Tank Force

Tank Force (タンクフォース, Tanku Fōsu) is a multi-directional shooter arcade game that was released by Namco in 1991; it was the last game to run on their System 1 hardware (which had been in use for four years), is the sequel to Battle City, which was released six years earlier and is a sequel to Tank Battalion, which had been released five years before it (and eleven years before this title). The game was included as part of the Namco Museum compilation for the Nintendo Switch on July 28, 2017.

Tank Force
Developer(s)Namco
Publisher(s)Namco
Designer(s)Mr. Demo
Y. Kounoe
SeriesTank Battalion
Platform(s)Arcade
Release
  • JP: December 1991
Genre(s)Multi-directional shooter
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer
CabinetUpright
Arcade systemNamco System 1

Gameplay

The gameplay is very much like that of Tank Battalion, except that this time up to two (on an upright model) or four (on a cocktail) players can play simultaneously, there are seven new ("regular") types of enemy tanks (Normal Tanks, Speed Tanks, Hard Tanks, Big Tanks, Rapid Tanks, Tomahawk Tanks and Jeeps) and there is fifteen types of powerups (Bonus 500, 1000, 2000 and 3000, Shot Powerup, 4-Way Shot, Hyper Shot, Ripple Laser, Twin Shot, Small, Shield, Bomb Attack, Timer Stop, Force Field and Extend) which appear for players to collect in order to increase their tanks' firepower and boost their score (the one with the highest at the end of any round conquers its hexagon on the overworld map); each round is also the size of 17x13 blocks instead of just 13x13 off Tank Battalion and Battle City, the enemies also roll into view from the top of the screen instead of just appearing and can also enter from the left and right sides, every fourth round is a "boss" round where the players must fight Train Cannons, AK Tanks and Boss Cannons at the top of the screen as well as the round's regular enemies, the players cannot destroy their own headquarters walls, when one player shoots another they will be pushed back (instead of getting stunned for a few seconds), and the game has an ending which will be seen after clearing all thirty-six rounds. The game's seventeenth round is also made to look like Pac-Man - even though Tōru Iwatani had no involvement with the title.

Reception

In Japan, Game Machine listed Tank Force on their February 1, 1992 issue as being the fourth most-successful table arcade game of the year.[1]

In his review for Namco Museum on the Nintendo Switch, Damien McFerran of Nintendo Life said that Tank Force made for an odd inclusion due to its obscurity, describing it as "Pac-Man with tanks and destructible environments".[2]

gollark: The shops only have materials for 4, sorry.
gollark: Okay then, I now need... 96 iron ingots.
gollark: 32 of them.
gollark: Well, I'll rephrase that, I just need iron ingots.
gollark: What's the lowest price?

References
  1. "Game Machine's Best Hit Games 25 - テーブル型TVゲーム機 (Table Videos)". Game Machine (in Japanese). No. 419. Amusement Press, Inc. 1 February 1992. p. 25.
  2. McFerran, Damien (28 July 2017). "Namco Museum Review (Switch eShop)". Nintendo Life. Gamer Network. Archived from the original on 1 September 2019. Retrieved 1 May 2020.


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