Why the Tank! Tank! Tank! for Nintendo Wii U Holds Up
Tank! Tank! Tank! is a loud, unapologetic arcade brawler that earns its place in any Wii U library — especially for households that need something the whole room can play without a tutorial.
There's a specific category of game that never gets the credit it deserves: the reliable party title. Not the one that ships with the console, not the one with the cinematic trailer — the one that's already in the tray when friends show up unannounced. Tank! Tank! Tank! on Wii U has quietly occupied that role for a certain kind of household for years now.
The game traces back to a Namco Bandai arcade cabinet, which explains a lot about its design philosophy. Arcade ports that make the jump to home consoles either lose their identity in the translation or find a new one. This one found a new one. The Wii U's GamePad — a piece of hardware that often felt like a solution searching for a problem — actually earns its keep here, enabling an asymmetric multiplayer mode where one player operates with a fundamentally different view and objective than everyone else on the couch. That's not a gimmick. That's good game design.
The keyword 'tank a tank' surfaces this title regularly in search, and it's an accurate description of the loop: you are, in fact, tanking a tank. The verb is the noun and the noun is the verb, and the game never loses sight of that. There's something to be said for a title that knows exactly what it is and executes on it without apology.
Where it falls short is in the solo experience. Strip away the second and third player and the mission structure starts to feel like a demo mode rather than a full campaign. That's a real limitation, and anyone buying this for a single-player experience should weigh it honestly. But for the use case it was designed for — a room with multiple people and a shared TV — it delivers consistently.
At its current price point on the secondary market, Tank! Tank! Tank! makes a reasonable case for itself as a Wii U holdout title. The library for that console is smaller than it deserved to be, and this one belongs in the rotation alongside the more celebrated entries. It photographs poorly in a collection and plays better than it looks — which, in the long run, is exactly the kind of thing worth tracking down.