Welcome to my first official installment of what is killing my downtime. Some of you may be aware of the strategic tank warfare experience of "World of Tanks." This game is a hardcore international hit developed by Wargamming.net. If you have not heard of this game, don't worry about it, that just shows how easily a great game can slip under your radar.
World of Tanks meets my criteria for this column on backlog games, so I am almost obligated to cover it. Now "World of Tanks" is technically an MMO, some may think "Great, a game I have to pay for on a monthly basis." World of Tanks is actually a free to play game. Yes, there is the option to put in your own money and get gold to buy "Premium" tanks. Don't think you are going to be beaten by a lesser player who thinks he can buy his wins. There are over 150 tanks you can purchase with in-game currency you earn by playing matches. The tanks in the game range all the way from the vintage T1 Cunningham American tank all the way up to the mighty M103. Let's say you are not a big fan of the American tanks for any particular reason. Fortunatley for you, World of Tanks has other nationalities such as the UK, USSR, French, German, and Chinese. Like I said before, there are over 150 tanks spread accros 6 nations to choose from. The game distinguishes the tanks over 10 different tiers/brackets to keep things fair and balanced. This will prevent you from getting crushed by a WWII tank while you mess around with a WWI era one.
You begin the game with a Tier 1 tank from every nation so you can see what tickles your fancy. During the process of mastering your current tank you unlock more powerful tanks that improve upon what you are currently taking to battle. Over the course of Tier 1 through 10 you will have a chance to experience light, medium, heavy, SPG (artillery), and tank destroyers. Every one of these has their respective strengths and weaknesses.
The average match length can range from 5 to 15 minutes. Now for example, if you get destroyed in the first minute or so, you are not stuck waiting for the match to end to play another round. While you are more than welcome to jump between Ally tanks and enjoy the action, you can also hit the escape button and back out to the lobby or "Garage" to pick another tank and roll on out. Once the previous match is over, you still get all your experience and money without having to sit through it all. Oh, here's one more kicker, in nearly 500 battles I have never waited more than 10 seconds to find a match. With a lineup of 15 players on each side I must say it is an impressive wait time. If you hit that ready button you better be ready or your team may kinda not like you for being afk.
Ladies and Gentlemen, "World of Tanks" is a smoking barrel of fun and exciting moments. I am currently playing this on the PC and Wargamming.net is actually bringing this to the Xbox 360 as well. While this game is more than a blast, like most multiplayer games it is best enjoyed with friends, so by all means tell your buddies and hit me up for some matches as well if you like. Go ahead and leave a comment below if you are interested. Once again thanks for reading and stay frosty.
Microsoft announced its financial results for Q3 of fiscal year 2026, including an update on its gaming Xbox business and more.
Not looking good. Hopefully Asha Sharma is able to turn Phil’s disaster around.
To me it's still quite remarkable how they can cash-in 5.3bn in revenue in a single quarter, since their hardware is basically dead.
The stock mark is what makes Microsoft remarkable, They have convinced every institutional and retail investor to just keep piling money into them. Like many big tech giants they are just a big growing pyramid scheme. As long as people keep dropping money into ETF's that cover the market Microsoft will always be liquid. At the same time it is completely stifling innovation and competition. People need to start being more discreet in how they invest their money as it's killing the system.
Riiiiight because people will just flock back to them for one or two games per year.
15+ years of bad performance is what they call irreparable in business. It is time for them to sell off the assets and get out of entertainment.
These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse
The charity event will be streamed live from Gamescom in August.
Thanks to the slip-up of an artist working on the title, we now have more evidence that a new Injustice game is in the works.
Is there going to be a ps3 version?
Sounds pretty fun.
Looks pretty fun but I've been waiting for War Thunder to release their own version of tank gameplay before I jump into a tank game. I don't want to start on World of Tanks and then learn that War Thunder will make a better version only to abandon all my unlocks.
Panzer, vor