Cats Tanks

In Brief

Cats Tanks is a retro looking top down tank game that is similar to the tank game we were given four months ago called Buttle Tanks and could be argued its an updated version of the old school NES tank games Battle City and Tank.

Game Play

The aim of Cat's Tanks is to destroy a certain number of tanks on each of the 30 levels and to protect your base. If you wander too far from your base you may lose it, so you must keep an eye open for re-spawning tanks all the time. I lost the game several times even though I avoided being hit by any tank simply because I'd forgotten to watch my base. Some blocks are indestructible, others are not, e.g. the brick types. This can be used to your advantage when stalking particular tanks as they can be used to ambush enemy tanks by hiding behind them until the opportunity arises where you can destroy the block and shoot the enemy tank before they have time to respond. At the start of the game you get three tank lives, but as mentioned above, your base is more important as that can be destroyed easily. The game includes power ups such as freeze time that stops all enemey tanks in their tracks for a short time. They cannot fire back at you, so seize the opportunity to destroy as many tanks as possible during the freeze time period. There's also extra lives to collect, increased fire rate and a force field that protects you from enemy fire for a short period.

Introduction:

Tanks game - which will make you remember the past and help test new feelings. To all fans of classical tanks - dedicated. Protect your headquarters from a variety of enemies. Manage the cat on the bike, shoot at all enemies, bypassing obstacles, smash and collect bonuses. Many levels, many enemies and many bonuses - it's all waiting for you in Cats Tanks

Reference accessed HERE. 28th Aug 2019

Game play:

If you enjoyed playing those old tank games where you move around a maze-like board shooting other tanks, then this game is probably a worthwhile download. It has all the elements you’ll remember from that old game, plus 30 levels to work through. There are similar games like this available on many of the flash game sites such as Kongregate and you’ll even find some via the bigger PC based free game sites (see below for links).

Game Controls:

Menu - LMB
Forward W or ↑
Back = S or ↓
Left = A or ←
Right = D or →
Fire = Space

Conclusion:

Today's version has a cartoonish feel to it, but plays virtually the same as those old games. Personally I found it not very challenging (despite having my base destroyed several times), but would still give it a thumbs up despite all of the Steam reviews giving it a negative review.

You can see Steam community comments and reviews HERE and a video of game play via the Steam store page HERE

If you never got the chance to play either Tank or Battle City, there have been other remakes of the game, at least two of which has been previously given away here. Also, you can find some of these tank games on MyPlayCity and other free game sites for example: Battle City , Hell Buggies, Tank Commander , Tank o Box, Combatant Area, Tank Assault X and Mini Metal (3D version).

For those interested in capturing their youth, or for those wanting to experience those heady days of the early console games, there are many emulators available for virtually every console ever made, plus many of the game titles for all those games are available for free as ROM's via many dedicated sites. of course you need to be careful that you are downloading from a safe site, so you should always do a little research first and check all downloads using sites like Virus Total or similar sites to make sure they are safe. If you were interested in playing one of the tank games I mentioned above e.g. Battle City you can find several NES emulators HERE and thousands of ROM's including one for Battle City HERE. You'll find sites that dedicate to particular consoles and others that cover all the popular ones. There are thousands of those games available for free. Abandonware sites also offer a great choice of older PC games, though many of the best have been hoovered up by sites like Good Old Games, who've tracked down the original license holders and either purchased or got permission to sell them. If you find any game on an abondonware site that is now available for sale, you should report the site, or at least warn it that they are giving away a game that is still under license. Abandonware sites are a grey area in law. The term abandonware says it all. Some of the games developers went bust, some no longer exist (i.e. have passed away) and others have just abandoned their games and moved on to better things. Some people don't agree with abandonware sites. Personally I think they are great. I was able to download many games I'd previously purchased, but could no longer play either because the original floppy's I'd purchased were corrupted, or I couldn't get them to work on newer systems. I regrettably (and stupidly) dumped thousands of cassette, floppy disks (both the original 8'', 5½ and 3½ disks) plus console cartridges about 15 years ago into a skip when we were having some house renovations carried out. Months later I found out about emulators and hardware that was available via my local computer shop that would have allowed me to play those games via new gadgets that had been developed that would allow you to play almost any of the original cassettes, disks and cartridges via my PC's. I could have pulled my hair out in frustration. Thankfully since then software emulators as well as the ROM's for virtually all of those games are now readily available for free.

Check out the following links for details of other free games HERE (giveaway forums), HERE (Indie Gala freebies), HERE (Steam freebies) and HERE (Epic Games freebies). The latest Epic game is now Fez a pixel graphic 2D puzzle platformer worth £6.99. Later today this will change over to two more games worth £30 called Celeste (a super-tight platformer from the creators of TowerFall. Brave hundreds of hand-crafted challenges, uncover devious secrets, and piece together the mystery of the mountain) and Inside (an atmospheric puzzle platformer).

Steam has one of those AAA play for free on at the moment This time it's a game called Surge, a sci fi hack & slash action RPG which you can play in its entirety until later today (6pm UK time) HERE