World Of Tanks Blitz (Android)

Wargaming.net's armoured fist punches the Android OS

Previously I was a keen fan of World Of Tanks, until I realised that at a certain level it became an exceptionally tedious grind.

But when the developer launched World of Tanks Blitz on Android, I was curious enough to load the title up and see how the original game translates to tablets and phone hardware.

What is something of a shock is how similar this game is to World Of Tanks on the PC, because while it's somewhat cut down, the basic mechanics of armoured combat against online adversaries remains intact.

It's a pruned selection of tanks, and the play areas seem smaller because there are fewer simultaneous players on each side, but the 3D worlds and fighting in them are almost identical. Some levels are indeed shrunken versions, and while the model detail is less for practical reasons, it's not excessively less attractive.

Other concessions include no crew transfer or retention, and while you can store your progress on the same account, it isn't synced with World of Tanks (WOT).

This is all good, and in terms of sophistication, this is a million times better than most Android titles. However, in addition to translating the good parts of the game, Wargaming.net also seems to have been compelled to translate some of the worst aspects and also add some totally new annoyances to enhance player frustrations.

For those that have never played this game, it's fun with the early and easy-to-progress tanks. And once you've mastered the controls, tanks up to tier five or six can be highly enjoyable. Above that it becomes an unbelievable chore, where you're left feeling that you need to buy gold (micro-payments) to get to the next tier.

On my full WOT account I have tier ten tanks and they took forever to get, and they're no fun to play either.

That's a problem, and when you put something like this on a tablet, you also run into the performance limitations of that hardware and control problems.

Of these, control is the biggest problem, because as a battle-hardened tank commander I should be off to a flying start. But with the touch-based, on-screen joysticks, I was cannon fodder.

My obvious solution was to couple up a keyboard and mouse, but they were entirely ignored by the game. According to a few answered forum questions, they won't do this because those using a keyboard would be 'advantaged'. That's odd, because the identical game on Apple iOS devices is compatible with the MOGA and Logitech Powershell controllers. Without a better control mechanism, you're just road-kill to those with bigger tablets and more dexterous fingers.

As for hardware compatibility, there is a list on the wotblitz.com website, though it might be quicker to see if it appears on your version of the Play store as a better indicator. It's a massive installation (by Android standards) of 2.51GB, so that's another consideration.

If you can master the controls, then be prepared for some transient fun. Just be warned that when you start to consider buying gold or premium tanks to progress, you need stop or at least accept that it is designed purely to make money, not make you happy. Mark Pickavance

World of Tanks comes to Android mostly intact.