In honor of the game's official launch, Paul "LockeColeMA" Cleveland jumped into some tanks and blew stuff up.

And I mean a lot. Out of almost 60 battles, my team won a whopping 23. Even worse, out of those battles I only lived about 15% of the time. Luckily there isn't a direct penalty for dying, but winners receive 50% more experience and credits, while survivors' crews receive 10% more experience. Speaking of which, I forgot to mention the crew. Just as important as research, the crew of a tank grows in experience along with the vehicle. My crews all started off at 50% experience – however, at 100% they learn skills such as camouflage, which reduces the range at which your tank can be seen by enemy tanks, allowing either a crucial first strike in a battle or extra time to stay hidden and report locations to the SPGs. My crews never rose above 56% however – crew experience grows VERY slowly compared to research experience. I had completed all of my T1's research before my crew hit 53% training.

How tanks perform is a direct result of their crew's training, the tank's items and the tank's research (and mounted items). Starting out, I would see identical tanks fly past me and take out enemies without issue. After a few upgrades I could almost catch up to their speed – but crew made the key difference, and mine simply wasn't up to snuff. Another key factor is skill, which I will admit right now I lack. World of Tanks features an auto-lock feature when an enemy is in your sights, but it is notoriously inaccurate, especially on moving targets. On the other hand, even the worst tank can be piloted by a pro to anticipate where an enemy will be and aim accordingly. Unfortunately, most times I was on the receiving end of these skills!

World of Tanks also has an online store that sells gold coins for real money. These coins can be used for multiple boosts – to start crew off at 100%, purchase vehicles, buy special ammunition with an increased chance to set enemy tanks on fire or to buy consumable items. While these items can make a key difference in a battle, they are not necessary. In fact, the most useful purchases (another tank slot, and an increased barracks to hire more crew) were easily covered by the 1,000 gold given to new players in beta. If these prices and items last into release, I don't feel gold will make a difference at all outside of high-end matches.

The beta version of the game had dozens (if not over a hundred) of tanks to choose from, so I've barely scratched the surface with the half dozen I managed to unlock. And if it wasn't apparent from my comments before, I got into the game without really having a clear strategy until the last dozen matches or so. My best record so far has been 4 kills (out of 15 enemy tanks) in a single match in an SPG; the vehicle feels almost unfair when you have good scouts and enemies who sit still. But that was out of almost 60 matches – in the vast majority I ended up dead with only small dings in my enemy's armor.

World of Tanks plays like Call of Duty mixed with World of Warcraft's talent trees... but inside tanks. It's a skill-based PvP game that will appeal to action/shooter fans, so head over to the official site and download the client if you'd like to try it out.

Paul Cleveland, Staff Writer