World of Tanks PC
User Score
6.4 out of 10

Mixed or average reviews- based on 260 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 165 out of 260
  2. Mixed: 25 out of 260
  3. Negative: 70 out of 260

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  1. Chivay
    May 11, 2011
    1
    At first it's fun but then it's constant struggle and frustration. I played closed beta for 4 months then stopped. Now I started again and after two weeks I must say that it still has many flaws. Sure, it's free but playing without premium account is a pain. Additionally, developers are trying desperately to encourage players to spend some money by forcing you to fight against higher tier tanks. Believe me, after playing countless battles in which you can't damage anything you will hate this game. Some may say that it's a challenge but I think that fun factor is important and this game lacks it.
    Next con are maps. There are too few of them and some are really badly designed. Another important flaw is imbalance. Some tanks are much better then others of the same tier, eg. infamous Russian T-54. Avoid this game, not fun.    … Expand
  2. Komedy
    May 14, 2011
    0
    Update. We now have the situation where community feedback is not only being ignored by the DEVs but moderators of the forums are now being policed by the minute to stamp out as they call it threads that create unrest. In effect any posting discussing the failings of the game, the broken mechanics, the falling server populations is being met with a forum ban and removal of the thread. Never before in my life have I seen a community forum for a game being repressed in this way. So in short this is one to avoid. The DEVs are now only interested in scrambling as much gold sales before the game dies completely. This week has already seen a 25% drop in server population.… Expand
  3. CatsWithShoes
    Feb 4, 2011
    1
    You will have an awesome time with this shooter up until you start trying to work up and over tier 4 tanks. You will hit a big roadblock where things cost tens of thousands of experience points to buy but you only get 50-100 per match because your weapon cannot hurt the other tanks you will be matched up with (which is the main source of experience points in this game, dealing damage to enemy tanks.) The matchmaker is horrific. My friends and I call this game Rage of Tanks because it is difficult to get through two concurrent matches with swearing out-loud. If you have an awesome time getting mauled to death every match while you slowly build up experience points to buy the next gun upgrade or turret upgrade so that you can buy a gun upgrade to be able to get a better amount of points out of matches then you should have an awesome time playing this game and I highly recommend it. This is the most horrific grind-fest I have ever played, a game only for hardcore masochists.… Expand
  4. jovonaci
    Apr 16, 2011
    1
    First of all, I am a freak for WW2 tanks, and armor, and because of that, when I heard for this game, I knew I had to play it. I said "No matter how bad it may suck, I am going to like it, because it is ww2 armor". Oh, how wrong was I.
    By the shallowness of the reviews of the people who gave this game high scores, you can tell what kind of people are impressed by this game. Kids. This is a     grindfest. It is NOT free. Sure, you can play for free, but only if you are a masochistic freak, and if you want to play XXX battles with a tank, just to get to the new one and start over. Horrible.
    Next, there are no game modes except for random battles. If you pay for free you wont be able to take your friend to battle with you, so that much for multiplay, and fun with friends.
    That said, the balancer that makes these random matches sucks SO BAD, that on the loading screen, where you see the tanks, you already know what team is going to win. There are many OP tanks, idiot noobs that make you lose a game, in game credits, and prolong the already hellish grindfest.

    Lastly, I played this from the time of the closed beta stage, back in 2010, and the game is the very same now, in the release version. The version is 0.6.3.10 obviously half of a game. There are supposed to be 3 nations, Germany, USSR and USA. The USA tank destroyer tree is missing, level 8 SPG are missing for all nations. Tons of bugs and imbalances are being reported all over the official forums, no one is doing ANYTHING. Calling this a free MMO is a lie. It is a single player game unless you pay for it. But dont bother. Just lots of frustration and anger here.    … Expand
  5. Johnson
    May 1, 2011
    2
    Game may be fun at first when you build up your hangar up to lvl 4 tanks, but then it gets absolutely tedious and imbalanced, with soviet models ruling the battlefield. To play past lvl 7 tanks you must donate. The most disappointing downside is that this game has only one game mode - 15v15 random deathmatch on a dozen of maps. And trust me - it gets old very very soon. And the most frustrating bug is when you cant see an artillery piece hiding in the bushes 15 meters away from you.

    All those people giving it 10s - probably just played for fun for a couple of hours. You will really hate it after a month or two.    … Expand
  6. Vistance
    Dec 14, 2012
    4
    This is a long review, but I've played the game for so long and I'm honest enough about the entire thing to give a useful opinion without being a fanboy or bashing the game completely, so please keep this in mind as you read.

    This game is a very mixed bag. First off, the core gameplay can be entertaining if you're willing to learn how it works and operate within those boundaries. There'    s a lot of satisfaction to gain from this, which is why as a person who detests this game, I actually do still play it. The game is all about grinding. Tier 1-3 goes fast, 3-4 is a little longer, 4-5 is very long, then after that it doesn't seem to be long before tier 6, and then 7, but 8, 9 and 10 are very long grinds. I've played since June 2011 basically EVERY day and I have two tier 10 tanks unlocked, a couple of tier 9 tanks, half a dozen tier 8's, many tier 7's. So you can see it takes a long time to get tanks. I play to get one win a day in each tank I care about, never grinding because that's too tedious and it takes me this kind of time.

    The game heavily rewards money spending via premium tanks that are poorly balanced and with premium shells (Though these can now be bought with in-game currency - which has caused some chaos and imbalance). The premium tanks are frequently overpowered when introduced, causing much anger among players who face them - which of course means lots of players run out and buy these tanks. They're not cheap either. The game's in-game currency is gold, you can buy 1250 gold for about $8. Most of the tier 7-8 premium tanks which are the most powerful and fun to use are about 8000-12000 gold which comes out to about $35-50. That's $35-50 for ONE tank. The next step, Wargaming nerfs the tank so the normal playerbase stops complaining, but then they buff it again and it goes on and on. All these tanks do is return more in-game credits than a normal tiered equivalent. Lots of normal tanks are poorly balanced so the problem becomes that to get a fun to use tank you may have to go through a few badly balanced and unfun tanks. Despite these tanks being unbalanced negatively, players who complain in the forums trying to get these tanks improved are ridiculed and told they're just bad at the game. Wargaming NEVER listens to player feedback, as the game is most popular in Russia and that is truly the only playerbase they care about. The Russian developers ignore American feedback, they just allow us to pretend we matter to silence us - this may sound conspiracy theorist but it really is true in this game.

    The community is also one of the worst I've ever seen. Players are very bad at the game even at higher tiers, and they just keep playing which ruins the fun for a normal/good player. Battles are 15 players vs 15 players and the matchmaker is notoriously bad. Using an external mod which shows player's skill ratings and win rates during a match, I've observed the game frequently stacks one team full of very good players and the other team is full of bad players. This game is NOTORIOUS for losing streaks, worse than any game I've ever seen. You can be good (which not to brag, I am pretty good at the game) and still be shafted by bad matchmaking, poor player skills, and random number generation - which is how the game determines damage, penetration, and basically everything.

    Wargaming is also probably one of the worst game companies I've had the displeasure to play a game from. They give their moderators free realm to basically do whatever they want, and their "appeals" section if you get chat banned in the game is basically for show - they never repeal bans, no matter what. This game is so terrible about censorship, that despite allowing you to disable a profanity filter I personally have been banned for calling somone a noob before. Yes, they're THAT kind of moderators. If you insult the developers, other players, in ANY fashion even calling them stupid or dumb you'll get banned for a few days. They also frequently tell people to stop spamming or stop using caps when no one is doing either action. Wargaming is a very shallow company concerned only with squeezing profit out of the game while doing as little as possible to improve long standing issues. Users make great suggestions, and they're never listened to. The also ignore all test server player feedback, they just use hard stats like win rates, average damage and other things that do not reveal the full picture to determine what's balanced and what's not.

    The game can be fun when everything is alright, but too many times the game is just awful. Many maps are bad, many tanks are bad, and the community is awful, the developer/staff is terrible. There's a fun game buried underneath this mess, but it's not worth your time to find it if you ask me - I've played over 2k hours, I'd know...    … Expand
  7. ArcticFox
    May 16, 2011
    0
    A game whose sole existence is based on â
  8. Anya
    Apr 21, 2011
    0
    Absolutely terrible game. it has officially launched and it's still a beta version. Basically all that you can do right now is start with a lowlie tier1 tank and get into 15 vs 15 PvP random battles. There is nothing more, only 15 vs 15 random battles in random maps and there are only about 12 maps). The matchmaking is extremely poor, just like in beta, as you progress you end up in battles against tanks that you can't even damage (where is the fun in that?) and they one-shot you. You can't create a group to play with your friends unless you pay a monthly premium subscription, which makes this game unable to compete with every other online multiplayer game. Tanks are completely unbalanced on all tiers, russian tanks are specially overpowered (because the developer company is Russian?). Artillery is absurdly designed and overpowered. Visibility is horrible, you often receive damage from invisible tanks, even at 10m from you. Avoid this beta game at all costs!… Expand
  9. Daisai
    Oct 1, 2011
    1
    Judging this game as a free game is wrong, the basic concept of the game is that you grind your way to the highest tier of each type of tank to help your clan fight for provinces in their tournaments. The only way to get there is by spending money on a premium account since basicly grinding your way to the max tier without it would just take way to long. Now since we know then that this is not a free game lets review it accordingly. Gameplay : The gameplay isnt bad, its unique in the current genre with a little bit of a mmo features. However after you spend some time playing the game and grinding your way to the max tier and learning the game you can get very bored of it. To give you a small idea of how boring it might be, to get from the tier 7 to tier 8 artillery which is the highest tier artillery. You will around 330.000 experience, this is not counting the huge amount of experience points you need to get the upgrades on your tier 7. These would take around 150.000. Now since you probably get around 800-1000 experience points on average with a premium account you can then see why its considered a boring grind. The developer. The developer of this game is wargaming , a russian company which is noticed by the unbalanced russian tanks in the game. The developers in this game are basicly one of the worst you can come across, they are clearly nationalist russians which is shown by how they bend historic facts in their events they host. This alone makes me want to give them a 1 for this review, simply claiming that Stalin liberated eastern europe is just unforgiveable. Overall : The game can be fun if you dont play it to much as in 1 time a week, do this and the game can be something to kill time with. However since the game unbalancing is caused by biased developers towards russian armor the game can not become a serious online game. So if you are looking for a serious game you want to play at a high level, go look somewhere else. If you want a game you can download for free and have a few minutes of fun then go ahead and download, just make sure you dont get draged into buying premium accounts and tanks. The score im giving is a 1 as i said basicly out of protest towards the developers.… Expand
  10. Chlodwig
    Mar 29, 2012
    0
    Free to play - Pay to win. In a nutshell, that is WoT for you. Well, mind you, it's a given that F2P games somehow have to give you an "incentive" to spend some money on them, but aside of the even more horribly lopsided F2P Battlefield I've not seen anything like this in the F2P field. Let's even ignore for a moment the fact that as a F2P player you have to spend ridiculous amounts of time to actually "level up" because the amount of XP you get per battle is ridiculously low, as a "free" player you are, essentially, the target dummy for the paying community. You're not their player, you're essentially part of the product being sold, kinda-sorta like a bot with some brains, there to make those feel good that shelled out some dough for it. You get invariably dumped into games where you're on the lower end of the spectrum, which more often than not leads to you being pretty much unable to put even a dent into their armor. It gets old kinda fast if you keep shooting at an enemy from behind (where it should be "softer") countless times for exactly zero effect before he finally realizes you're there, turns his turret and blows you out of existence. More because you're an inconvenience rather than a threat. Sure, I could buy some "premium ammo" for real money, then I might get to score a hit from time to time. But you may think it's temporary, and all you have to do is to get to the next tier of tanks, then you'll be on top of the roster. You will not, because now you get tossed into a battle of the same **** combination as before, just one tier higher. But that's not even your problem. You're now again in a "stock" tank without any improvements, in other words, you're not only the runt of the litter, your crate now also sucks on top of it. So you improve it, you spend countless battles where you're little more than the target dummy for some paying player... the treadmill repeats itself until you're finally fed up and give up. I somehow wonder if there are any "free" players in the higher tiers at all... Or what do you shoot at when you spent a few hundred bucks on this game and managed to get to tier 10? Do you have to play against others who did the same? And keep spending to stay in the game? Sorry. I don't mind dropping a few bucks to a game I like, but when a F2P game starts to cost more than a premium title, without being anything close to premium, something's terribly wrong.… Expand
  11. Over9000
    Apr 19, 2011
    0
    World of Tanks. 0 out of 10.
    1) I started as a closed BETA tester in October of 2010. With a free chunk of game gold given to each player everyday I could afford a premium account with my friends so that we could platoon and actually get into the same battle with each other and be on the same team. At first the game was a lot of fun. Low tier battles pitting small mostly equal tanks again    st one another were fun to play and led to only minor frustration on occation. However as the game goes on the ammount of grinding required becomes laughably stupid. The highest I got to was the tier 9 (there are 10 tiers) VK 4502 German heavy tank. The ammount of xp points to get the tier 10 Maus was close to 200 thousand. Since release, players who do not pay for their game gold dont have access to a premium account meaning high tier tanks are more or less out of reach. This is because a premium account gives you a 50% increase in xp after each battle. Players without this bonus are in for a long hard grind.
    2) As I said earlier you cannot play in the same game with your friends unless you have a premium account, which after release means you pay money. This means that if you don't feel like shoveling out dough for a broken game (more on this later) you will end up in battles with random people who are more than likely team killing trolls. WoT has more trolls than any online game I have ever played. From the typical chat box troll to people who team kill on purpose to selfish players who refuse to play as a team there is certainly a wide variety of dbags to help make this already frustrating game worse.
    3)The historical accuracy is so poor my friends and I have begun to call the game World of Russian Tanks. This is because by tier 5 the Russian tanks begin to display a huge advantage over their same tier counterparts from other nations. While nearly every historian or history buff will agree that German tanks were the best tanks of the war, the WoT devs don't seem to have gotten the memo. In fact the only advice I give to new players is play Russia... you'll die less that way.
    4) The game is broken and here is why. The entire spotting system is crap. Tanks in the distance have a habit of "jumping" across the map. Meaning that you think you have fired an accurate long range shot at a target only to realize seconds after firing that the game glitched out and you were shooting at his "ghost" when in reality your enemie's tank is many meters away from where it appeared to be on the map. Not only does this add to the frustration but it basically means WoT is like a house without a foundation. This also has nothing to do with computer strength as every player experiences it. There are also issues with "cloaked" tanks. Part of the game is camo and so some tanks or TDs will be able to fire while hidden. However the effect of camo is taken to a stupid level. There have been several times that I have had to nearly ram an enemy tank before it became visible on the map.
    All in all WoT was a great idea. But between the terrible spotting system, having to pay for a broken game just to play with friends, and the gross bias in favor of Russian tanks I have to give the game a 0. Ditch this crap... there are much better games out there.    … Expand
  12. dofuz
    May 30, 2011
    2
    Poorly balanced, full of bugs, devs dont listen, endless grind, its a free game that ends upp costing alot of you want to get to the end game. Devs should really sort out some of the glaring issues with sight system, ghost shoots etc before they bother implementing more tanks for real money.
  13. vanzi
    Nov 1, 2011
    0
    This is a unique game and the tanks are very realistic, the gameplay is decent, doesn't get boring too quickly. However this game has one MAJOR flaw that makes it completely unplayable - the MATCHMAKER. They algorithm they use intentionally put your tier 5 medium tank in line against tier 8 heavy tanks - essentially making you a free kill and unable to scratch your opponent even after you flank him and shoot in the back. Until you get in the latest tier you can 't expect to have a fair fight (maybe once per 20 fights you are actually able to scratch top tier tank in the battle).… Expand
  14. Hopdevil
    Jan 18, 2012
    4
    First of all I have to say game is fun at the times, but it is also very frustrating so you can easily forget the fun part. I'm used to grinding games, I'm grind addict. I don't mind spending hours and hours to get to the next tank. I don't think tanks should be "skipped" just to get to the last tank possible asap. Every tank you play has its strengths and weaknesses, there isn't perfect tank. I wouldn't consider this game free 2 play, its more like a demo you get to play for free. If you want to advance in the game to the end tier you will need to pay for premium account. Although I have around 4000 matches played, I'm still not bored even though game lacks game modes badly. Maps are poorly designed in my opinion, maybe a bit too small too. Most of the maps are either fully open with hardly any cover, or you get 2-3 narrow passages, then it becomes stupid lemmings train match (everyone goes to one side). But all that isn't as bad as matchmaking system which kills ALL of the fun out of the game. Seems like it gets worse with every next patch they release. Now don't get me wrong, I know each tanks' role and what it is supposed to do. I don't mind being placed in tier 8-10 match in tier 4 light tank. Let me give you example of terrible matchmaking. You drive KV-3 (tier 6), very slow (so its not scout), and it gets you into tier 8-10 matches with more than half of the team being 9-10 tier. You really stand no chance in such game. I mean you can still win if your team is good enough, but then again where is the fun playing such match? You cant really damage anything, you can just hide and hope to get that last shot on someone. There are many examples like that you will 80% of your games be thrown into unfair matches. You will be on the bottom of the list, and that's when frustration comes in. Tank companies on the other hand have tier limits which is good, and I don't see any reasons why "standard" battle mode isn't using same rules. WG devs just want to force you to buy premium account so you can get to the tier X ASAP and then forget about lower tier tanks... What's the point... I want to enjoy playing every tank not just tier X. And do you know why? Because nothing really changes at that tier, sure tanks may be looking more cool. Have more ammo and firepower, but the gameplay stays exactly the same. It never evolves to something. And all this could be easily forgiven (long grinding, poor map designs, very rude community if I may add, lot of kids etc.) if it wasn't for that terrible matchmaking system which day refuse to improve just so you can spend your money on the game. It is fail Free 2 play title.… Expand
  15. LD9000
    Jun 3, 2011
    3
    This is one of the most greedy "Free to play" games around. It's free if you wish to grind for 3 months to get to tier 8 tanks. I did in open beta, it's really boring. In the release, it's very EASY to spend 100$ a month on this game or more. The game recently introduced 2 tanks that are ~40$ each, and are ridiculously overpowered. So you either get those tanks to compete OR buy premium ammo to shoot at them at 2-4 cents per shot. Even those shots still bounce half the time. In terms of fun, the game has good moments, but those are rare. Most of the matches are predictable and newer players would have a terrible time playing low level tanks matched against 6+ month veteran ace tanks. Can you say R.A.P.E? This is what this game would feel to you, unless you spend a ton of money and buy premium account and one of the 40$ premium tanks....… Expand
  16. MagicSquid
    May 29, 2011
    3
    If you can look past the lack of any sort of story/plot/etc. and focus on the actual gameplay, World of Tanks can be quite enjoyable. Like Counter Strike, this game doesn't have an engrossing story, it's all about the hot tank on tank action. Above all else, this game is quite fun, especially if you're a World War II fan or tank fan, like I am.

    The combat can be swift, tactically challeng    ing and all around a blast to play. There's a wide variety of tank types to play, from the Leichtraktor (loltraktor), MS-1 and T1 Cunningham, to the awe inspiring, 200 ton Maus, the swift and deadly IS-7, the devestating T30, and almost everything in between.

    The game features fairly realistic hit location specific damage. Shoot one in the engine, and the enemy tank might catch fire, burning to death. Shoot his gun and you can destroy his accuracy. Shoot his treads to knock them off and immobilize him for a bit, so your team can finish him off. It does have it's flaws, and I'll discuss those:

    1) It ain't free. I have yet to play a pay for free game that was actually free, and this is no exception. As long as you're willing to pony up a few dollars to help get you started though, it will likely be worth it.

    2) Russian bias. Many of the Soviet tanks are overpowered for what seems like no good reason. It's an ongoing hot topic of discussion on the forums how the developers will nerf an American/German tank sighting "balance" reasons, while buffing an already overpowered Soviet tank like the IS-4 for "historical accuracy". A great example is the Su-85 tier 5 tank destroyer. Fully upgraded, it's capable of performing better than the Jagdpanzer German tank destroyer which is a tier above it. Another example is the KV. Easily upgraded, a decent KV driver can decimate an entire team by himself. Another example is the IS vs. the Tiger. The Tiger, the most powerful tank of its era, is little more than a paperweight until fully upgraded, while the IS is a solid tank almost from the first moment you get it. The list goes on.

    3) Platoons. You have to pay gold (purchased with real money) to have a premium account, and only then can you form a platoon to play with up to 2 friends. This one issue almost made me not want to play anymore. In order to play a multiplayer game with my multiplayer friends, I have to pay real money? You're kidding, right? Well, I decided I liked the game enough to try it out for a month... and here I've paid for another month of premium. This is still the biggest issue in my mind, not being able to play with the friends you make in the game seems really silly. I can see how it could cause the game community to lack cohesion and longevity over time.

    4) SPGs or self propelled guns. They suck the fun right out of the game. They're capable of 1-shotting tanks even 2 tiers higher than them from across the map, and they amount to little more than a griefer mechanic. They are a good idea, but are in need of some balancing or some game mechanics retooling. If you're in a good tank brawl, blasting away at the enemy, and taking hits from them, take a deep breath, because your good fun is always just 1 SPG shot away from being ruined. Most battles quickly devolve into hiding from the SPGs more than dealing with the enemy tanks, which slows down the game tempo, destroying the flow of the game and turning it into a campfest rather than a tank vs. tank slugfest.

    There are many battles I've had that have overcome the SPG issues, often times by having our SPGs take theirs out early on, our light tank scouts take them out, or the other team simply not spawning with very many SPGs (or even 0!) and these fights that occur SPG-free are almost always fun and rewarding.

    The gameplay is quite fun. Tanks hide in cover behind buildings, conceal themselves in bushes, rush in wolfpacks, flank their opponents in pincer attacks, and various other maneuvers to gain the upper hand. Almost every tank has a different playstyle to learn and use effectively. Played well, even a low tier tank can have a devastating impression on the enemy. Played poorly, your high tier tanks will effectively sabotage their own team by denying them an essential element of the team's composition. Player skill accounts for as much of the effectiveness of their tank as the tank crew and equipment they have on it. Reveling in the challenge of learning the intricacies of these tanks and playing them to their fullest is what has kept me playing this game for the past couple of months, and I don't intend to stop.

    World of Tanks is by no means perfect, but the developers have designed a good mixture of arcade action and WWII tank simulation that I think most WWII tank fans would find enjoyable. It's certainly worth the download, since it's free.    … Expand
  17. Blackdragonbird
    Sep 14, 2011
    4
    This game is funny in the start, but after some battles you face the truth. Very unbalanced battles try to force you to buy a premium account or spend some RL money in them. Dont waste your time in this thing.
  18. Aquila
    Feb 6, 2012
    0
    Pay 2 win is very present in this game. Directly present with premium ammo and premium consumables. I don't encourage in any game, that if you pay more you have advantage over others. Indirectly present with free xp, credits, premium account and premium tanks which if you never buy them this game is a pain to play. It seems even with clan wars they created a system to gain money, because the clans that own a lot of lands doesn't need to invest money and the (new) clans that doesn't have lands must invest a lot to be equally equipped so it becomes a fair game. You can feel the makers of this game are greedy. The game is not to great, matchmaking is unbalanced and the game is very random with:
    Artillery, penetrations, aim from long range, the skill/tactics of your team sometimes you know you lose the game if you see lemming groups (this game is very team dependant), which map you get, engine fire, ammorack explosions... etc. These are all a gamble boxes.    … Expand
  19. WarMonger1980
    Mar 7, 2012
    0
    The game simply does not provide positive emotions. Once you pass the initial excitement and start developing your tanks you find out that unless you've been playing the game for the last couple of years you gonna be a cannon fodder on the battle map. To avoid it you'd need to put in A LOT of money (say a hundred bucks per month) and A LOT of time (say 4-5 months of everyday play) to become a decent team member. But the game needs cannon fodder so they keep flocking in :)… Expand
  20. HarpDarpReviews
    May 17, 2012
    2
    Slow paced, unskilled, and worst of all just plain boring game play. The balance and matchmaking in the game is way off as well. The entire game has a decent core concept but they need to go back to the drawing board. They need to make the game feel more like a game and less of a driving in a parking lot simulation. The also need to find some way to encourage more team work and tank slection stratagy rather than putting everyone in a generic mold team.… Expand
  21. Philippe
    Oct 14, 2011
    3
    World of tanks is a wonderful idea done wrong. I've played it for a week and then gave up. The premise of having upgradable tanks is really neat, but the devs have their heads up their arses. Battles are fought from automatically matched teams and this is the killing point. After playing for a few days and upgrading your tank you will end up being outgunned 95% of the time. It's like playing CS with only a glock. You will spend your time speccing battles you cannot possibly influence.… Expand
  22. theZee
    May 5, 2011
    0
    Novel idea is the main appeal of this game, but graphics look outdated and in general is looks and feel dodgy and unfinished. Tank balance is pretty bad and once you get in the higher levels it becomes even more apparent. On top fo this, their customer service is the worst I have ever experienced...even though i had a premium account they didn't give a damn and were about as helpful as a solar powered flashlight and downright rude.… Expand
  23. Ebayers
    Apr 15, 2012
    1
    I have been playing since open beta and agree with many of the other low reviews. This game while being genuinly free to play hence i awarded 1 point :) Is quite simply not fun, after playing the same gamemode on simular maps for over 1,000 times this game tires. The ideas as said in other reviews are awesome however just dont translate into a fun game, my main problem is the system for upgrading the tank and the teiring, with for example a Ferdinand, one of the best tank destroyers of world war 2 you come up against tanks from the 1950s and many prototypes and as the starting gun on this tank means u cannot kill tanks ur level it becomes tedious and frustrating, only after about 100 battles can you unlock the best gun and it becomes playable, this is very simular with other tanks also. Matchmaking is also a contrivertial issue as the battles are oftern heavily biased to one team. My second biggest fault after enjoyment is the lack of community, I myself am in a clan and have played clanwars however the developers of the game make little attempt to communicate with players other than tedious events, on the forums the "community team" only post to remove explicit content which I think says alot about their approach to the games community. I much prefer Blizzards approach of atleast getting involved in conversations which helpes players feel more part of the game. There are many ways to make this game great however in my opinion it is likly to be another of those games which could have been awesome which is however destined to be a flop, its lack of penetration itno the European market says its all. Another word of warning is to ignore most of the critic reviews as many are simply fantasy and quite irritating. Sorry if this has dissapointed you, just trying to stop people wasting as much time as I have :) Thanks for reading… Expand
  24. JamesBondX
    Jul 21, 2012
    0
    I give this game 0 score. Because there are developers of the game rating the game up on the user review. Personally, this game is pretty good, but the devs are not impartial, they are russian. Therefore the game is not as great as it could be. The users that are FAKE are: RedNord Dys88 reignoftanks check the similarity between dys88 and reignoftanks. Rakashin DutchDK (probably) Pirate21110
    AceGunner
    mrtanker

    ...
    ...
    The list goes on. The user reviews are not this high.. check the low reviews.    … Expand
  25. Tigan
    Dec 29, 2012
    1
    After a year of playing world of tanks to the test. I've come to my own conclusions that they are not at all the best. Once you start getting into tier 4 or higher tanks the experience rate dramatically drops and it could take you for ever to get any where. Aside from the high cost of higher tier tanks. Aside from the credits you make after a battle and the cost of repairs and restocking of ammo you practically make next to nothing same as the experience. You could be a good player and really end up getting screwed in free experience or experience alone. After a yr playing i have not been able to get past having a t1 heavy tank and it is not all that good as it would seem. The higher tier you are the more cost it is in repairs and restocking. So really not all the best as i thought it would be. Match making is very horrible and unbalanced. You could have low tier tanks with much higher tier tanks their suppose to scout, but to be honest you are not making credits or experience from this All these other reviews are coming from kids. What would you expect from that? World of tanks is a grind fest, and you really don't have much an mmorpg in this game. you can't even play in the same match with your friends if you wanted to. The matches are not randomly maps as they should be. At most you will get stuck to one or two maps. really boring doing the same maps over and over in a 1 hour period.… Expand
  26. Poerisija
    Jul 15, 2012
    3
    Game is basically designed to frustrate you into spending money. Full of stupid mechanics (yes, I know how they work and why are they like that. 55% win rate with 1300~ rating out of 2000 games) like spotting that makes very little sense or massively overpowering artillery that basically decides every high-tier game with ability to one-shot a tank into uselessness by killing off 2-4 crew members and knocking down 1-3 modules per shot. Sure, you can take maybe 3-5 of the shots, but even one near miss drops your combat effectiveness by over 50% easily. Everything is priced very high and if you want to spend real life money you won't get much bang for your buck. Single tank costs 30-40 euros. Imagine, a single tank in a game with hundreds of them. See Tribes Ascend for F2P done correctly.… Expand
  27. Badgames
    Dec 4, 2012
    0
    This game is free but the way they have designed it pretty much forces you to spend lots of money to advance at all in the game. You will end up in tons of very unfair matches forcing you to have to spend real money to convert experience just to advance to the next tank. But you can always just not spend money and play a terrible tank that has a gun that won't even damage other tanks, Which is required to make a reasonable amount of experience. Avoid this game at all cost. Its just a scam.… Expand
  28. DrBuzzKill
    Aug 5, 2012
    0
    World of tanks has a lot of potential and is fun at times when it is balanced which rarely happens. WoT suffers from poor design. More often than not WoT is very dull, boring and lame. This game suffers a lot from imbalance! This game was outdated before it even left alpha. Very poor overall design of the game! The developers focus way too much on money making than actually making this game work properly. The game mechanics are broken and this game suffers from a lot of bugs and poor coding. The best way to describe this game is a bunch of high school kids made it. Just simply put a bunch of amateurs made this game who are greedy and just see dollars signs everywhere! Avoid this piece of Trash on less you are willing to spend money to have fun in this game. That is the only way WoT is worth playing and that is with gold account! This game gets a 0 out of 10 for the overall trash factor it offers!… Expand
  29. rmroman
    Mar 7, 2012
    0
    Good idea, terrible implementation. Let's wait till some team that has brains implement it.

    The idea of an easy to use, first person shooter with a wast online audience is immensely appealing. Just this particular case sucks. First of all the game producer does not put enough money into server capacity. When you just drive around you've got decent 30-50ms ping but in the heat of the battl    e when you need your game to be responsive above all you start getting network lags and the pings becomes 100-300ms. That means 3-10 frames per second. Just imagine playing a first person shooter with a slow motion camera.… Expand
  30. WarPlayer2012
    Mar 7, 2012
    0
    The game is very engaging for the first 2-3 hours but then turns into grindfest. Each new tank you get comes in a "stock" configuration and needs upgrading. "Stock" means cannon fodder even for a lower level tanks. Stocks are slow, have inferior guns and very limited visibility. And you need hundreds of games to research your stock tank into "top" so beware of topping up your game account with real money.… Expand
  31. duckteller
    Aug 12, 2012
    0
    Pay to win game don't waste your time.

    The episode starts out with Android 18 about to fight with Mr. Satan (who is scared out of his mind) at the World Martial Arts Tournament. Mr. Satan imagines what will happen if he loses to Android 18: Android 18 laughing at him, Videl disowning him, and the entire crowd booing and throwing things at him. He then laughs and says "Watch out, you don    't know what you're messing with!" while walking backwards. He then charges at Android 18 with his fists flying, but Android 18 dodges each one. She then puts him in a headlock and says she will throw the match for 20,000,000 Zeni. She lets go but the crowd thinks Mr. Satan kicked her away.
    18 putting Mr. Satan in a headlock
    BeadtmdcAdded by Beadtmdc

    At the tournament, Mr. Satan throws Android 18 across the ring and she tells him to do his most powerful attack. He performs his Dynamic Mess Em Up Punch. She stands there and says "That was your most powerful attack". She then jumps out of the ring and Mr. Satan is declared the winner. Android 18 then says "I will see you tomorrow and get my money and if you don't pay I will kill you".    … Expand
  32. therewillbelols
    Oct 3, 2012
    2
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Pros:
    -Anti-map/wall/ESP hack feature. The server determines who can see you and who you can see so hackers cannot shoot undetected tanks. They can still shoot randomly or take an estimated shoot though.
    -Lots of tanks.
    -Multiple nations.
    -Lots of equipment for each tank.
    -Team balance algorithm that gives you a variety of tank lineups per battle.
    -Battlefields are full of objects.
    -You can now ride down cliffs.
    -Sophisticated game mechanics.
    -World of Tanks allows you to mod the game.

    Cons:
    -Very horrible grind. If you are a free player you automatically suffer a -50% credit and experience penalty. Depending on your tank, you may need to fight over 200-400+ battles to get the tank crew to 100%. After that it gets even worse, you need to do an additional 2000-5000+ tank battles to acquire enough experience to fully train the crew.
    -Boring game modes. I would like to see modes such as light tanks vs light tanks only or team death matches were the team who gets x kills first, wins.
    -Crew training>Player skill. The player skill doesn't really get better, instead its the crew's performance that gets better that makes the player look like they are skilled when really the player never really improves.
    -Sight mechanics suck. In this game, wild tank sees you through wall. Wild tank appears in the open field out of nowhere.
    -Physics limitations. There are tanks in the game that actually go faster than 72km/h but the game forces the tanks to cap at 72km/h.
    -Where are all the tanks. If this is really the world of tanks, then where are the modern tanks? Copyright issues?
    -Game balance hurts the historical performance of tanks.
    -Very few maps. Game gets repetitive real fast.
    -In order to get to a tank you want, you have to play some really horrible tanks.
    -Sometimes you get put in battles with tanks that are 7 tiers above you. You have absolutely no chance of surviving.
    -Lacks good music.
    -Lacks foreign language dialogue. All dialogue is spoken in English.    … Expand
  33. JoeB666
    Jan 19, 2013
    1
    The game requires the use of gold in order to enjoy. As others have said, things become frustrating, after a while, when you are incapable of playing well against opponents without upgrading.
    Additionally, the price of gold is obscene. It costs $100 dollars for enough gold to obtain a premium account for merely a year. I expect more than than that.
  34. sha7bot
    Jan 28, 2013
    2
    I hate to use the term, "Pay to Win" but in this case, it applies.

    Riot Games' League of Legends is Free to Play as well, but that game can be competitively played without spending a dime and I don't understand why more developers don't follow their model. After all, it's highly successful.

    I don't mind supporting developers, but the nature in which you present your product has to b    e honest. WoT is not honest in it's implementation. "Elite Tanks", which require real money to buy, are vastly superior to the free to play versions, therefore providing players the option to Pay to Win.

    Call your game what it is, a Demo, and don't insult the intelligence of your player base. This game is monotonous and boring if you're not buying "Experience Boosts" or "Elite Tanks."

    game /gām/
    Noun
    A form of play or sport, esp. a competitive one played according to rules and decided by skill, strength, or luck.

    Paying cash to buy the best is not skill, strength, or luck. Go buy Battle Field 3.    … Expand
  35. RoyRogers
    Jan 17, 2013
    4
    Ir is a nice game to start with, but at the higher tiers the fights are mostly unbalanced. Although a fight is scheduled to last 15 minutes most of the time you will be out within 2-5 minutes. Only rarely you will see a fight where you can have fun slugging it out.

    Biggest problem however is the amount of verbal abuse in this game. A lot of the higher tier players will blame others if t    hey lose (even the best players have a win rate below 60%) and they will tell you loud and clear… Expand
  36. Varaxis
    Dec 17, 2012
    3
    Grinding is not fun. The cost of faster advancement is not cheap. You can easily spent more than $100 on this game.

    You will be cycled through a pattern of being frustratingly weak and slow, until you upgrade your tank fully. You can either then try to get your crew experience if you enjoy fighting in that tier and want to stick to a tank, or move on and restart a new cycle of frustrati    on and upgrading. Those who upgraded or have paid, will enjoy destroying others in your helpless state... "zomg, I killed 5+ tanks! So epic!"

    I personally got fed up by Tier 3/4. I finally found a tank I liked, the German "Luchs", but the reward for the grind just wasn't very satisfying. Some have said that Tier 6 tank that my Luchs can research into, a VK2801 or something, was amazing, but I rather not play a game with so much grinding, unless it had a better social aspect.

    To say the least, I really like the music.    … Expand
  37. ploppytheman
    Apr 15, 2013
    0
    Im giving this game a zero because it simply, pay to win, and the game is setup to basically make free to play insanely frustrating and pointless, you are literally cannon fodder for wallet warriors. I know they are a business but this is an extremely greedy money mongering business that has corrupt practices, meaning I wouldnt support it based on that alone. I wont go into speculative reasons of their wrong behavior such as, premium shells rolling higher, matchmaking being rigged, or releasing overpowered pay to win content (then nerfing it when they release new pay to win content, aka planned obsolescence), or anything else which cant be verified but is widely thought as true, I will simply state the facts which are more than enough to show you this game is not worth your time or money.

    Let me give a quick summary so everyone can read this. This game is about giving people who pay money an ego boost and good time, thinking they are good. If you read the forums its painfully obvious the hordes of pay to win wallet warriors deny its pay to win when it clearly is. Its like if everyone was saying the earth is flat, its just not true, sorry. So these people who pay to win think they are good at games. All MMOs are for low skill players for the most part, thats how they make their money, but this is doubly worse because its pay to win with an illusion of fairness. Its a slow paced game with basic strategic elements so old people with real jobs (or idiots with credit cards) can pay WoT a bunch of money to make them feel like they are any good at games, but they are not. Thats why random battle doesn't have any ELO or else the pay to win wallet warriors egos would stop getting fed and they wouldnt pay to win anymore, but with this grand illusion the suckers pay in to the system to continue to feel they have any skill in a game at all. I mean $50 for a TANK in a GAME... its just shameless greed. This company makes double digit millions of profit per month on this trash.

    Pay to win. There is direct pay to win, one quote of the devs goes "you should pay us money if you want to be the best", quite literally too. No that is not how competitive gameplay and clan wars works, whoever is the best skilled should win, and the best and pro scene should be getting paid for creating idols that make people want to play the game and spend money, oh but wait the game is pay to win so it could never be taken seriously. You dont HAVE to use the best items but regardless it creates an unfair playing field where money gives advantages even if both players are maxed out and equally skilled, this is NOT acceptable. Anyone who cares about competitive or fair play will automatically hate this game. Also the russian tanks are OP by the russian dev, great job.

    The grind to even getting to that unfair pay to win playing field is so unfair. Basically you start with a stock tank that is absolutely horrible and cant beat anyone, and you run in and die until you get it fitted out completely, but guess what, you still lose to people who have better tanks through the unfair matchmaking where you face opponents you cannot damage. Their is an illusion of weakspots and theoretically you "could" kill those tanks, but statisically, even if you are skilled and they are not, it is extremely unlikely and they would have to be afk in order for you to kill them. But how can you target a weakspot if your aiming reticule is as big as the tank itself when you are trying to hit something the size of a dinner plate. Its like carnival games that are rigged with a bunch of flashing lights so if you pay them more money you will win eventually. Its kind of like arcade games back in the day, except at least those were fun.
    And pay to win wallet warriors will have 100% crews which have bonus skills while you have nothing and every stat you have is worse because of your crew skills.
    And you have to pay for repairs and ammo, so your xp and silver you get is reduced by a much larger percent than a premium player so you basically have to grind 5x more even though they only get 50% more experience, because that 50% more xp+silver is pure profit, that they got more kills in because they had better tanks with full 100% crews, upgraded camo, the best gear for the tank, and expensive equipment you wont be able to afford for a long time. And they can essentially buy their experience and move it to another tank, so they never have to drive stock since xp is locked per tank unless you guessed it, you pay to win it to another tank
    Again, the games random battle is not skill based matchmaking, its there so pay to win wallet warriors can kill you, you are cannon fodder, you are basically a bot with the added benefit of wallet warriors egos being satisfied.    … Expand
  38. SamIamNot
    Feb 22, 2013
    1
    This game is great in concept but idiotic in realization. The Devs and artists have done a great job of re-creating these beautiful tank models and bringing them to life. The gameplay is great, if you can get past the other players. The running and gunning is great, if you can avoid the ridiculous RNG system that seems to rob you of credit at least three times a round. The map rotation and match making are completely bogus and should have been just left in the unfair way it was at the start. Before getting into detail let’s talk about the backend/administrative side of things. For some unknown to me or the forums reasons they have changed the team damage criteria. Instead of like it was you can now get team damage AND be reported AND turn blue for having a friendly scout ram you at top speed and kill himself on you. You have not shot anyone, you have not done anything but be a tank at the onset of battle. Out of nowhere a friendly scout rams you and you are reported when you turn blue the next round (because YOU killed someone) and the scout gets exp and credits for having dashed himself against your tank. Seem fair? No, it isn’t. Seem unlikely? Yes, it is. I am writing from a currently banned account for this very reason. The RNG system... heaven help you if you are not in a Russian tank and you are firing on a Russian tank. The Devs have said over and over that there is no favor toward the Russian tanks it being a Russian game ;P. This is not correct. There is favor and it shows in-game. There are countless YouTube videos showing same tier tanks firing on Russian tanks over and over with penetration but no damage. My highest count for this was eleven. Eleven hits against a Russian tank and no damage. The stats on the gun say they can pen the armor you are firing at and the game will register and even say, ‘Penetration!’ but you get no damage scores whatsoever. There have been instances of tier 10 tanks firing on tier five Russian tanks and getting no damage. And if you decide to go with a Premium tank I highly recommend it. The only issues you will have are the scouts ramming you but all the above issues seem to go away with any premium ride. Good luck and have fun. You’ll need it.… Expand
  39. Critterden
    Mar 11, 2013
    1
    This game really started to become a good game. However, the vendor has disconnected it's self with it's customers and have turn the game into a totally frustrating Pay-To-Win game! It's promoted as a Free-To-Play game and nothing is further from the truth. Without a premium account the player will reach a point to the game is near unplayable because the developers have slanted the game to give those players an unfair advantage. The developer match low level tanks with tank upto 2 levels higher and then make it to where the lower tank can't harm the higher level. Also the developers seem to think it's funny to have most rounds (even ones you have to buy) hit and simply do zero damage. The Vendor has lost the balance between greed and promoting a good balanced game which in turn would make even more.… Expand
  40. Trent28
    Apr 13, 2013
    0
    Game starts out fun in the lower tiers, but quickly turns into a pseudo paygate situation if you happen to choose the wrong tank tree. There exists no fun way of advancing with certain tanks, and either you pay up to skip to a better tank or for better equipment, or you tough it out and risk losing all drive to play the game. Either way, the game feels like more of an exercise in frustration than any other game I've come across.… Expand
  41. deskrit
    May 7, 2013
    3
    World of Tanks is a game based entirely on an RNG (Random Number Generator). Any veteran of the game will tell you, that basically, nothing matters. Every single aspect of the game boils down to the RNG and the vague boundaries that are defined in its algorithms. No-one knows exactly how it works, but what is known is that you have as good a chance at succeeding at one thing, as you do failing at it. The in game numbers listed on the weapons and tanks are almost completely irrelevant, because the actually mathematics used to determine armor penetration and damage are so convoluted and apparently outside the bounds of what is listed or logical, that its meaningless.

    Wold of Tanks is a game designed to completely remove player input, decision making, and "skill" with the use of the RNG to determine everything from whether you can hit your target, to whether you can even SEE your target, and its built around a game that gives the illusion of actual action based, skill oriented gameplay. The intent of the game is to allow everyone to be able to succeed, regardless of skill level or investment. In this way, it gets significant props and can never be accused of being "pay to win" because everyone is at the mercy of the RNG and its modifiers.

    The game also can manipulate individual player accounts to keep them within a certain "success metric" in order to make you want to keep playing, and keep folks from getting frustrated. Its not known the exact number, but it seems as though the sweet spot is somewhere between 48-51. That is, the game will manipulate your ingame performance behind the scenes (by performance i mean your chance to penetrate/be penetrated, damage, etc) to keep your win rate somewhere between 48% 51%. If you get above around 52.25% win rate a modifier of varying intensity gets put on your account that causes your shots to penetrate less often, and your armor to be more susceptible to penetration and damage, until your win rate drops back down to the target global ratio. The games matchmaker works brilliantly in that it lumps people together who are above or below the curve, and places them against folks at appropriate levels to balance out the regional server winrate. IE, the people on your team are most likely all either doing too poorly, or too well, and are being placed against a team that they are highly likely to either win or lose against, thus bringing both groups of players up or down in winrate as necessary to keep the golden 48-51 ratio. Its quiet an impressive algorithm, but it completely removes the competitive aspect of the game and renders everything you do meaningless. It is of course possible to go above or below the global ratio, if you are just absolutely deliberately trying to do badly or have a really good group of friends you play with that are capable of overcoming the account modifiers (this is hard to do, the game limits groups of friends called "companies" to 3 per match. each match is 15vs15 so its very, very hard for 3 people no matter how skilled to change the outcome, although its very possible if your company is skilled and coordinated).

    However, rarely, you will get a match that is balanced with the Matchmaker algorithm not trying to promote or demote anyone. When this happens the game really shines, and its a shame that the game is built around the model that it is, because the game can be very fun. Unfortunately everything is designed to be very comfortable and to prevent anyone from either falling too far behind or getting too far ahead, in order to encourage spending money on the in-game real world items and "premium time" (which increases your rate of experience gain for leveling up tanks). It is obviously a very successful system, as the game has done extremely well, but after playing awhile it becomes utterly soul-less and unsatisfying and only the absolute die-hards or the folks that have spent vast amounts of real world currency hang around beyond the tier 5 or 6 vehicles (out of possible 10 tiers).    … Expand
  42. jnnnnn
    May 10, 2013
    0
    This game is fun at low levels but becomes a terrible grind beyond tier 5.

    Also, if you don't buy premium game time or tanks, you will have to spend a lot of time grinding low level tanks to earn credits: the higher level tanks are very expensive to repair and buy ammunition.

    I found this game intensely frustrating (it seems designed to frustrate you into spending real money).

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
80 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 38 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 29 out of 38
  2. Mixed: 9 out of 38
  3. Negative: 0 out of 38
  1. Games Master UK
    Dec 18, 2012
    80
    Bucketloads of depth and surprisingly simple to jump into. It's free, too! [Jan 2013, p.84]
  2. Gamereactor Sweden
    Dec 12, 2012
    80
    World of Tanks is the ultimate tank battle game, and with a price tag of 0 whatever your currency is - there really isn't anything major to complain about.
    Read full review
  3. GamingTrend
    Apr 10, 2012
    88
    It combines aspects of great RPG games and first person shooters, wraps them into a package that will appeal to the historian, and tosses in a dash of addiction to combine into one great final product.
    Read full review
See all critic reviews »