Preview: Gratuitous Tank Battles

Thanks to the guys at Positech Games – a UK based independent developer – darkzero got hands on with the beta release of their latest PC game, Gratuitous Tank Battles. The name Gratuitous might stand out for you if you’re a PC gamer. Their last title was Gratuitous Space Battles, a real-time strategy game where pre-battle planning was the key to successfully destroying the opposite team, as you had no interaction with the units once the battle had begun. It was an interesting take on the genre and made for some spectacular space battles that you could just sit and watch in all their glory.

Positech Games returns now with Gratuitous Tank Battles, a game that moves away from the real-time strategy genre and transfers into the realm of tower defence. This might make a few people go “ugh” since the rise in tower defence games certainly seems to be making a few gamers a little fed up with the genre. I must say though that Gratuitous Tank Battles has some key points that make this not just your average tower defence game. Instead, it’s a refreshing experience for the genre and an ingenious game in its own merits that gives you more control that Gratuitous Space Battles ever did, and other tower defence games for that matter.

Taking place in an alternate reality, where World War 1 never concluded, battles have continued on for two hundred years. This doesn’t mean technology hasn’t advanced. Units now consist of giant mechanical walking bipods, futuristic tanks with shields and humans with armour and high powered laser guns. Story isn’t an important feature in this game, and there’s really not much of it apart from text explaining the battle situation for whichever campaign mission you’re on.

What elevates Gratuitous Tank Battles above the genre’s norm is the ability to play as the attacker or defender. Defending plays like you would expect from a tower defence game, but after a few minutes it becomes clear it’s got more depth. At the beginning of a battle, you’re in a pause state and are given a limited amount of supply points to place down your initial defending units. You cannot simply place units where ever you would like to. On the map are specific locations that will determine if a unit can be placed there or not. Troops can only be placed in the bunkers while turrets are limited to areas that aren’t covered in rubble or other hazards that would block them. After the initial placement and the game starts, turrets will have to be built over time. Infantry, on the other hand, spawn instantaneously in their bunkers allowing for some quick safety if your defence is falling apart.

Adding to the challenge, the game doesn’t tell you what units are coming up next, so you have to guess at what type to put down. Units work better on their recommended usage as the game incorporates a rock, paper, scissors style approach. For example, a Pak 12 laser cannon is good for blowing off armour while the 41 flak cannon is good for removing shields off enemies. Having correct units grouped together is vital if you want to remain on top of the incoming enemy wave. During the course of the battle, your supply points gradually increase and allow you to make more units. There are other ways to add extra income to supplies, such as killing a group of soldiers and clicking on their dog tags that are left behind.

Once you’ve spent your initial supplies, it’s time to kick off the battle and let the enemies come down their designated lanes. A neat feature in the campaign is the inclusion of allowing the player to pick how the game will send its attacking units at your defences. You can have the pre-defined scripted enemies (ones that are always spawned in the same order) that aren’t affected by the three difficulty settings available. If people want more of a challenge, picking the option of adaptive A.I is a must. This lets the A.I learn against your tower placements and send better choices of units to fight against them. The last option is brilliant because you can take the adaptive A.I and allow it to use any unit it wants (including the units you’ve designed yourself, which I shall talk about later).

If you elect to attack instead of defend, you take control of what units will spawn. The idea is that you send the correct arsenal of weaponry to best the A.I’s defence placements and types. At the start of the attack, the game is again paused, but this time you can spawn around three or four units that you want to kick off the battle. These will then control themselves as they move fending off turrets and soldiers. You have to keep an eye out on what you spawn because units cannot overtake each other. If you spawn a fast moving unit behind a giant slow tank, you’ve wasted supplies because he’s just going to get picked off as he trundles behind the behemoth in front of him. Just like defending, supplies are built up over time giving you the chance to create more vehicles and infantry of destruction.

No matter what side you take in battle, winning depends on victory points (VP). Every attacking unit has a VP amount and the defenders have to make sure that the total VP that makes it across the map is less than the mission’s limit. Obviously, the attackers have to beat that limit to win. Infantry have lower VP and tanks and mechs normally have a higher amount. Reaching a certain point in the map will award attackers with a supply truck that can be spawned. It can’t attack and doesn’t have the greatest defence, but if players can protect it all the way to the end of the lane then they are awarded with a substantial VP bonus, making it much more easier to conquer the battle.

In Gratuitous Tank Battles, both in attacking and defending mode, players can force their turrets or attacking units to aim at explicit targets picked by the player, making it much more involving than Gratuitous Space Battles. You need to adapt to this if you want to beat higher difficulties, as the game will not always make the turrets shoot the unit you think is the most threatening to you. A great feature is that if you win or lose in a stage in the campaign mode, you are always rewarded with something. You get a bonus if you win by receiving a chance to unlock a new upgrade from a choice of two. All these upgrades go towards another key feature of Gratuitous Tank Battles, custom unit building.

Unit design is the place to go to create your custom built units and turrets. After picking models from the featured turrets, infantry, tanks and mechs, you can modify them with augmentations such as better armour penetration or longer range shooting. Armour, reloading speed, shields and other goodies can also be added. You need to keep playing the campaign to unlock everything, giving a feeling of progression in design as your unit gets better the more you play. Using better parts does mean the cost of creating the unit goes up, plus there is a limit slot on what you can add to what you are creating. You cannot simply make a death machine that features every weapon in the game so that it can destroy through armour and shields. Styling the unit is an option, with the ability to colour different parts of the model. I had a funky looking red and blue mech that featured some decent shielding, armour and a super heavy cannon. I named it Godmech and its comment is that it will “Eat you for breakfast.” I could spend ages making my own units with this feature and it’s a joy watching something you made do well in battle.

Creating doesn’t end there. You can also make your own levels with the easy to understand editor. Since everything is grid based, it’s a simple matter of dropping down what you want onto the map, be it roads, trees, bunkers and other props. Setting the direction of the attacking enemy is also done here. It’s stupidly easy to make your own maps. You can also put them online, but it’s done in a way that is a bit confusing.  You have to play the maps first and then it uploads your map along with a challenge if available. The challenge is a recording of what units you sent to attack in your custom map. It’s also available on the campaign missions as well.  People can then download this and try beat your attack with their defensive strategy. Your uploaded challenge will contain your custom made units too, so you can give some poor sap who decides to download your map/challenge a big surprise with a pink walking mech of doom. It’s a brilliant way to extend the life past the campaign and there are already some really good maps out there to download on the servers.

I’m impressed with what I’ve played of Gratuitous Tank Battles. The only problem I had with it was the way the community creation is handled. Apart from that, the game is clever and has more involving gameplay than any tower defence game I’ve played. The multitude of options is a great way to keep people playing the same maps again. Tower defence games are often trial and error as you learn what units are coming and memorise it for your next attempt. There is that here too, but, if you choose the adaptive A.I, you are always surprised by what is coming next, elevating the challenge to a new level. I had a couple of little bugs that I managed to sort out, though it’s understandable as the game is in the beta stage at the moment. If you want to have a chance of playing the beta, you can preorder the game right now here and jump straight into it yourself. Here’s a recent trailer below to arouse your interest in Gratuitous Tank Battles even more.