This received 89% of over 400 votes (must have been a weekend) and got 171 comments the first time it was given away, which you can see by following the link below:
http://game.giveawayoftheday.com/wwii-tank-commander/#comments
The downloaded zip file is 321Mb and the installed game will take up 1.03Gb of disc space, which is the largest game we’ve had given away on the game giveaway project so far.
The Game
There’s lots of scope to tweak the game to your particular computers system by going into the options menu, where you can change the graphics, sound, game play and controls. There’s more than your usual arcade game here to adjust, so whether you have an old or a new computer you should hopefully be able to adjust the settings to suit you computer. There’s no help menu, but the game controls are very simple, and self explanatory.
The game is either keyboard and/or mouse controlled. The controls are simple. There are four commands that you will need the keyboard for, unless you have a decent mouse that allows you to map an extra four keys (mine only has an extra two buttons, but that’s better than none)
Each mission is introduced with a short story and mission objectives, then you’re into the thick of the game. I would recommend this game to anyone who doesn’t possess any other games of this type though I personally wouldn’t buy the game. I only downloaded it the first time around just to check it out so that I could review it as I have done today. The game is quite good for the size of the download, but the controls are not very responsive and, as I think The Belgian Dude said, the AI is virtually non existent. Take for example the first mission, within a few seconds of starting you are given the order to fire upon two Panzer tanks to the left. If you stop immediately you can fire on them with impunity as they do not respond to your attacks; though if you get within a certain range they will retaliate. I think I’ll stick to my battlefield games as they are far more realistic and immersive. If you are into tank battles there are loads of custom made maps that have been specifically designed with that in mind. If you are interested just ask and I can give you lists and links to almost any map that BF2 has to offer
There’s no need to ramble on about this one because the Belgian Dude comment #38 and Mike comment #12 posted links (from the previous giveaway; see above link) to a few excellent reviews that are written far better than I could ever manage. You can see these by following the link below:
http://www.gamerankings.com/itemrankings/launchreview.asp?reviewid=637594
http://pc.gamezone.com/gamesell/reviews/r24868.htm
http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/924559.asp
Also check out the Googled images of the game below. For some reason my screen capture device (capture wiz pro) wont work when a Merscom game is loaded.:
http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q=WWII+Tank+Commander&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2
Conclusion
This is definitely worth the download if you have the time left (for those on dial up. I don’t know what the situation is with respect to those on dial up. If you are, someone suggested using a download manager, which seems a very good idea. As I’ve already said I doubt I’ll be keeping this one as I have much better games that this just doesn’t compare with, though if you don’t have anything like it it’s a must have. Overall I’d give this a 6.5 out of 10 for game play, but that’s trying to be objective. I’d probably score it much lower if I was comparing it to other games with tanks and a 3D world in them. If you have a reasonable connection then you should at least try the game. The boys will probably love it.
Notes
If you’re into tank games or generally anything to do with warfare I would highly recommend Battlefield 2, though there’s a whole plethora of titles to choose from, many of which I have bought. (Crysis and CoD4 are probably the best graphically, but you need a very fast computer (at least a 3Ghz dual core with a high end graphics card just to run it on medium settings) But BF2 is the one I always come back to simply because the game play is easy or as hard as you wish, and there’s an almost never-ending supply of custom made maps and modifications (mod’s) to add to the 10 or so you get with the original game (plus several more from the patches that were released – the latest of which is v1.41 . You can pick up a copy for around the same price that you’d pay for today’s game (if you had to buy it that is) and it’s far more versatile, with an AI, that is relatively good (though the latest games are obviously much better) but is mile ahead of WWII Tank commander.
Check out some tank images from Battlefield 2 most are from my Beta testing so are not the best, but they certainly will give you a good idea as to what the game looks like. They are all in different folders hence the separate links. You are quite welcome to search through the whole of the account as there are hundreds of images posted of Battlefield 2. Just follow the last two links and select the albums to the left of the page. The images in the first of those two links are from my single player review and probably give a better idea as to what the game looks like as most of the ones from the second link are looking for glitches and other faults in the maps that I was testing, though not all of them.
http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/Road%20to%20Karkand/RoadtoKarkand.jpg
http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/Road%20to%20Karkand/RoadtoKarkand2.jpg
http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/Sands%20of%20Sinai/screen147.jpg
http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/Lost%20Island/LostIsland.png
http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/CPAbadan/CPAbadan2.jpg
http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/Desert%20Storm/Desertstormassault.jpg
http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/Island%20City/IslandCity2.jpg
http://s191.photobucket.com/albums/z13/whiterabbit_uk/Singleplayer%20Review/
http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/
The above images were taken while I beta tested the particular maps or took screen captures for a BF2 review I’ve been working on for quite some time, so aren’t representative of what there actually is, as many modder’s have re-skinned and added more tank models to the game. There’s approaching around 200Gb of extra free content for that game now and despite being nearly 3 years old it still kicks a**.
As I mentioned in the comments section, you can pick up the earlier games in the Battlefield series for even less. I know for certain that Wal-Mart were selling Battlefield Vietnam for $10 and the first set called Battlefield 1941 which includes all the expansion packs for about the same price. Both of these games also have a lot of custom content, more so for the first release, but I have around 200 extra single player maps for Battlefield vietnam alone and there’s twice that many multiplayer maps. Though for Battlefield 2 your talking nearly 1000 singleplayer maps, though there are loads of versions of eachdefsult map, with custom content added, or the time of day changed to give it a different atmospher.
I apologize for going on so. I just think that WWII Tank Commander, though a decent enough game, is really a big rip off as it remains the same price year in year out as most arcade games do, whereas all the big budget games reduce in price significantly, and wen a sequel is released they plummet (eg Battlefield Vietnam that I paid the equivalent of $60 for is now $10) Thankfully it's free today. :lol:
