


The player's tank is killed instantly upon being shot and doesn't get different bullets or abilities. Some enemy tanks will shoot bullets that bounce off walls, which at least adds a little challenge, but the bouncing bullets can be easily avoided enemies also place mines, which are so obvious that it's hard to imagine anyone being killed due to not noticing one. Enemy tanks, which have various different abilities and powers, don't appear to have much of an AI at all, but rather move in loose patterns and shoot at the player in quick succession. The controls take a bit of getting used to, but feel right for a game in which you control a tank you move with the shoulder buttons while using the left analogue stick, while pressing A fires. The player controls a small tank that moves at a snail's pace through several different levels, with the sole objective to destroy all the other enemy tanks. Toon Tanks feels like a modern re-skin of the 1977 Atari title Combat, a top-down, single-screen tank shooter. While Toon Tanks works just fine in what it sets out to do, the lack of scope or variety makes it hard to justify a purchase - it attempts to inject some personality into what otherwise feels like a tutorial or template from a game design program, but these few touches do little to distinguish it from myriad other experiences on the eShop. There have been many games released that are finished and functional, but don't contain the degree of polish that we have come to expect. Petite Games' Toon Tanks is a good example of a current issue present in the Wii U eShop in North America.
