By Alec Meer on June 26th, 2012 at 11:00 am.
Alright, busted. I’m almost entirely posting about this because of the amazing name. WAR OF THE HUMAN TANKS is the best of all the names, you see. Would I be posting about this Japanese indie strategy game if it was not, in fact, called WAR OF THE HUMAN TANKS?
Well…
The title turns out to not refer to very big men who are terribly hard to kill, but tanks that are indeed humanesque and fight a proxy war on behalf of their actually-human creators. They might look like wide-eyed anime eternal children all doing that joyful shout thing, but the player builds them earned resources and can develop new types. All of which have great hair, apparently.
As for the game, it’s grid-based strategy framed by a narrative that documents the conflict between the Empire of Japon and the Kingdom of Japon. ‘Japon’ reminds me something else, but I just can’t seem to place it.
Apparently it’s been relatively successful in Japan. The below trailer immediately gave me a headache, but I think I managed to glean that it’s vaguely Advance Warsy before I passed out.
Hmm. Bit hard to tell under the noise and jump-cuts, but there could be a thoughtful strategy game in there. Also, HUMAN TANKS.
That’s out this Autumn, as localised/translated by Fruitbat Factory, and there are many more details on both game systems and what looks to my increasingly impatient eye to be too much narrative over here.
26/06/2012 at 11:03 apocraphyn says:
WARTANKS?
26/06/2012 at 11:05 kaoswielder says:
FACETANKS
26/06/2012 at 11:15 JB says:
TANKS OF FACEWAR: HUMANS!
26/06/2012 at 11:15 Akatsuki says:
TANKFACE
26/06/2012 at 12:18 Ian says:
This needs to be made.
TANKFACE.
26/06/2012 at 13:11 McDan says:
TANKFACE 2: SHOW ME YOUR TANK DESTROYER FACE
26/06/2012 at 14:30 Lord Custard Smingleigh says:
TANK FACE 2: THAT’S NOT A TANK FACE! THIS IS A TANK FACE!
26/06/2012 at 14:32 Unaco says:
TANKFACE? TANKFACE? We don’t need no steeenkin’ TANKFACE!
26/06/2012 at 17:31 Tom De Roeck says:
TANKFACE 2: NO MORE PASSIVE RESISTANCE
26/06/2012 at 11:16 SanguineAngel says:
HUMANS OF WAR: TANKS – FACE
26/06/2012 at 11:16 Ergates_Antius says:
Human Angry Houses.
Angry Human Houses.
26/06/2012 at 11:18 caddyB says:
tonks?
26/06/2012 at 11:21 matty_gibbon says:
TANKS for the FACE WARS
26/06/2012 at 11:35 zeroskill says:
WAR of the WARFACE WARTANKS.
26/06/2012 at 11:21 mckertis says:
This looks pretty bad. If anyone is interested in this sort of thing – look up Gadget Trial. Same general idea, better production quality, AND already translated. That is, there is a quality fan patch.
26/06/2012 at 11:31 lorddon says:
Thank you, for mentioning that.
26/06/2012 at 12:48 FhnuZoag says:
I’m willing to wait and see if the mechanics are interesting. How is Gadget Trial’s gameplay?
26/06/2012 at 13:31 mckertis says:
“Gadget Trial’s gameplay?”
Advance Wars-y. Only with mecha-musume and a freaking visual novel jammed in it.
28/06/2012 at 18:07 zino says:
I agree with that, good sir.
29/06/2012 at 10:38 absolofdoom says:
Gadget Trial is awesome; I’m enjoying it very much. Thank you for sharing!
Although I’ll probably try this game too whenever it comes out.
26/06/2012 at 11:24 matty_gibbon says:
Wait. Is the full title “CHARGE! HUMAN TANKS – WAR OF THE HUMAN TANKS – YOUR ENEMY STANDS BEFORE YOU”?
26/06/2012 at 11:28 caddyB says:
that’s how japanese titles work
26/06/2012 at 11:48 SanguineAngel says:
Can you imagine if Medal of Honour and CoD adopted this trend?
26/06/2012 at 14:28 JackShandy says:
Yes, we’d end up with ridiculous titles like “CALL OF DUTY 4: MODERN WARFARE 2: BLACK OPS 2.”
26/06/2012 at 14:31 Lord Custard Smingleigh says:
SHOOT! ANGRY MEN – WAR OF THE ANGRY MEN – YOUR ENEMY STANDS BEHIND WAIST HIGH WALLS BEFORE YOU
26/06/2012 at 15:53 JackShandy says:
SHOOTMANIA 8: DELICIOUS BLOOD IS CRIED FROM THE EYES OF LIBERTY
26/06/2012 at 11:55 LTK says:
18th century novel title conventions need to make a comeback for videogames.
26/06/2012 at 12:20 Harlander says:
“The Half Life” or “With Crowbar and Hazard Suit”
Being the Misadventures of Doctor Gordon Freeman in the Environs of Black Mesa and the Desmenses through the Lambda Portal
OK, a bit shoddy, but it was worth a shot
26/06/2012 at 14:42 LTK says:
Or “The War against Dragons, waged by a Man/Woman of Unrecorded Race in the Province of Skyrim, who Possesses the Soul of a Dragon, and Pursues their Destiny of Preventing the End of the World, with a Multitude of Distractions along the Way”. Though I’m sure someone else can do better.
27/06/2012 at 03:37 The Random One says:
In Which The Chosen One, Unique in being Capable of Slaying the Foul Dragons that Plague the Land, Decides Instead to Fart Around and Climb Cliffs on Horses Until Being Ultimately Killed by a Giant
26/06/2012 at 12:03 echoMateria says:
Hi, It’s Ozhan Sen from Fruitbat Factory. Thanks for the interest.
The name of the game is actually just “War of the Human Tanks”; “Charge! Human Tanks” is the name of the game series – there are three games in total. “War of the Human Tanks” is the first of them. “Your enemy stands before you…” is just a tagline .
26/06/2012 at 11:29 President Weasel says:
Thanks, Tanks.
Thanks.
Oh.
26/06/2012 at 12:34 Primar says:
Bless you, tanks.
Blanks.
Hm.
26/06/2012 at 14:22 Joc says:
Tanks, but no tanks.
26/06/2012 at 12:38 MistyMike says:
Can’t you people see that the whole ‘human tank’ idea is just a pretext for a having creepy little anime girls as units?
26/06/2012 at 12:45 KauhuK says:
That’s Japan for you. There is nothing that cannot be made into (creepy) little anime girls.
26/06/2012 at 12:49 FhnuZoag says:
/me doodles anime girl versions of RPS.
26/06/2012 at 14:39 Cinnamon says:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1MtA5vtVVo
26/06/2012 at 17:37 Dances to Podcasts says:
That’ll be the next april fools: RPS anime style.
26/06/2012 at 15:48 Uthred says:
Whats creepy about them? Or are you just assuming that because its from Japan and features young girls its creepy?
26/06/2012 at 16:00 matty_gibbon says:
It’s creepy because it’s obviously there for titilation
26/06/2012 at 18:10 Rhin says:
I can’t agree with “Obviously.” Maybe in other titles, but the style here is mostly like the style in Yotsuba, which is about a very non-sexual 5-year-old.
26/06/2012 at 16:30 MistyMike says:
The huge staring eyes and general malformedness.
26/06/2012 at 21:55 pipman3000 says:
no you see everyone from japan is a pedophile, it’s not racism because i’m talking about a country not a race.
26/06/2012 at 22:26 dE says:
It’s such a beautiful world we’re living in. Since there are is only one human race, there is positively no racism whatsoever! Never has been! Attributing properties to the place of birth or appearance? Nah, it’s cool. That’s not racism, just xenophobia. It’s all smooth. No really. Totally. Blergh.
27/06/2012 at 07:45 lurkalisk says:
As much as you might like to call it racism, or whatever form of bigotry (which it just may be), you can’t deny there is a rather extreme cultural difference. Not everyone in Japan likes the same stuff, or behaves the same, but they trend in a direction quite noticeably different from anything the average RPS reader is used to, and it makes perfect sense that some of it might come off as creepy, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
28/06/2012 at 00:44 pipman3000 says:
no you see people from japan just trend towards pedophilia it’s not stereotypes or whatever you say it’s just a cultural trend like how yanks love guns or brits hate brushing their teeth or how germans trend towards antisemitism or how
you get the idea
26/06/2012 at 17:51 Jupiah says:
Hey, at least the girls in this game are drawn in the cartoonish chibi style. Better to be commanding creepy little girl tanks then creepy, *sexualized* little girl tanks.
You know, like in that Gadget Trial game recommended a few comments up. War of the Human Tanks look pretty harmless and innocent compared to that disturbing mess.
26/06/2012 at 13:52 ekuurh says:
WARFACE WARFACE….
WARFACWARFA CEWARFACE?
26/06/2012 at 14:31 matty_gibbon says:
Right, we should be able to get some good anagrams out of this. I’ve got FAT SHARK WOMAN HUN
What you got?
26/06/2012 at 14:36 Lord Custard Smingleigh says:
A human’s **** froth.
Asterisked word can be deduced from leftover letters, but I feel it unseemly to pollute the thus-far gentlemanly comment thread.
26/06/2012 at 14:41 matty_gibbon says:
RETRIEVE YOUR MIND FROM THE GUTTER SIR!
26/06/2012 at 19:34 Lord Custard Smingleigh says:
I have… Besmirched my reputation.
Also: Besmirch.
26/06/2012 at 14:33 Cinnamon says:
You will want to protect these tanks.
26/06/2012 at 15:57 nimzy says:
Mecha musume strikes again. Thankfully, it’s a lot less creepy this time around.
26/06/2012 at 16:14 Mr-Link says:
*Gasp*…….. how can you talk about the actual game name for so long and neglect to mention that it was developed(?) by a company called “Yakiniku Oh! Yeah!”
I mean how many game developers have an exclamation mark in their name ?……let alone TWO!
“Activision Oh! Noes!”
26/06/2012 at 18:40 ffordesoon says:
You’d be surprised how many Japanese developers do that.
26/06/2012 at 16:17 IncredibleBulk92 says:
Blade Runner Reference!
i saw it…
26/06/2012 at 16:50 Skabooga says:
For some, I imagine that reference will be lost in time . . . like tears in the rain.
27/06/2012 at 04:21 JayeRandom says:
Where was the Blade Runner reference? Looked for it, didn’t see it.
27/06/2012 at 13:28 dE says:
Alt-Texts of screenshots ;)
26/06/2012 at 17:56 Jupiah says:
Why would you make your tanks look like adorable little girls and then give them a “self-destruct” ability? Why kind of heartless monster could do that?
26/06/2012 at 21:29 niussw says:
http://is.gd/PFQQs4
27/06/2012 at 04:20 JayeRandom says:
In keeping with my questionable taste in music, I thought the music for the trailer was kinda catchy, albeit the lyrics were a bit odd.
I google the lyrics to find the artist– and find out that there appears to be at least three separate amateur musicians, each independently claiming these lyrics as their own creation. And no more-well-known source (that they might be cribbing from) anywhere in sight in the search results. Very odd….
28/06/2012 at 02:26 echoMateria says:
This trailer uses one of the tracks from the game’s original sound track. The OST is made by Sampling-Sound.com and Kagura. You can grab a SampleMix from http://yakiniku-banzai.com/down/htost_sample.mp3