EpiXR Video games are finest recognized 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’re very a lot landborne.
Sugar Tanks is a little bit of a staple of console gaming: the twin-stick tank recreation. 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 permits you to develop into a loss of life machine, nipping away from enemies as you hearth 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.
In contrast to 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, slightly than the toiled fields of the Battle of Kursk. It’s positively completely different.
Sugar Tanks has you trundling round these sweet-shop ranges on the hunt for an exit. Enemy tanks, grim and gray, look ahead to you across the nook and instantly begin firing gradual volleys at you. You’re many occasions nimbler than them, so you possibly can slalom by these volleys and place to fireplace your self. Your photographs aren’t a lot sooner than these of the opponent, so there’s just a little 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, it’s important to fear about them much less.
Within the opening moments of the sport, the place you’ve simply received the essential tank, you gained’t have the ability to hearth a lot multiple or two photographs at a time. The tank can be fairly gradual, albeit sooner than everybody else, together with the opposing shells. However killing tanks drops sweet, and selecting up that sweet provides you the foreign money for upgrades. Collect sufficient of them and you’ll unlock tanks and improve them too, till you’re whippet-fast, can hearth a number of volleys at a time, soak up harm and even protect your self from hearth. Not a lot can stand in your means when you’re absolutely upgraded (otherwise you’ve simply purchased a completely upgraded tank for 10,000 candies).
Having performed just about each EpiXR recreation, we anticipated this to be iffy across the controls, maybe with some bugs tossed in free of charge. However we’re happy to report that we judged this e-book by its writers. It’s nice enjoyable to manage, easy as whipped cream. Anybody might choose 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 good, as you possibly can weave round missiles if you happen to’re effectively ready. We’d have taken a barely sooner 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 precise choice of permitting you to simply outmaneuver the enemy. For those who’re surrounded, although, you’re in a spot of trouble.
Ranges aren’t your commonplace 2D jobbies. There are ramps up and down, in addition to arches that momentarily unsight you. There’s nothing spectacular within the stage 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 principally simply variants on pace, variety of photographs, and whether or not they stand nonetheless or transfer. Useful horns and crowns on the tanks provide you with an concept of which is which. Once more, within the opening ranges that is all fantastic and dandy. They by no means transfer quick sufficient to outrun your missiles, and the AI is uncomplicated, so you possibly can anticipate the place they’re going. That is nearly essentially the most accessible tank recreation you’ll ever trundle over together 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 just a little boggy after the primary dozen ranges or so. That’s as a result of Sugar Tanks can’t discover a technique to combine issues up, and its makes an attempt to make issues tougher merely don’t work.
There are not any stage components that get added in as the sport goes on. We anticipated slides, ferris wheels or different fancy components that match the theme, however all we received was extra ramps and arches. The degrees develop into longer, making it barely tougher to preserve your well being, however that’s in regards to the restrict of it. You’re going to get fairly sick of these pink wafers.
To introduce some problem, Sugar Tanks principally simply throws tanks at you. There aren’t any further tank varieties (outdoors of bosses, extra on them in a mo). There’s only a bloody nice mass of tanks round each nook, and it’s right down to you whether or not you Leroy Jenkins into the room, or undertake a extra tentative strategy. We received ok on the twin-stick controls to have our Leroy cake and eat it, however youthful gamers is likely to be compelled 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 stage makes an attempt an end-of-game boss by… throwing three of the boss tanks at you without delay. They’re bigger, making them simpler to hit, and soak up 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 onerous in any respect. We died as soon as, however solely as a result of we by accident selected a duff tank that intentionally makes it onerous for you (the interfaces are horrible, and make it inexplicably onerous 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 taking part in 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 we’ve a downer for Sugar Tanks, however we needs to be clear: this can be a lovingly created, approachable tank recreation that youthful gamers will most likely adore. It controls like a dream, and has the nifty skill to make you’re feeling such as you’re wonderful at it, although you’re simply sooner 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 recreation followers (or newbies to the style), however try to be conscious of the sugar-comedown on the midway mark.
