Tread Marks

The Good
This game is one of the most addicting, entertaining games I have played in years. It has an easy control method of mouse looking, and simple "forward, backward, left and right" commands. The ladder play slowly transforms to meet your skill level. The single player matches against the computer are extremely entertaining, as the computer can match your skill quite easily. The multiplayer is also great. The most amazing thing about this game is the deformable terrain. I've never seen this kind of thing in a 3d game before, and it amazes me. When you shoot any of the amazing weapons, of which there are tons, the terrain dents to show it. This makes driving more difficult, and the game more fun. There are nukes, which eat up HUGE portions of the land, and matter missiles, which form HUGE mountains where ever they hit. The weapons are a great addition. They are all well crafted and thought out. None of them make the game TOO unbalanced, and the ones that do run out of ammo quick, so you better be a good shot. The sounds are also a great addition. The sounds of missiles closing on you scares you, and forces you to move quick! Also, the guns sound great, and the overall barrage of sound makes the battle sound real. There are over fifty levels, and if you get the patches, which Longbow likes to release(thank god for independent developers) you get more, with more game options like CTF and DM, as well as the racing.

The Bad
The turret refuses to aim up or down. This is bad. The Multiplayer is NEVER inhabited. There are several dedicated servers, all without people on them. Just bots. There are some strange bugs in a few levels, when the camera gets positioned inside walls and crazy clipping effects start messing with your head. The guy who made this game died after he made it! How sad is that? It was five dollars at the store. It is worth SO much more!

The Bottom Line
This is an arcade racing game where you can kill the other tanks. There is not too much friction involved, so don't expect to stay on the floor for long. Especially with those huge weapons you'll find.

The Good
The game is just plain fun. It has all the fast action of a good FPS without all the gore. It's also a nice change of pace: the tanks maneuver a lot differently from the virtual humans you've been controlling in all those Half-Life copycats. You'll learn new tricks and strategies every time you play. And just when you think you're getting good, someone smacks you around like a little girl. That's OK though. Grab a nuke and you'll be the one doing the smacking.

Also, it has more mods than you've got time to play. There's at least 150 different weapons and many dozens of tanks you can download from various places. There's several massive themed mod packages. And maps... there's probably hundreds of them floating around. Different servers cater to these varied tastes. If you get ambitious, you can download free tools to make your own mods and/or run your own server.

The Bad
Some days it's hard to find a human to play against. The main reason for that is that the original marketers botched it's promotion. You couldn't even buy it for a few months there. eGames has it on the shelves now and I've seen some new players recently. In the mean time, you can always catch a LOT of players on every Sunday at 5 pm Pacific. We (I say "we" because I've been playing for a while) have ranked games, clan wars, organized racing, etc on Sunday's and other days. See the forum for details. It's linked at www.longbowdigitalarts.com

The Bottom Line
It's tank shredding mayhem with the speed of the Indy 500 and weaponry that would make Rambo cry for mommy.

The Good
Its Smooth, Its Fast, The Terrain Is Deformable... leaves the days of unrealistic blocky sharp-corner vector terrain far behind. Supports upto 99 Tanks in a game, limited only by the server bandwidth. Totally 100% Moddable engine with commands so easy a baby can understand it. FANTASTIC Range of weapons ...... Excellent community of players, Mods like you wouldn't believe, Tournament support & Clans in here too !!!

The Bad
Lack of Receptacle and the 3rd person perspective view (above and behind the tank) - but this is forgivable due to the ability to FREE move the viewing angle at will. When you have a weapon, you cant drop it, you have to use it up before you can pick up another.

The Bottom Line
If you don't want to miss out on the most underestimated game of the century BUY IT NOW.. think UNREAL TOURNAMENT crossed with TRIBES but in Tanks - and you have yourself one HELL of a game ;) Visit www.dmf.filetap.com , enter the treadmarks page and download the ** IN GAME VIDEO'S *** I GUARANTEE YOU WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED.