World of Tanks

It's not often that a free-to-play game enjoys the amount of success that World of Tanks has in the past couple of years. While massively more popular in countries like Russia and Belarus, World of Tanks has steadily earned followers across the rest of the world as well, and for good reason. The large competitive multiplayer battles that make up this game form an exhilarating experience that anyone should try. And why not try it? It's free. Who knows? Maybe you'll end up not only spending money on it willingly, but also your life and all of your free time.

The action in World of Tanks consists entirely of large 15 vs. 15 elimination battles between teams of various kinds of tanks, and boy, there are a lot of them. Currently, the tanks of six nations; US, UK, Germany, USSR, France, and China; are well represented here, with most of these tanks coming from the WWII era. From famous tanks such as the M4 Sherman and the Tiger to more obscure models that never made it past the blueprints, World of Tanks has you covered with hundreds of them. Battles do not limit teams to one nation, so you could be in a match with a German Panther and a Soviet KV-1 on the same team. Each nation has its own characteristics that diversify the playing field. German guns, for example, tend to be more accurate; Soviet guns are generally more powerful; and some French tanks contain autoloaders that can deal lots of damage quickly but then take a long time to reload multiple shells. There are five types of tanks in this game: Lights, Mediums, Heavies, Tank Destroyers, and Artillery, and each tank has its own unique characteristics that may deviate from the norm of its class. You may find that one light tank is best for speeding past enemies and circling artillery while another light tank is best suited for flanking other tanks alongside mediums.

World of Tanks currently boasts three different game modes: Standard Battles pit two teams to fight over each others' bases, Encounter has one base that both teams fight over, and Assault has one team defend a base while the other attempts to take it. Before starting a match, you must pick a tank to enter battle. There are dozens of maps in the game ranging from big open fields to closed cities. You never know which map you'll end up on, and as such you must adapt to the various physical characteristics of each map in order to survive. Some maps contain cities that provide cover while others have rocks and hills you can use to your advantage. No two battles play out in the exact fashion, and it's up to you and your team to figure out the course of battle, and hopefully win by either wiping out all enemy tanks or successfully capturing their base.

Tanks are organized into tiers that determine which tanks they will end up battling. You'll never see a T-26 light tank in the same battle as the massive Maus heavy. For the most part, the matchmaking of tiers is favorable. Some battles you put you near the top of the list, and you'll have a chance to explode lesser tanks out of their misery. Other battles will put you near the bottom, but even the weakest tank in the match is crucial to victory. As with most competitive multiplayer games, it can be a problem when two teams of equal tiers contain players of vastly disproportionate skill. One tier 8 player may be very bad, and another tier 8 player may be one of the best in the game, so it isn't rare to see one side totally dominate the other. Play well, however, and you're just as likely to be on the winning side as you are on losing side.

Playing well can be a problem, however, as the learning curve is insanely high. While there is a tutorial that teaches new players the bare basics, there's a lot more that it doesn't teach. Players may start off thinking this is a typical multiplayer shooter with tanks instead of dudes; however, killing other players isn't as simple as spotting and dumping. Each tank has armor with a thickness value that determines how effective it is at blocking shells. If a tank shell doesn't have the required penetration to bore through the armor at the angle the shell hits, then no damage is dealt. It is best to learn the mechanics of each tank, something that may take a while, in order to damage other players without becoming destroyed yourself. The game doesn't offer everything you need to know in order to be successful more often than not, and as with many PC games of late, reading the wiki and browsing forums is the best way to learn to play the game well. Understanding the game's myriad mechanics; such as penetration, view range, angling, turret traverse, and more; may take hundreds of battles worth of experience to learn, and many newcomers who find the battles unforgiving may not take the time to improve.

Those who do stick it out in the beginning will learn to appreciate the game's exhilarating gameplay. All matches are elimination-styled, and one death will send you back to the garage for another battle, so playing carefully and strategically is key. Being aware of your tank's weakness and playing to its strengths ensures that you are a formidable opponent no matter who you come across. Once you learn all that World of Tanks has to offer, battles become much more exciting, and you'll realize that your efforts in a match are helping your team win.

The other component of World of Tanks is the garage, and this is where you will buy and sell tanks, purchase ammunition, upgrade your crew, check your statistics, view the tech tree, and so on. After a match is over, you are sent the the garage to click through multiple menus that handle everything about your tanks except the actual fighting. If you die prematurely, you can go back to the garage and play a different tank while the other is still battling. If you die a lot very quickly, it's possible that you'll be located on the same server in multiple instances, which is pretty crazy.

After each battle, you will earn a number of experience and credits. Experience is used to unlock tanks and tank modules while credits are used to purchase them. Experience is accrued to be used on the tank you play, but 5% of your experience earned translates into "free experience" which you can then use on any tank.

You also have the option purchase gold with real money, and it's how this free-to-play game is able to turn a profit. One notable method of gold purchasing is to buy what are known as "Premium Tanks." These tanks are expensive and lead towards no progression on one of the several tech trees; however, they earn credits at a higher rate, allowing you to buy several tanks faster. Premium tanks are also "elite", allowing you to either level up your crew faster or convert experience into free experience using gold. You can also use gold to accelerate the rate of credits and experience you earn per battle, level up your crew to 100% immediately so that they can level up skills and perks, expand your garage to hold more than the default six tanks, and purchase premium ammo and consumables. With the possible exception of premium ammo, none of these options presents a significant advantage to so called "wallet warriors." In the beginning, none of this sounds necessary, but as you go up the tiers you'll find that it takes a long time to advance to the next tier. In higher tiers, it can take hundreds of battles to unlock and purchase the next tank, so if you're already that invested you won't mind spending some money at the game to help you achieve that goal faster.

It's important to know that spending your gold on stuff can be risky. I've been in several cases where I used gold to train my crew to 100%, only to find out that I trained them for the wrong tank and had to use more gold to train them properly. It's easy to accidentally "waste" gold in situations like this, and the game doesn't do a good enough job at preventing consumers from making really dumb decisions with their money.

The best way to play World of Tanks is with friends, of course, preferably those which you have access to audio communications. The tense battles ensure that the game can change hands at any moment, and being able to react and communicate information to your team is vital to success. The game allows a party, or "platoon", of up to two players, or three if the leader has a premium account. It's best that you get some buddies you know over the phone to verbally plan your next moves, but for complete strangers the game presents a chat window that allows others to relay orders or just talk smack to the other team. Coordinating with teammates is paramount to winning battles, and you won't succeed often if you go it alone.

World of Tanks can be hard to put down after spending some time with it. The process of earning experience and credits to progress through the game's tiers is incredibly addictive, and it's easy to lose hundreds, or even thousands, of hours to seemingly endless amounts of tank battles. The game is updated regularly bringing new features such as more tanks and physics, so the game is constantly changing. You will probably never see everything that the game has to offer, and you don't necessarily need to in order to have a great time. Learning how to play the game well can be a chore that puts many players off, but those that put the time and effort into it will find an incredibly deep experience that not many games currently offer, and you don't even have to spend a dime to start enjoying it.