Recent reviews by MonkeBoi

I think after 810 hours in this game I have a pretty sound grasp of the pros and cons and whether or not you should sink hours into this 'free-to-play' game. As a TL;DR for those who don't want to read the whole thing, you shouldn't - AT THE MOMENT. The developers are cash grabbing, and have not fixed many of the issue's plaguing the game, top tier is completely unbalanced and not fun, but if you were to play the game, mid-tier and low-tier is arguably the most fun you can have without trying too hard.

Now onto the real review.
PROS - This game is addictive as hell, and you can most definitely sink a lot of hours into this game before you realize its 3am and your Mountain Dew has run out, its fun as hell with friends, squading up and just having a blast. The vehicle models are impeccable, with many of the vehicles running true to life with obvious adjustments for the sake of fun gameplay i.e. not making the Panther break down if you decide to go up a steep incline. Tank RB is some of the most fun you can have in this game, especially at low and mid-tier where CAS is balanced and the lineups you can bring can stomp and be stomped equally. The events are fun (although personally I don't take much part in them) - and the event vehicles are pretty balanced for the most part and are achievable if you set your mind to it. All in all, this game sets out to achieve something that is pretty remarkable, to create a semi-realistic tank game, and it does just that... to an extent

CONS - the grind is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ god awful, with many players complaining about the 'stock grind' of vehicles - essentially they don't give you the essentials to survive in the game and you have to grind these, at the start it isn't too bad but by the end of the tech tree just getting the repair function can mean 100 games without it, and trust me, that isn't fun. And this ties into the next con, it's pay-to-win. If you really want to you can spend $$$ to get this modules, and realistically this is the only way to do it without wanting to ♥♥♥ or spend hundreds of hours in game, because the rate at which you earn currency and research points is god awful without premium, and maybe this is just me not winning games, but without it you'll have a bad time. The slow grind coupled with giving players an easy paid way out is a good strategy for them, but results in hair pulling and a lot of broken keyboards for the average player. The issue of giving players easy ways to grind seeps into the premium vehicle issue as well - they give ways for players to enter top tier without doing the grind, with premium vehicles, this has two effects - it allows inexperienced players to enter top-tier and get stomped, good for the vets bad for balance and the team with the new players, as they just quit out of the match after one death and leave everyone else to dry. And it makes top tier difficult to balance, because many of these premium vehicles are extremely good e.g. Leopard A1A1 (L/44), T-55AM, Object 120, XM-1(GM and Chrysler), these vehicles are all good and you don't have to do a thing to get them. Top-tier balance is a mess, with cold war era vehicles up against WWII vehicles, helicopter spam with ATGMS, SAMS, APFSDS, all these weapons are designed to kill but there is no rock-paper-scissor balance that made the low and mid-tier fun AND balanced. Top-tier is a pain to play and is uninspired and not fun. It's full of people cheesing OP lineups and this issue is compounded by unbalanced maps that were made for WWII vehicles and not modern MBTs that can cover the distance in seconds and lay down a spawn camp within 5 minutes of the match starting. Did i mention helicopter spam? with these Heli ATGMS killing multiple people from ridiculous distances and the only counter being SAMS, which aren't always available especially when you're in that 8.7 - 9.7 gap. Power creep in the tech tree makes a lot of vehicles obsolete at their tier (pree the MAUS, JPZ 4-5, M60 rise, T-10M, IS-3, IS-4M), these vehicles were viable but with the introduction of HEAT-FS and other ammunition types these vehicles either have no meta or are outright useless. One last thing, Air RB is dead, and needs a rehaul because it frankly isn't fun for a multitude of reasons i won't go into. Glitches and bugs remain unfixed and gaijin seems oblivious to what the community wants and only churns out new vehicles that are half-baked balance wise and continue to powercreep the game.

Overall, a really broken and poor optimized game at high-tier, which is where everyone wants to go, but at low and mid-tier the game really shines and reminds t many of the old heads why they fell in love with the game. Do not install this game thinking that it is what they advertise it to be, do not give Gaijin money, issues need to be fixed and the only way to do that is with our wallets. I advise you all to wait until the game is in a better state before spending your money and your time on this game.