Granny Vinnie Reviews

7800 Rank: 56th Genre Rank: (Action/ Adventure) 18th Awards: Worst Graphics, 5th Worst Sound, 8th Worst Gameplay, Worst Originality Who Says Pink Countries Aren't Evil??? Pros: Educates us on the Evils of Marshmallow-y Goodness Cons: A Barebones Rip-Off of Vertical Shooters Pink! The Color of Evil! EVIIIIIILLLLLL!!!

Overview: Tank Command is the most difficult 1st run game to obtain for the Prosystem. So hard, in fact, that it is the only game I do not own... Mitch Orman from Atari7800.org lent me his copy for the review. Because of this, I don't know if I will ever shell out the 60 plus clams on ebay for this pile of poop. Even though one game is about an ugly man being drug by an unmanned boat across deadly waters, and the other is about a lone tank going head to head against randomly placed baddies over a marshmallow wonderland, it is amazing how similar Froggo's 7800 games Water Ski and Tank Command are. Both have two word titles. Both come in ugly white boxes. Both have yucky graphics. Both feature long rambling levels. Both have insane difficulty increases between levels. I personally believe the people who tested these games never graduated high school. And because of that most people aren't missing out when they cannot justify spending 50 bucks a cart for these two stinkers.

Graphics: This game is ugly with a capital UG. I wonder what made the artists decide to place this wartime tank game in a fluffy pink wonderland. I mean, are we invading Barbie's evil empire or what? There is not much to see in Tank Command, either. Tanks, mesas, pillboxes, a bomb, and a running idiot who charges your tank is all you have to gawk at. None are done particularly well, either. On screen text is strikingly similar to Water Ski's as well. Excited, yet? Oh well.

Sound: When I was thinking on what to write for this category, all I could come up with is this: Evil Mud. There you go. You decide what that means for yourself. Sorry to be so vague, but that's all I got.

Gameplay: The game is reminiscent of Commando and Ikari Warriors with the vertical scrolling warfare, except that the protagonist tank is much more difficult to control than your standard Rambo soldier. A unique aspect of the gameplay is that you can control the angle of your gun turret, which can shorten up or lengthen your cannon range. For some reason, Froggo calls this "Energy". Yeah, I know, we all could have come up with something better than that. This actually makes the game worse for a reason that is hard to explain, but it basically comes down to the fact that diagonal shots have much longer range than shooting up, down, left or right. This is very tough to judge and gets annoying fast. It is best just to set a distance in the middle and stick with. Levels are long and rambling, with enemies thrown here and there thoughtlessly. Levels have no personality or memorable obstacles to over come. Damage to pillboxes are difficult to judge. And to add to the mindless difficulty of the game, Tank Command has included the fact that your tank needs constant fuel to continue to move. This is not new or particularly annoying on its own, but considering the fact that fuel power ups are so sparsely placed that there is no way to obtain one before your tank becomes immobile adds to the hilarity.

Originality: This game offers nothing new to the gaming world and it tries to emulate better games' features but does poorly. I say "Boo!"

Value: Like Water Ski, the first level is a chore to get through. But after about 5 to 8 minutes of trudging through the fluffy evil of this forsaken countryside, a funny noise blurps and the Level counter reaches two. Then, the enemy tanks randomly move around at a greater speed, making it impossible to defend yourself on this small of a playing field. I would like to find the man (or woman) who could last past level 2 and shake his hand. Then I would slap him in the face for wasting his life. The game is just to hard and not rewarding enough to enjoy. For crying out loud, you are given 7 lives! What game starts you off with 7 lives??? This is apparently how the programmers tried to fix the difficulty curve.

Overall: I was not expecting much from Tank Command, and I was shocked to realize that is a lot worse than I thought it would be. It is just apparent the programmers didn't give two craps about this game. Folks, all I gotta say is save your money. 60 bucks can get you one hell of a pedicure.



The only sucker to review this one:
CV's Atari 7800 Panoramic Froo-Froo: 2.5 out of 5.0 (Weak)



Additional Info: I would like to take this time to thank Mitch Orman, owner of The Atari 7800 Page for allowing the use of his screenshots for this review.

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