Direct Link : My Little Tank
Publisher : Astraware

Price : $19.95

Graphics : 7 out of 10
Sound : 8 out of 10
Gameplay : 8 Out of 10
Longevity : 7 Out of 10
Overall : 7.5 Out of 10

ATTENTION!!! ARE YOU READY TO DRIVE SOLDIER? GO!!! Wow every boys fantasy come true. OK, that’s not quite accurate, but I must say I’ve always fancied myself as a tank driver and now I’ve got my chance. Thinking back though, I did drive a tank a bit in the 70s with Atari’s Tank Battle. Oh yeah and I also drove a tank in the 80s in Atari’s Battlezone. The 90s were a lean period for tanks, but now we’re in the Noughties, Astraware have me back behind the wheel (or is it sticks) with My Little Tank.

First off, let me say congratulations to Astraware. Not only do they support the standard 240×320 display and the VGA 480×640 display, they also support the new 240×240 display, all within the same installed program. This is excellent news as I sometimes like to revert back to 240×320 for gameplay reasons. Let’s hope more developers do the same.

So what’s the game all about then. The basic premise of the game is to drive your tank around and blow up things. I said basic premise as there’s a lot more to the gameplay than that. As the levels (and there’s 60 of them) progress, the enemies get more and more aggressive and require more than 1 shot to destroy. The game also covers numerous terrains that scroll as you move and you encounter 5 different types of enemy tank.

As the game unfolds you also come across different power ups, that give your tank additional powers, for a limited time:

• Smart Bombs - Destroy all enemies within a given range.
• Life Bonuses - Regenerate your tank
• Speed ups - Give your tanks some additional speed.
• Invincibility - Makes your tank invincible
• Weapons Upgrades - Gives your tanks some additional weapons
• Freeze Bonuses - Freezes all opponents

Pocket PC’s weren’t really designed to play action games, but with some careful thought when designing games, many of the limitations can be overcome. With My Little Tank, you can either use the conventional control, i.e. the D-pad and the hardware buttons or you can use the stylus on the screen to tell your tank where you want it to go and then use the hardware buttons for firing. On the Dell X50v i much prefer the stylus approach, but some other Pocket PCs have the controls perfectly arranged for this kind of game.

Conclusion : This is a little gem of a game. The presentation is very well done and the gameplay is spot on. This game should provide quite the long term challenge. I would have liked an additional hard level, just to give the seasoned gamer an additional challenge, once the game has been completed.