World of Tanks, Revisited

It's been over 2 years since I last made mention of World of Tanks, and I do believe it requires another look. The rather close-knit gaming community I associate with would play it intermittently over the years since its initial release, but enthusiasm was lukewarm at best after the beta. Earlier this year, a number of us decided to really dig into it and get back into the swing of things.

What I found was much, much different than how I left it, and it was changed for the better. The meta game has undergone a rather sweeping metamorphosis, and no longer is it strictly a battle of guns versus armor thickness. Armor still plays a role, but mobility and flanking tactics are now heavily emphasized. Not having good terrain awareness or leaving your flanks exposed is nothing short of a death sentence, no matter how thick your armor is.

Other things have changed, welcome little additions like being able to purchase the "gold" premium ammo for regular in-game currency (albeit at an inflated price) and camouflage patterns to customize the look of your tank. A number of tech trees have been added as well. Chinese and British tanks have been brought into the mix, and I have greatly enjoyed playing the British medium tank tree.

Of course, the plague that still remains is the random pub matchmaking dredging up the most impossibly dense and idiotic players to fight alongside you, leading to incredibly frustrating losses where a flank will fall due to utter incompetence and the sensible players end up surrounded. Sadly, it is very difficult to carry a team. 

All things considered, though, I found it a much more enjoyable experience to play, so I put some money into getting gold, and I put in a whole lot of matches to get myself up to tier 9 in two trees so far, the first of which was the mighty E-75 heavy tank:

 

 Essentially a Königstiger on crack, the E-75 has an absurdly thick upper front hull that can ricochet an impressive amount of fire, but suffers from limited maneuverability considering the fact that it weighs 85+ tons. I also have the British tier 9 medium tank, the Centurion 7/1 unlocked, but haven't made enough money in game to buy it just yet. I've spread myself a bit thin (as you might be able to tell by looking at my other garage slots) by playing a number of other high tier tanks including Russian mediums and heavies, American SPGs, and French light tanks.

After 2+ years of tweaking and improvements, I would probably give it the title of the best free to play game currently out there, though it's still not for everyone, and might be a bit hard to approach if you're not particularly interested in the source material.

Give it a look if you're interested:

http://worldoftanks.com/