Ka-BOOM! Flames burst forth from the epicenter of an atomic bomb and the train is now nothing but melted steel and ash. A big "Mission successful!" dominates the screen, as your tank happily drives off. This is Tank Arena, a nice game, not much of an "arena" in single-player mode, but the multiplay one kicks butt. Graphically the game is generally nice. There's great music in the menu, but none in-game. You'd never hear it anyway over the speaker-shaking explosions, rattling gunfire, and roaring tank engines. Controlling one of the few standard vehicles is not too difficult, but things get a little hard when it comes to controlling the turret on the two available tanks. Practice makes perfect! Of course, the built-in level/mission editor is a great asset. Create some missions with lots of things to kill on your spare time, or put together a crazy death match level for you and your friends to compete on. The missions in the game are quite good, with briefings beforehand and unique objectives. One example is to destroy a train before it exits the map. There's also a few oddities such as a race track mission (where you are in a race car, as opposed to the usual tank and plane) or the shopping mission where you must control the shopping cart and pick up the products listed in the briefing! The single play sucked a lot of time out of my life, but I enjoyed it thoroughly. Multiplayer is great, but lacks an important feature: network play. Tank Arena does NOT have any sort of computer-connection multiplay. It only has local split-screen, which makes me angry. Still, making your own scenarios and completing them with your friends is a lot of fun. Reviewed by: CannibalBob |