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Overview
Port of the exceedingly rare coin-op by Sigma Enterprises, R2D Tank was one of six different games UA Ltd. was planning on releasing for the 2600 based on their offerings for the Arcadia 2001. For those not in the know, the Arcadia 2001 was an obscure home game system released in 1982. To say that the Arcadia 2001 didn't take the market by storm would be an understatement, but it was much more popular overseas where dozens of different clones were marketed. However due to the video game crash UA decided not release any of their games, either in the US or in Europe. R2D Tank is an interesting game that can best be described as Pac-Man, but with tanks. The player must move their tank around the screen collecting dots while avoiding the enemy tank and its bullets. For each dot the player collects they gain a shot. Shots can be used to shoot at the enemy tank or to turn landmines back to regular dots. Landmines are formed when the enemy tank moves over a dot and are deadly to the touch until they are turned back to normal dots. Once the player collects all the dots they'll move onto the next screen. There are three different screens of increasing difficulty. The first screen is an open arena with no obstacles between the player and the enemy tank. The second adds two laser fences to the screen which are deadly to the touch. The third screen adds four laser fences just to make things even more difficult. Thankfully the player can shoot through these fences in order to turn mines back into dots or shoot the enemy tank, but the enemy tank can also go through them without harm. Sounds easy right? Well there are some things that make game more difficult. First, the player moves on an invisible grid which can make it hard to line up the tank with the dots. Second, your tank cannot move backwards, it can only turn left, right, or move forward. Finally, you only have a limited amount of shots based on the number of dots you've picked up and you lose all but one when you die. When you run out you'll need to pick up more dots or you'll be defenseless. Oddly, each time you shoot the enemy tank the game will pause and you'll both appear back at your starting positions. This quickly becomes an annoyance when you're trying to pick up the final dots and are constantly coming into confrontation with the enemy tank. Speaking of the final dots, if the final dot is a mine and you've run out of shots then you'll be force to die when picking it up to finish the level. While this situation doesn't come up all that often it's a major annoyance when it does. R2D Tank offers a decent amount of options for a 2600 game . The player may opt to start on any of the three screens (think easy, medium, hard) and there are also two player options where the second player plays the role of the enemy tank trying to score more points while making landmines and gunning for player one. It's not often a 2600 game offers the second player the ability to play the role of the antagonist. Like all UA games, the player can also pause and resume the game with the Color/B&W switch. R2D Tank is an interesting game that deserves a lot more attention than it got in the arcades. The only home port was for the Arcadia 2001 clones, but it was not released in the U.S. Had it been released, the 2600 port would probably have been most peoples first glimpse of this rare gem. The Atari 2600 port is fairly close to the arcade game, only missing the multiple tanks at the higher levels (which makes the arcade game even more difficult than it already is). However the two player option makes the 2600 version the clear winner. The only real problem holding the game back is its high level of difficulty coupled with stiff controls which can lead to cheap deaths and frustration.
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