Iron Tank: The Invasion of Normandy scores 8/10 in the verdict of The Games Market editorial team.
Once Upon a Time
IRON TANK! And it will be war...
by Simon Larocca·September 10, 2024
Dai tempi dei banchi di scuola
fino alla proliferazione televisiva di documentari a tema e rievocazioni, la Seconda Guerra Mondiale is entered our
imaginary wearing almost epic, bordering on legendary, robes:
soldiers with drawn faces that betrayed courage and fear at the same time,
beaches conquered by the Allies to the sound of bullets and gigantic tracked vehicles on
the streets of Berlin in search of the final enemy.
Ispiring films
and TV series, an event of such magnitude could certainly not go unnoticed
in the world of video games either, and in 1988
the great N of Kyoto gave birth to a themed game, on its flagship console
of the time, namely the NES: Iron Tank – The
invasion of Normandy is a production by SNK and, nearly forty years later, still has many cartridges,
sorry for the pun, to fire off.
Proposing itself as a vertical scrolling shoot’em up, in the most classic of the shooter traditions of those years, a true must-have that was ported from arcade to console and sometimes vice versa, although in rare cases, Iron Tank sees us at the controls of a heavy tank with our alter ego at the head of a secret unit whose code name, Iron Snake, can only bring to mind the most famous “snake” in the history of modern video games.
No, I’m not talking about the fruit-catching centipede, but rather the hero created by Hideo Kojima for Metal Gear Solid; however, the similarities end there: our armored hero in the tracked vehicle has nothing to do with him, for the record it is instead one ofthe charactersappearingin another very famous arcade coin-op, that very Ikari Warriors that made me squander weekly allowance with the same ease with which gamers today buy improbable skins while playing League of Legends.
L’setting, as specified
from the beginning, is the one historically known as D-day, the day on which
the Allied troops landed in Normandy, giving rise to the unstoppable advance
toward the heart of the Nazi regime.
Iron Snake’s mission, which
as we will immediately see after the intro (quite similar in sound effects and graphics
to the opening level of a host of shoot’em ups from those years) will have to be carried out
alone, is to take down a very specific enemy turret while the bulk of the US army
is busy annihilating the German forces: the console’s eight bits are squeezed as if they were ripe oranges and the
result is appreciable, it must be said, with bright colors to evoke the
European beaches and the hitboxes of the shots fired by our tank doing
their dirty work.
We will be dealing with Germans of the worst kind (no offense to Germany, eh!) and armored vehicles that can’t wait to blow us up at any moment: there are many levels if we consider the type of this title, a full 19, and they get tougher and tougher as you progress, I can assure you, keeping the challenge level high.
Tra bridges under siege, enemy bases with heavy artillery installations and dense, dense woods where enemies are posted practically everywhere, ready to come out and fill us with lead, Iron Tank proves to be a fresh shooter and technically very solid for the machine it runs on, one of those seminal titles that know how to deliver on what they promise and that are hard to get tired of so quickly, thanks to careful level design and that frantic, adrenaline-fueled action that the 8-bit universe could deliver like no other.
The Normandy landings were a
momentous event in the history of humanity, and not to be moralistic, but being able to
play it comfortably seated at home in our living room with a joypad in hand amounts
to a reenactment and tribute, in a sense, to those heroes who made it
possible.
Non bad for a simple video game, right?
P.S. Obviously a hard title to find, especially the Australian version from Mattel, but as luck would have it, we have it for sale!
8
Pro
Immediate, no-frills gameplay, an exciting level of challenge
Respectable graphics and a sound design pleasantly in line with the setting
If you hate the Nazis, it’s like putting Indiana Jones on a tank!
Contro
Exemplary shooter, not suitable for casual players, but you can always learn!
Mi chiamo Simon Larocca, e sono un videogiocatore, collezionista e amante della cultura pop in tutte le sue forme. Vado al cinema ogni volta che posso, leggo da quando porto gli occhiali, quindi da sempre, e ho la passione per lo storytelling in tutte le sue forme, così dirompente da farla diventare una professione. Ma come direbbe Doc di Ritorno al Futuro, non ci sarebbe presente se non si guardasse al passato con rispetto e ammirazione, ed è il Simon bambino di più di trent’anni fa, anno più anno meno.
Simon Larocca
Mi chiamo Simon Larocca, e sono un videogiocatore, collezionista e amante della cultura pop in tutte le sue forme. Vado al cinema ogni volta che posso, leggo da quando porto gli occhiali, quindi da sempre, e ho la passione per lo storytelling in tutte le sue forme, così dirompente da farla diventare una professione. Ma come direbbe Doc di Ritorno al Futuro, non ci sarebbe presente se non si guardasse al passato con rispetto e ammirazione, ed è il Simon bambino di più di trent’anni fa, anno più anno meno.
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