Play Battletank Online

Summary

When Garry Kitchen's Battletank landed on the NES in September 1990, it dropped players straight into a first‑person tank cockpit that feels oddly reminiscent of Atari’s Battlezone. The tank’s arsenal—smokescreen, missile launcher, a 150 mm cannon and a .50‑caliber machine gun—lets you hunt down enemy tanks and helicopters, but you have to watch the heat gauge or the guns will overheat and force a cooldown. I love the tension of pulling back after a barrage, because the overheating mechanic makes every shot feel earned.

The controls are tight enough that steering feels natural, and the graphics, while simple, convey a clear sense of depth in the battlefield. VideoGames & Computer Entertainment gave it an 8‑out of‑10, praising exactly those aspects. Interestingly, the code originally aimed at a Commodore 64 space‑flight game, which explains some of the odd design choices that later critics called “poorly designed.”