiple episodes that each have their own loud, dancy J-Pop opening and closing credits. Between battles, meanwhile, characters - which occupy just about every cliched anime role under the rising sun - chit-chat and engage in all kinds of hit-or-miss slapstick humor that you can't actually see because (and this hurts the whole "wants to be an anime thing" a bit) there's no animation. So you just read. Characters go on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on.

And on.*

It's a weird mix of candy coated hyperactive "moe" madness and soulful ruminations on the socially problematic nature of tanks with minds of their own, and I can't decide if it's slightly brilliant or just the dumbest thing that's ever happened. For whatever it's worth, though, the translation seems competent.

Battles, meanwhile, definitely have potential. The ones I tried were pretty basic, but I could already see some interesting dynamics developing between the handful of core tank classes. Doing "recon" on unknown spaces, for instance, was key, so scouts paved the way for my real assaults quite nicely, but didn't usually survive beyond the first few turns. However, rush tactics were also viable, with my enemy managing to take out nearly half my army with a well-placed early kamikaze strike. Overall, though, it felt pretty Advance-Wars-y - just with hexes instead of grid-based maps and time-based element to turn-taking.

Creating and upgrading tanks, unfortunately, seemed fairly basic, merely presenting me with a handful of options and currency amounts. There wasn't really any tweaking to be done that I could find. Instead, the focus was on "Well, do I want this upgrade now, or would I rather spend money on a different one?"

Granted, I only checked out the first few episodes. I'd imagine (or at least, I'd really hope) War of the Human Tanks picks up a bit after its tutorial finishes slowly doling out knowledge. Even so, I have to admit to feeling a bit sad about this whole state of affairs. War of the Human Tanks, to me, serves as a reminder that I don't live in a world where amazingness of name directly correlates to general amazingness. Because if I did, War of the Human Tanks would be Half-Life 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, and it'd be delivered via physical media. And that physical media would be the world's best chocolate cake. But alas. I suppose I'll just have to keep dreaming.

*And on.