EpiXR Video games are finest identified for his or her video games the place you’re hovering. Aery, Paper Flight and Lifetime of Fly all have you ever gliding by scenes the place hitting the bottom is a really, very dangerous factor. With Sugar Tanks, that will get thrown for a loop, as you might be very a lot landborne.
Sugar Tanks is a little bit of a staple of console gaming: the twin-stick tank sport. It’s one stick to maneuver, and one other to show the turrets of your miniature battle-tank. Utilizing each of them in live performance means that you can change into a loss of life machine, nipping away from enemies as you fireplace volleys behind you. It really works in 3D video games like World of Tanks, and it’s been working for many years in top-down-ish video games like Tank on the NES.
Not like just about everybody else within the style, although, Sugar Tanks adopts a extra pastel palette. Out goes the camo and the burnt greens: in comes pink and purple. The degrees are made out of pink wafers and lollipops, fairly than the toiled fields of the Battle of Kursk. It’s undoubtedly completely different.
Sugar Tanks has you trundling round these sweet-shop ranges on the hunt for an exit. Enemy tanks, grim and gray, anticipate you across the nook and instantly begin firing sluggish volleys at you. You’re many occasions nimbler than them, so you may slalom by these volleys and place to fireplace your self. Your pictures aren’t a lot quicker than these of the opponent, so there’s slightly little bit of anticipation at play, as you shoot the place they’re going to be. In the event that they’re static tanks, effectively, you need to fear about them much less.
Within the opening moments of the sport, the place you’ve simply bought the fundamental tank, you gained’t be capable to fireplace a lot multiple or two pictures at a time. The tank can also be fairly sluggish, albeit quicker than everybody else, together with the opposing shells. However killing tanks drops sweet, and selecting up that sweet provides you the forex for upgrades. Collect sufficient of them and you may unlock tanks and improve them too, till you’re whippet-fast, can fireplace a number of volleys at a time, take in harm and even defend your self from fireplace. Not a lot can stand in your manner when you’re absolutely upgraded (otherwise you’ve simply purchased a completely upgraded tank for 10,000 candies).
Having performed just about each EpiXR sport, we anticipated this to be iffy across the controls, maybe with some bugs tossed in totally free. However we’re happy to report that we judged this e book by its writers. It’s nice enjoyable to manage, clean as whipped cream. Anybody may decide this up and instantly begin decimating some enemy tanks.
It’s within the opening ranges that Sugar Tanks is at its finest. The pace is pitched excellent, as you may weave round missiles if you happen to’re effectively ready. We’d have taken a barely quicker rotation of the turret – it could possibly take barely too lengthy to reposition greater than ninety levels out of your origin level – however Sugar Tanks makes the suitable determination of permitting you to simply outmaneuver the enemy. When you’re surrounded, although, you’re in a spot of hassle.
Ranges aren’t your customary 2D jobbies. There are ramps up and down, in addition to arches that momentarily unsight you. There’s nothing spectacular within the degree design, however there’s greater than sufficient alternatives to retreat, inch round a nook, or duck down a ramp in order that the missiles sizzle excessive of you.
The opposing tanks are largely simply variants on pace, variety of pictures, and whether or not they stand nonetheless or transfer. Useful horns and crowns on the tanks provide you with an thought of which is which. Once more, within the opening ranges that is all high quality and dandy. They by no means transfer quick sufficient to outrun your missiles, and the AI is uncomplicated, so you may anticipate the place they’re going. That is nearly probably the most accessible tank sport you’ll ever trundle over along with your caterpillar tracks.
Sadly, Sugar Tanks doesn’t have a 3rd, fourth or fifth gear. Whereas its opening moments are nice, the bottom will get slightly boggy after the primary dozen ranges or so. That’s as a result of Sugar Tanks can’t discover a solution to combine issues up, and its makes an attempt to make issues tougher merely don’t work.
There aren’t any degree substances that get added in as the sport goes on. We anticipated slides, ferris wheels or different fancy parts that match the theme, however all we bought was extra ramps and arches. The degrees change into longer, making it barely tougher to preserve your well being, however that’s concerning the restrict of it. You’re going to get fairly sick of these pink wafers.
To introduce some problem, Sugar Tanks largely simply throws tanks at you. There aren’t any extra tank sorts (outdoors of bosses, extra on them in a mo). There’s only a bloody nice mass of tanks round each nook, and it’s all the way down to you whether or not you Leroy Jenkins into the room, or undertake a extra tentative method. We bought ok on the twin-stick controls to have our Leroy cake and eat it, however youthful gamers is likely to be pressured to take it extra slowly. But the tanks stay the identical.
There are boss ranges each 4 ranges or so, however these bosses are – once more – the identical each time. It’s typical of Sugar Tanks that the final degree makes an attempt an end-of-game boss by… throwing three of the boss tanks at you directly. They’re bigger, making them simpler to hit, and take in extra harm than your typical one-shot tank, however that’s all she wrote. We’d argue that they’re simpler to kill than the typical grunt tank.
Which is Sugar Tanks undoing if you happen to’re something like a reliable participant. It’s simply not very laborious in any respect. We died as soon as, however solely as a result of we unintentionally selected a duff tank that intentionally makes it laborious for you (the interfaces are horrible, and make it inexplicably laborious to improve something or select the tank you suppose you’re selecting). We romped to the tip in a single sitting (we actually ought to have combated fatigue by enjoying it in smaller chunks), and emerged with all the achievements other than one. And that’s solely as a result of the ultimate achievement was damaged for us.
It feels like now we have a downer for Sugar Tanks, however we needs to be clear: it is a lovingly created, approachable tank sport that youthful gamers will in all probability adore. It controls like a dream, and has the nifty potential to make you are feeling such as you’re superb at it, despite the fact that you’re simply quicker and stronger than anybody in entrance of you. What it’s not so sizzling at is problem and selection, and anybody older than the age of, say, fourteen will discover that fatigue kicks in.
Sugar Tanks is a shot of syrup for tank sport followers (or newbies to the style), however try to be conscious of the sugar-comedown on the midway mark.
