This is the one
where
with true tank controls
and
under cover of history
you're the tank
you the player
are the tank
or perhaps you're so identified with your vehicle that you kind of become the vehicle
you were a man who becomes a tank
an iron tank
in order to fulfill your mission to destroy the enemy
as you go along in your tank
or
as you go along as a tank
you collect letters that stand in for different kinds of ammunition for different kinds of weapons including a rare powerup for a super weapon that can wreak destruction across the screen
obliterate all enemy
as you go along in your tank
or
as you go along as a tank
occasionally bombs will fall from the sky causing the screen to shake and flare up
it's hard to see the on-screen display of your life bar when this happens
it's as though the explosion is so intense that it's messing with your technology
with your on board sense of yourself
as a tank as a man
as a man who is merged with his tank
as some cybernetic intermediate being
I'm not totally sure
but that's the feeling that I get this time around
you've a choice of three paths to victory
of varying levels of difficulty
different kinds of obstacles
different item drops
once you know the game
you have a sense of which path you prefer if you wish to get through the game with speed
as you blitz through the enemy
you will occasionally encounter boss fights that are basically giant tanks that manifest out of dark voids
this is a familiar boss fight motif for many eight-bit NES video games
the screen goes black and a giant enemy threatens you
it's part of the theater of the 8-bit I suppose
a convention to draw attention to a dramatic battle with a significant enemy
as opposed to the hordes of pop-up mooks that you slaughter without a second thought
well now you're confronted with a huge boss tank in a despairing void of total darkness
it's weird when this happens in the context of a non-fantasy game
or what is presumably a non-fantasy game
where do the surroundings go?
are we not in physical reality anymore?
come to think of it
Iron Tank is a strange game that takes a lot of liberties with the history that it presumes to gamify
the subtitle is 'The Invasion of Normandy' but this game bears little resemblance to the historical Normandy Beach landings but that's okay
I suppose this is a kind of semi heroic fever dream derived from what a small boy might think of when they have watched hours of History Channel documentaries about World War II or they've watched some old World War II movies on one of the Ted Turner channels of a Sunday morning or whatever
a tank is a cool toy when it's small and plastic and in your hands
and you've got a bunch of plastic enemies to steamroll
you can even build little bases and obstacles out of Legos and Duplo blocks and all the rest of it
I vaguely recall as a child constructing some improbable enemy base out of Lincoln Logs
maybe it was a saga of enemy loggers that I had to massacre,
maybe I'd just seen Ferngully
I no longer recall at this distant date
but I'm sure that was a fun time
so Iron Tank is not a source of credible history
surprise, surprise, surprise
but it's a decent fantasy riff on tank warfare
from the WWII era
I suppose
with a quasi science fictional logic to it
you're piloting a super tank that can just steam roll scores of enemies
and you're equipped with some kind of top secret screen clearing nuclear weapon
and icons appear on screen as though you were playing some kind of tabletop war strategy game
some kind of a kriegspiel with the tedium stripped out
juiced with high doses of mythic heroism
real life warfare is not fun
forgive me for stating the obvious
while people can be awarded individually for valor in the face of death and danger
the overall effort doesn't usually rest upon any one person or individual
it's a collective mechanized rationalized standardized endeavor
in which the individual is but a cog in the machine
everyone knows this
forgive me once again for stating the obvious
but the fantasy of being a lone tank that fucks up all of the enemy for good
that's fun
it's easy to gamify
you're basically managing scarce resources
shortages of ammunition
declining fuel reserves
you've got to fight and scavenge at the same time in order to survive and prevail
that's kind of how Iron Tank works
you're also besieged by enemies on foot
groups of squishy little soldiers
that are somewhat comical on screen
they swarm you from behind
and if you go after them they scatter
but usually most of them get run down underneath your treads
it's surprisingly grotesque and funny in a sick fuck sort of way that never fails to tickle my funny bone
and yet I keep coming back to this fantasy of merging with the tank
I think this is another childish thing
playing with little cars little dump trucks little tanks little jet fighters little fantasy vehicles like flying saucers and the knockoff brand x-wing fighters I got in a bucket full of spacemen from K-Mart
and you know
occasionally
something really fancy like a Robotech Veritech fighter or a Mechwarrior miniature
or something along those lines
the machine is always cooler than the person
I still kind of feel this way
I've always been the kinda person
who believes Bruce Wayne is the Lie
and Batman the Truth
equipment more real than character
equipment as character
maybe I'm still just sort of a fucking miserable child at heart
I don't know
but I don't really feel too bad about it
the world is a stressful place full of dangers
if I had the opportunity to slice my central nervous system out of my body
put it in some kind of armored casing
and then slap that sucker into a formidable cyborg body
you better believe I'd go for that
zero doubts, no fucks given,
and that's kind of how I process Iron Tank
yes the opening cutscenes briefly describe a person who is inside that tank
but you don't actually see the person get out of the tank during the game
nor is it an option to leave your vehicle of war like you could in Blaster Master
where you could get out of the jumping futuristic super tank
that's not how that works in Iron Tank
you are all tank all the time
which suits me fine
it's not like you're getting invited to social events over your radio
that would be a whole other game
where you would have to decide if any of these parties are worth going to
gotta manage your wardrobe
feel out the vibe
dress accordingly
rack up those style and vibe congruence points
all the while you're blasting party-pooper Nazi fucks into pink mist
that would be neat
but
nope
that's not Iron Tank
what it is
is
you're just running a gauntlet
of enemy
enemy tanks
enemy planes dropping
enemy bombs
swarms of foolhardy enemy soldiers who can nibble away at your power bar
not to mention treacherous roads that lead to obstacles you have to maneuver around
every once in a while you come up to a large enemy base facility of some kind
usually with giant mounted guns on it
and you have to zap that all to hell in order to get inside
drop into a shadow void
from which
manifests a giant mecha mutant tank
the latest monstrosity pooped out by the self-replicating Nazi death machine of machines
-Hitler's asshole must be well-stretched and bloody, straining after his dreans like this-
the life destroying mechanism that encompasses all the other mechanisms of death
that births the sub mechanisms of death
that's the vibe I get
you travel from the bottom of the screen to the top
and destroy everything that gets in your way
it's all part of that death machine that encompasses the smaller cuter death machines
no reason to hold back
no reason to hesitate
you
the Iron Tank
are just the necessary consequence
manifesting
to obliterate the Hitlerian-Asshole-Death-Machine-Complex
so fire at will
be not troubled
an Iron Tank must Iron Tank
Sure
there's plenty of reason to maneuver carefully
you don't want to get destroyed
and yes
you do have to rescue prisoners along the way
but as I recall you can't actually kill any innocent people
it's just not something you can do
I'm fine with that
maybe it's all a part of the experimental technology of the super-duper Iron Tank
is that it has great friend or foe recognition but that's just something I have interpreted into this
I don't recall if that was explicitly mentioned in the instruction booklet or not
in a way
after experiencing the power of an Iron Tank
I don't think I want to be anything else other than an Iron Tank
maybe a man got into that tank
piloted it to the end of the mission
and then when people went up to the tank to provide repairs
or whatever
and check on the health of the pilot
maybe
they opened it up and they didn't find anybody
oooooooh
could it be that Iron Tank is a secret spooky game after all?
-May 2021-April 2022
