Tank Fantastic

Uhhhhh... Not so much on the "Fantastic" part. Top down tank game in sort of mild maze areas with some limited destructable terrain. There, that's out of the way. I can see the game that the developers thought they were making. I can. But it's well hidden under some really poor design choices and what I can only assume are unintentional glitches. Sadly, the whole is less than the sum of the parts. The play loop of get blown up and collect a few coins till you can move fast enough to dodge the insta-kill (till you seriously upgrade your health) shots is just not enough. They lean too heavily on the idea of getting killed and upgrading to get to the next level to be any fun. Like I said, I can see where they may have thought they were going. Alas. They did not get there. I mentioned glitches. Yes. Specifically the fact that your health bar rotates with your tank and um... well it stays with the tank but does not seem to know where, in relation to said tank, it wants to be. I can't concieve that this was intentional. So far as poor design choices... There are a few. I won't bore you with to many details but it's never a good idea to put a GUI element, especially a large one, in a position over the play area where it might be hiding your tank or others. I bought this thing for $0.99 American. Eh... it was mildly amusing for about 20 mins. I figure I could go through 4 quarters in an arcade in 20 minutes... on a below average day. So I'm not upset. I wouldn't pay more than that for this. Would I recommend this game? Sorry. Nope.

[quote][b][url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_flip]Warning: Asset Flip![/url][/b] Tank Fantastic is a Digital Homicide style asset flip, or what Valve calls a "Fake Game". The Russian "developer" paid for/pirated a few asset store packs, dumped them all in a blender, and submitted it to Valve as if they're real game developers.[/quote] Two notable criteria for what makes an asset flip instead of legitimate use of stock assets are whether those assets comprise the majority of the game, and whether the "developer" properly credited the people who created most of the assets in the game. This game fails both of those tests. The "developers" here didn't credit any of the artists and real, actual game developers who created the assets here, so this is plagiarism, as well as cash grab shovelware. In this case, the Russian asset flipper took an Unreal engine template for a top down shooter, dumped on some asset flipped low poly tanks and a couple of other minimum effort elements to make a garbage mimimum viable product. It has no value or merit as a real game. Neatan Games/Piece Of Voxel have shown a repeat pattern of unethically dumping other people's work onto Steam as a cheap, nasty cash grab, through this account or through closely linked/alt accounts. Here's some examples so you can see for yourself: [list] [*] "[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/1660460]Hoples[/url]" = [url=https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/2d/characters/pixel-adventure-1-155360]Pixel Adventure 1[/url] developed by Pixel Frog [*] "[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/1547820]Top Truck Driver[/url]" = [url=https://marketplace.yoyogames.com/assets/5820/hill-racing-template-gms1-2]Hill Racing Template[/url] developed by Janko Knez [*] "[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/1655880]Kings and Pigs[/url]" = [url=https://pixelfrog-assets.itch.io/kings-and-pigs]Kings and Pigs[/url] developed by Pixel Frog [*] "[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/1787640]Kings and Pigs Prequel[/url]" = [url=https://pixelfrog-assets.itch.io/kings-and-pigs]Kings and Pigs[/url] developed by Pixel Frog [*] "[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/1587940]DuelVox Max Quality[/url]" = [url=https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/western-desert-town]Western Desert Town[/url] developed by KK Design [/list] The game is very simplistic, small and limited in scope and ambition. This feels more like a tech demo, proof of concept or student homework assignment rather than a fully fledged product designed for PC gamers. As such it doesn't offer any real value as a serious PC game. That's typical for asset flips... it's not about making a game for gamers. They just want some roubles for as little effort as possible. Taking this shovelware seriously as if it was a genuine attempt to make a game, it doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard. The game features lazy minimalist/untextured low-polygon "retro" assets and visuals, making this look like a barely functional 3D game from the early 1990s. The lack of textures is a method that lazy devs often use to disguise their lack of talent/interest in doing the graphics properly and trying to disguise it under the name of "art", or "We made it look bad on purpose", which really isn't something gamers should have to put up with. It's unclear why the developers weren't willing to arrange high quality, high polygon count contemporary assets and high resolution textures for the game. It looks bad as a result of their decisions, and that's just another reason to avoid it. The poor quality of this game is reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak player number was only 2 players, and the worst part is these weren't genuine players, these were the Russian fake review accounts that the developer paid to make the fake reviews. Since the fake reviews are all done, now the only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 100,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected. It's also important to note the "developer" here has connections to a number of shady Russian asset flippers and review manipulators who show an organised pattern to scam and defraud gamers with fake reviews and asset flipping the work of others for profit. While reviews are about the games, gamers should be informed when developers act unethically. Whether these connections are the same developer using multiple accounts, or just working closely with other unethical developers, gamers should be warned about the harm to gamers by this developer and their associates. Buying games from unethical developers puts your money at risk. [b][quote][url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2017/01/18/steam-takes-down-art-of-stealth-after-developer-posts-fake-reviews/?sh=750e13e12354]Warning: Review Manipulation![/url][/quote][/b]This game features a number of fake positive reviews from accounts known to be in the business of review manipulation/paid reviews. They're all written in either Russian or broken English, appear at almost exactly the same time, very shortly after the game launched on Steam, all have a direct Steam purchase of the game, and the accounts are used consistently to write fake reviews for asset flips and other cash grabs/scams. The "Positive" review score on this game should be disregarded due to this blatant, unethical review manipulation. This is done to deceive and scam gamers into paying for a bad product. So, should you buy this game? Is this one of the best of the 100,000+ games on Steam? Tank Fantastic has the comically over-optimistic price of $10 USD, for which you could easily get any number of older AAA games. Given the defects and quality issues with the game, coupled with the unrealistic price, and the questionable ethical nature of the developer and/or their associates (as outlined above), this is impossible to recommend. For comparison, the $10 asking price for this game could get you games like "Alien: Isolation", "Disco Elysium" or "7 Days to Die". Quality, professionally made games like those are frequently on sale cheaper than this. [quote][b][url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/profile]Profile Features Limited![/url][/b] Valve have marked this game as "Profile Features Limited" at the time of this review. This is usually caused by poor sales figures and low community acceptance for the game (to date). Until this status changes, this game will not give you +1 to your Game Collector badge count, appear in profile achievements or any other Steam meta-accomplishments, nor can it be displayed in some profile showcases. If these factors are important to you, it may be worth holding off before buying this game.[/quote]

Nope. And there's a glitch: if you die, you can shoot the enemies without entering the arena, without them shooting back.