Tank! Tank! Tank! Is A Game For Godzilla Fans Who Also Love Heavy Artillery

By Spencer . June 7, 2012 . 5:20pm

I first saw Tank! Tank! Tank! in a Japanese arcade. I saw it again today at Namco Bandai’s E3 booth, which had the Wii U version available to play. Tank! Tank! Tank! is essentially a kaiju shooting game you can play with your friends.

 

The game begins by taking your picture with the camera on the Wii U’s tablet. Sort of like Ridge Racer on the 3DS or Mario Kart GP, Tank! Tank! Tank! uses that photo as an icon to identify each player’s tank. After I took my photo, I started blasting giant ants. Four "players" (three were computer controlled for the demo) raced to blast giant ants. The tank was easy to control using the two analog sticks and the trigger buttons to fire shells. Power ups like a faster firing machine gun were scattered around the stage for other players to compete for. The battlefield in Tank! Tank! Tank! is destructible so you can demolish buildings and make a new route to drive through. After the mission ends, a score meter shows how many ants each player blasted.

 

 

A three headed dragon that emerged from the water in the next level and all four tanks scrambled to takedown the giant, fire breathing creature down. I drove around the arena and scrounged up power ups. The machine gun worked OK, but a Namco Bandai rep suggested the missile pod was a better weapon for the fight. The dragon retaliated by lunging forward and grabbed another tank with its metallic teeth.

 

The neatest feature in Tank! Tank! Tank! wasn’t available to try. One player can control Kong, a giant monster, and the other players have to shoot you down. Tank! Tank! Tank! also has a single player mission mode, but really this feels like the kind of game you want to play when you have friends over. I asked if the game would have online play too and a Namco Bandai rep couldn’t confirm if it would or not.