1999 · AndNow · Shooter · Platformer

Tiny Tank

PlayStation exclusive

In a future world, an army of steel robots are out to destroy the human race. Our only hope is a little yellow tank armed with some mighty big guns. The sentient Tiny Tank was originally created to appease a public that feared the mindless violence waged by larger war-robots, but he was soon destroyed by one of those jealous automatons at the beginning of the robot revolution 100 years ago. Almost destroyed, at least.

Released: 1 September 1999
Platforms: PlayStation
Genres: Shooter Platformer Arcade
Developers: AndNow Appaloosa Interactive
Publishers: Sony Computer Entertainment
Modes: Single-player
Perspective: Third person
Themes: Action Comedy

About

Tiny Tank (marketed as Tiny Tank: Up Your Arsenal) is a 1999 platformer-third-person shooter video game developed by AndNow and Appaloosa Interactive and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation. Initially to be published by MGM Interactive in late 1998, they sold the rights of the game to Sony while retaining a producer credit.

In the game, the armed forces of planet Earth were merged into a large corporation during the 21st century. The company decided to create a robot army to fight humanity's wars instead of human soldiers. It also created the sentient tank Tiny Tank as a company mascot to boost its own popularity. In 2098, Tiny was supposed to face the rest of the company's army in an exhibition match.

Keywords

war
tank
split-screen multiplayer
voice acting
non-humanoid protagonist
playstation underground

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

The player controls Tiny as he traverses many levels, eliminating SenTrax forces as he goes. There are two bars at the top of the screen that show Tiny's health and the amount of nanometal acquired. Nanometal is essential for the on-board Fix-It Crabs to repair Tiny. If the nanometal meter runs out, health cannot be regenerated. There is also a map on the upper right hand corner identifying the surroundings, enemies, and mission objectives.

Tiny can pick up fallen parts from destroyed enemies:

Story

, all of Earth's armed forces were disintegrated into one large corporation, SenTrax. SenTrax vowed to create a robot army to fight humanity's wars, so mankind itself would not have to. However, they needed the peoples' vote to set this plan into motion, and thus developed the titular "Tiny Tank" - a small orange tank with an occasionally unfriendly attitude. The creation of this cute killing machine made SenTrax's popularity skyrocket, and won them the vote.

As thanks, the corporation set up an exhibition showing their orange mascot fighting off the entire SenTrax army on July 4, 2098, broadcast live over the Internet. However, when the rehearsal began, one of the SenTrax robots had been accidentally fitted with live ammunition and destroyed Tiny with one shot. As a result, Tiny's "positronic brain" (his artificial intelligence system) shattered, and its shards gave "life" to the entire robot army. The robot that had fired the shot, now self-aware and calling himself Mutank, took control of the rampant robots and began to eliminate humanity so that machines could thrive.

Development

The game was in development as early as April 1998, when it was picked up by MGM Interactive. AndNow founder Ed Annunziata had previously worked with Appaloosa Interactive on Ecco The Dolphin when he was at Sega. Sony acquired the rights to the game after the game had missed its planned release date in 1998.

Reception

Many magazines gave early positive reviews while the game was still in development before Sony stepped in. Next Generation, for example, said that the game "succeeds in what it sets out to accomplish, both [in] its humor and its gameplay." After release, however, reviews were mixed.