World of Tanks Blitz Hands-On Video and Impressions: It Came From Canada, Denmark Edition!
Wargaming has one of the biggest games on the planet right now, and it's one you might not have played: World of Tanks. This free-to-play tank warfare game has had over a million concurrent players on PC, and it's starting extend its tendrils out beyond the PC to include mobile. World of Tanks: Blitz takes the formula of putting tank-driving players on to the battlefield, with the objective of capturing points or wiping out the other team, in small maps with fast-paced gameplay. The game is in a soft-launch phase in Europe, including Denmark. So, I whipped up some frikadeller and rugbrød for this It Came From Canada: Denmark Edition!
Blitz is an apt subtitle for this, since it puts players into the game pretty much immediately. Once players register with either Game Center or a Wargaming.net account, the tutorial starts. This lets players get an idea of the movement, aiming, and firing controls, before players are set off into their first real battles.
Though players do start off playing in real battles, this doesn't mean that the learning is over. As players progress, the game introduces ammo buying, tank upgrading, and more. It just does so in a way that is spread out over time, and doesn't overwhelm players with information all at once. Importantly, it lets players actually play and learn for themselves.
Even playing with non-US players via both wi-fi and LTE the game has performed exceptionally well, with latency having little effect. While the game does manage to put players into games with more experienced and better-equipped opponents, I didn't feel helpless. The game does require some intelligence built-in since there's not really any voice chatting, and with such a diverse international audience playing, having just a text chat option might be better anyway.