Tiny Tank. A little known game that packs a really good arcade punch.
Before you think this is a dark toned Terminator Movie type of game, let me stop you first. If anything it is a comedy, Tiny Tank and his rivals are comic book type characters, with personalities. T.T. himself is a smartmouth all through the game. There are also funny between level movie scenes, featuring flashbacks of Tiny Tank being filmed for a commercial to promote himself by Centrax,. Centrax was devoted to making war machines under the slogan "Centrax;; We make war, so humans don't have to" Tiny Tank was their premeire product to do the job. After the freak accident that made all machines alive, (Caused by Centrax and Tiny Tank), he was sent, sleeping, into an orbit above the earth, as a last defense should man need one. The cut scenes are witty, and their function is to further show Tiny's personality as a human friendly, but war making machine.
The graphics in this game are overall very colorful, with characters resembling cartoon types. The sound quality is also fairly Play Staion standard, with a selectable Techno soundtrack, but not a huge variety. By about level 4 you'll be turning the music off, Tiny Tank's constant quips and catch phrases you are stuck with throughout the game, unfortunately. The gameplay itself is very fast moving, and packed full of blowing things up. This is Definitely an arcade action game! Controls are easy to master, and in the actual game, you are able to upgrade TT, with various items you take from his exploded victims. These pickups are Positronic Brains, used to power up any of Tiny's five gun mounts, provided you also manage to pick up the different Guns left by the fallen, but that isn't really hard, every enemy leaves something behind. There are also (very) temporary Shields, Fuel refills, and an occasional Extra Life -but those you have to look for. With the last Boss defeated in each sublevel, you then take thier main weapon to use against the Main Boss at the end of that same level. You don't get to Keep your pickups across levels, but those pickups then become available on next levels. As additional skillsTiny Tank can hover in air briefly, jump, side step and even roll over.
Throughout the game there is a talk radio program running, which you haven't the option to turn off. The program is run by the machines, and features your Final Game Boss, as the host and DJ, by the name of New Tank. This talk show only appears at the begining of each level, but eventually ends, letting the game music take over. This is deliberately placed there to give you clues about defeating that level's Main Boss. That boss comes on the talk show to introduce themself to New Tank. Here they inadvertently drop hints about their weakness, not realizing Tiny Tank is also listening.
The play fields (levels) are varied, but always following a technology, or machine oriented theme. Each of these levels are broken into about 3 smaller sub levels in the larger main level. Each level gives opportunities to use TT skills -hovering, etc.There are also enough levels to conquer that you'll probably shut the game off before it ends. Action arcade games can't sustain interest for a huge amount of time.Tiny Tank never gets 'hung up' on the graphics, and you'll never 'see' through graphics like some other games this age. I do not mention the Multiplayer (internet) feature available with Tiny Tank- I didn't try it myself, but for your reference one does exist on this PlayStation game. If play on that was as fast paced and exciting as I found 1 player to be, then I am sorry I missed out.
I still own Tiny Tank, it gives me one of the better arcade game experiences in my collection, fast moving and explosive -the way I like my arcade games. Don't ask me why this game didn't get more 'Press'. I find it to be very well done for what it is, even though it may seem kind of childish to look at. My only thought about it not being so well known is that perhaps Apaloosa Software released it too late in the Play Staion's heyday., and no one took much notice of it as a result. For what it's worth, as an arcade action game I liked it, you just might, also.