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December 15, 2014

Action Game of the Year 2014

Tanks, buster.

Tanks, buster.

This year’s top action game is almost as notable for what it costs as for how it plays.

Everybody bounce.

Everybody bounce.

A free-to-play game? Winning an award from Pocket Tactics, the innermost sanctum of the holiest temple to premium games? This is the first time we’ve ever given an award to an F2P title, so I’m as surprised as you.

This year free-to-play games get a little (just a tiny infinitesimal amount) less odious. The tidally overwhelming number of F2P titles are still noxious Pavlovian conditioning machines designed solely to encourage you to part with your money, but a few games (E.T. could count them on one hand) rowed against that current.

World of Tanks Blitz is the mobile cousin of the wildly successful PC shooter that I’ve been using for years as the major exception to the otherwise entirely sound advice to stay far away from F2P games. Blitz carries the tradition forward, creating a big arena of delights that we can play in entirely for free, contributing cash when we want to, not because the fun would stop if we didn’t. Those putting money in don’t receive any significant advantage, either.

WoT Blitz is an online-only multiplayer shooter where players face off in early-20th-century tanks, and it an absolute hoot. The pace of the game is just sedate enough that those of us old enough to rent a car can keep up — but it’s still thrilling. Its combination of nerdy quasi-historical detail (when was the last time you saw an M3 Tank in a video game?) and combat that gives precedent to wits over reflexes makes it the ultimate shooter for the gentleman or lady Pocket Tactician.

  • World of Tanks Blitz for iOS
  • World of Tanks Blitz for Android

Runner-up: Wayward Souls

Honourable Mention: Third Eye Crime, Fotonica, Storm Casters, Leo’s Fortune

To see all of the games recognised in the Pocket Tactics Best of 2014 Awards, visit the 2014 Awards Index page.

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