Zzap


Super Tank Simulator
By Codemasters
Commodore 64/128

 
Published in Zzap #63

Super Tank Simulator

Two games for the price, one of which looks better than Operation Thunderbolt sounds unbelievable but Super Tank Simulator really does deliver. The game you begin by playing is a mediocre tank game. Your Super Tank has ping pong shells which bounce along the walls of fiendish enemy mazes packed with mines, rapid-firing guns and tanks. The game is shown from an overhead perspective, push-scrolling vertically. Left/right controls which direction the tank faces, while forward/back makes the tank reverse or go forward. The gun turret is frozen, so you fire in the direction you're facing.

If you get to the end of a level then the game switches to a first-person perspective. You control a gunsight while a parallax-scrolling backdrop moves leftwards with enemy soldiers sniping out of it. There's also some beautifully drawn gunship helicopters and tanks moving around, spitting out some very lethal firepower.

Gameplay on the first game is rather fiddly and repetitive, but not too bad. The first level's "Battlefield" graphics are a little cluttered but there's some okay building and level two's city is quite slick. The Op Thunderbolt-style game is almost as playable as the horizontally scrolling section in the Ocean original, although there obviously isn't a two-player mode. The scrolling is slick and fast, while the graphics are top-notch. The only drawback is that it's quite short and inevitably lacking variety - no terrorists rushing at you in this game. Still, not a bad combination of games and good value.