BattleTanx (Game Boy Color)

US cover.

BattleTanx is a scrolling shooter developed by Lucky Chicken Games and published by The 3DO Company for the Game Boy Color on 2000-03-28. It is based on the original two BattleTanx games.

In the game's story, 99% of women have been killed by a virus causing society to collapse, and the few who remain are fought over by men. You play a tank operator named Griffin whose girlfriend Madison has been kidnapped. Using your tank, you destroy various enemy tank gangs across the USA in order to rescue Madison.

Personal

I played this game to learn more about the Game Boy Color's library of games. I knew nothing about the BattleTanx franchise when I played it, and beat the story mode on my first try on 2021-12-04. I found the game to be pretty awful.

Status

I don't own the game, but I have beaten its story mode on easy difficulty.

Review

3	3	4	3	2

Best Version: Game Boy Color

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

• Nothing really. This game is pretty bad.

Bad

• The map graphics are pretty amateur, the cut-scene art has bad attribute clash, and the kerning on the game's typeface is noticeably off for several letters.
• The two weapon power-ups (rockets and rebound) are both weaker than the default shot. They only add a bit of extra mobility, but I found the additional damage of the default shot to be superior most of the time.
• The tilted perspective is nice, but it doesn't allow for going behind large objects. For example, as you drive over the Golden Gate Bridge, you have to drive around the bridge towers!
• Changing tanks with each level doesn't fit with the story line.
• The audio sounds pretty generic.
• The passwords use tank icons which can't easily be transcribed.
• Only being able to destroy buildings which are painted blue kind of hurts immersion, and it's strange that the smaller buildings take as many shots as the middle-sized buildings.
• For some reason, destroying bystander cars and trees gives you points.

Ugly

• The game play is very repetitive. The first level shows you pretty much everything you're going to see for the rest of the game. There are only three tanks and a tower and a handful of power-ups. There isn't even a boss to defeat, the final level is just a slightly harder version of the first level.
• The story is awful. Not just because it's written poorly, but killing off most of the world's women in order for men to fight over those who remain is pretty sick. Madison is both a damsel in distress and a reward for the player.
• Although the game seems perfectly suited for it, it does not have a multiplayer mode. The "Battle Mode" just lets you choose a map from the list with a tank of your choice.

Media

Box Art

• 

  The US cover shows Griffin unwisely sticking his head out of his tank flanked by a nuked New York City. It does a good job depicting the game's story.

• 

  The toned down European cover just shows a tank with a close up of its barrel.

Videos

Longplay.

Links