Tank Hero: Laser Wars

Summary

About a year and a half ago, my lovely colleague Yan tested Tank Hero for you. Tank Hero: Laser Wars is the official sequel. The original Tank Hero was a big hit and Laser Wars has some mighty big shoes to fill. Find out more after the jump.

We tested this app on this Samsung Galaxy Nexus as well as the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

The permissions make sense and are perfectly transparent.

Tank Hero: Laser Wars is, as mentioned, the sequel to Tank Hero. If you read Yan's review of Tank Hero, you may remember that at the time he found the game to be good fun, but not diversified enough to keep you interested for longer periods of time. I was therefore very curious to find out what – if anything – was different about Laser Wars.

Well, it comes as no surprise that Laser Wars features lasers. The game's principle remains unchanged: you're in charge of a tank and must navigate it and shoot down other tanks. Once you've eliminated all of your opponents, the level is over.

Tank Hero: Laser Wars comes with a much better design than its predecessor, in my humble opinion. There are are three worlds, each containing 30 levels, meaning the game has expanded and there are now things within the levels with which you will have to interact. There are laser barriers that will only let laser beams through but not tanks (or vice versa), or barriers that can be blasted through, but only for a short while. Every 15 levels a sort of boss fight takes place, which is the same as other duels, only harder.

Overall the changes made strike us as positive, though be warned that Laser Wars is quite challenging. I was gonna throw in my hat (or shall I say, toss the Galaxy Nexus against the nearest wall) by level 19, and sheer determination to write the best review I possible could kept me going. Aww!
In fact, the difficulty levels would be my one critique of this game: sometimes the level varies a bit too much, or else the 'normal' level is too hard.

There are different weapons to play around with, including a double laser, ray gun and a shield to protect.
There are pick ups, but not in every level.

At the end of each level your performance is rated, based on time, aim and lives left.
There's a multi-player mode which I like; the mode lets two gamers battle it out on splitscreen. This option is especially fun on the tab.

Bottom line:

Same gameplay, better design. If you're into shoot 'em games and don't mind so much that a game isn't super diversified, Tank Hero: Laser Wars is the one for you. The only drawbacks are the difficulty levels.

Tank Hero: Laser Wars has a very different look to it than its predecessor. There are lots of details and the lighting effects are fun.

Controls are great, though my favourite option – two virtual d-pads – is no longer featured.

Tank Hero: Laser Wars performed well on both devices, though there was one small hiccup on the Galaxy Nexus: after having finished a level all of the buttons became unresponsive. I had to end the game via the task manager.

Tank Hero: Laser Wars is free of charge and ads and can be downloaded from the AndroidPIT App Store.