World of Tanks - the game that'll keep Xbox 360 vibrant for years?

**Bald Bouncer** · 13th July 2013

Tanks aren't cute, as a rule. They're hideous, ungainly death-machines, designed to weather the ravages of trench warfare - proof against bullets and emotions alike. You're not supposed to want to cuddle them. You're not supposed to want to take one home and pet it, like a mislaid hamster. Yet somehow, that's exactly how I feel about the lumbering cast of World of Tanks, Wargaming.net's colossal free-to-play tactical shooter, which makes its debut on Xbox 360 later this summer. It probably helps that many of the people I see playing the game at Wargaming.net's booth during the UK's annual Tankfest show are ickle, darling children. One in particular commands attention, a tiny blonde girl wearing a floral hat, guiding a squat, adorable M4 Sherman through a ruined French town. Walls burst to flecks as the beast takes a shortcut through some long-departed resident's front garden (World of Tanks is a pedestrian-free world), muzzle sniffing the air for the aroma of Kraut petroleum.

The girl hesitates, like some Jedi Knight picking up on a ripple in the Force, then swings the vehicle round to face the red silhouette of an enemy tank, cresting a nearby hillside. She toggles a scoped view, sights on the other driver's tracks - and jumps as her own tank pops into fiery nuggets. Seconds later the killcam frames an undetected Tank Destroyer, loitering in a bush many miles away. Innocence dies hard on the fields of early 20th century Normandy, especially if it doesn't check the mini-map before sacrificing its peripheral vision.

Over and above even armour quality, shell penetration, tank numbers and crew training, visibility is what separates the men from traumatised little girls in World of Tanks, a principle it shares with fellow vehicle-lover Battlefield. Once spotted, tank silhouettes can be seen through obstacles and terrain features, and this intel is shared between team-mates, so you'd better have a getaway plan ready once you expose your position in the act of opening fire. This is exacerbated by the fact that he/she who fires first, generally wins, as individual tank components can be disabled for a tactical advantage.

That's thinking about tank warfare as a one-versus-many pursuit, of course. Ideally, you'll be part of a well-organised Anchorman-style team, each member bringing their own special something to the equation. Light tanks are best fielded as scouts, nipping out to flag up the foe or flank artillery. Mediums form the battle-line, but can more or less serve whatever purpose the situation demands.

Slow, powerful Heavies are best off taking the shortest route from A to B, punching through opposition while other tank classes defend their sides and rear. Artillery and Tank Destroyers, meanwhile, are best off a long way off, spanking VIP targets as the advancing Lights and Mediums discover them. All these roles blur at the edges as you pile on equipment upgrades, naturally - guns, turrets, engines, radio and suspension can all be swapped out and upgraded. You can also train up your crew to improve performance, and equip consumables such as first-aid kits and fire extinguishers.

The PC version owes its considerable revenues to the purchasing of Premium micro-transactables, which extend from higher penetration ammo to full-blown Premium tanks armed with various stat buffs and maxed upgrade trees. This aspect of the game has caused a bit of controversy, as you'd expect, and is subject to on-going revision.

Wargaming.net plans to change the system so that players who don't want to pay can access the same features, presumably by doing a bit more grinding, and the Xbox 360 edition will adopt the same approach.

Developer Day One Studios (veterans of the console versions of F.E.A.R.) is still finalising the Xbox 360's interface, the guiding principle of which is to transform a game commonly experienced from two feet away into one you can enjoy from 10 feet off. To that end, fonts and icons are larger and the visual effects have been spruced up care of Day One's Despair engine. A little offputtingly, the upgrades system has apparently been streamlined for the sake of accessibility - you'll no longer buy individual upgrades but Mass Effect 3-style bundles of components. Pricing is still to be determined, naturally.

There's a fair bit riding on World of Tanks: Xbox 360 Edition. From Wargaming.net's point of view, it's an opportunity to break into US and UK markets where consoles reign supreme over PC, potentially adding another few score million subscribers to its intimidating, 60+ million total. Microsoft, meanwhile, sees it as the next Minecraft Xbox 360, a proven best-seller polished and perfected on desktops, granted a highly profitable second lease of life.

Should the game take off, it'll do more for the emerging console free-to-play market than any other. Should it flounder, priorities at the top may need a rethink. Either way, it's unlikely to be anything less than an engrossing experience.

Source: Rheena.com