Online Flash Gaming At Its Best! (electrotank.com)

Member Name: aljones

Product:	electrotank.com
Date:	25/09/01 (882 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: See review

Disadvantages: See review

Electrotank.com is an online gaming zone, put briefly. While it currently only hosts three games, more are waiting in the wings to be uploaded onto this fairly young website. Launched in the middle of July this year (2001), the site has grown to host three games - Mini Golf, Air Hockey and 9-Ball Pool.

The engine behind this web site is Flash. Each of the games uses it, and uses it well. Traditionally Flash has been seen as a way of creating flashy (excuse the pun) opening pages, and little more. OK, some web sites have used it for other purposes, but to my knowledge none have used it this well before. This is fully interactive Flash technology at its best, and the time it has taken for sites designers to get all 18 holes of the mini golf course working are testament to this.

The design of the site is very simple and straightforward, and uses Flash from the outset, not just for the games but for the entire site, including the menus. And the best part is that its quick. Yes you do have to wait for it to download the Flash components, but on my 44K connection this rarely takes more than 30 seconds.

At the moment the main menu page shows you all the features that the site will hopefully have running in the near future. Aside from the sports games already mentioned, they are hoping to have Action, Puzzle, Casino and 'Kids Corner' games running at some point. Currently though, we are left with the sports games and their multi-player variants. And this is where the fun can really begin.

Not only are the games great fun on your own, but most can be played with a friend on the same computer, and with someone from their own chat room, where you can challenge anyone to a friendly round of mini-golf. This can be rather fun, as the remote player can be seen while playing, and while its your turn, he takes a seat on one of the course-side benches. Attention to detail is everything, and this site has played plenty of attention to th
ese details.

So what about the games themselves I hear you cry. Well I was just saving them for last (save the best till last as they say). So, lets go through them.

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9-BALL POOL
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The nine ball pool game has to be the worst game on here, purely because is it so hard to play, and even harder to be any good at! The graphics are crisp and smooth, and the ball physics seem quite accurate, even though it can be quite hard to judge the angles on a 'virtual' pool table. What makes this game so hard is the rules, and the proficiency of the computer player who seems flawless. 9-ball pool is a lot harder to play than 8-ball pool that we traditionally play in the UK.

If the difficulty level could be adjusted, this would be a fine game. As it is, I have rarely played it.

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AIR HOCKEY
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The Air Hockey game is a lot of fun. It works just like real air hockey, where you use a little stubby stick thing (anyone know what its called?) to hit the small disk around the table, trying to hit it into the goal mouth at the opposite end, while protecting your goal mouth from your opponents advances.

This game is fun, and the graphics are smooth. The only thing you have to watch out for is that you must keep your mouse within the Flash window of the page or it won't work, and therefore won't move your stick. Here the opponent is quite easy to defeat, as they seem to take a much more defensive than attacking role. But, as the tournament progresses through its ten rounds, the opponent does become harder and harder to beat, and so keeps your interest in the game.

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MINI GOLF
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And here it is, the pinnacle of online gaming, MINI GOLF! This is a fantastic game, with a full 18 hole mini golf course. Each hole is unique, and some are very challenging, co
mbining many features of real mini golf courses. Some are easy, some are painstakingly difficult.

The graphics are very smooth and very clear, although you do get some sluggishness as the screen scrolls around, though this hardly spoils the enjoyment as the screen only ever starts to scroll as you ball moves around the screen after you've hit it.

Some holes at firsta appear almost impossible, until you find the cheats! OK, technically they are not cheats, but for each holes there are certain points that you line your mouse up to in order to make the holes take as few shots as possible.

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MULTIPLAYER
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Finally I'll just mention the multiplayer options. The best by far has to be with the mini golf game. You start up by selecting a username. Nothing else, just a name that you want to be known by for this session. Then you enter the 'chat' area, where you can select/create a room and chat away as you would anywhere else on the net. But, you can challenge! Simply select another users name off the list and challenge them to a game. If they accept, you both procede to the game and play against each other, seeing each others moves.

You also get to chat while playing, with speach bubbles popping out from your virtual mouth! Just another of those touches that makes the game so great.

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So the other points about the site. Firstly, there is no signup process to deal with. Apart from playing multiplayer games you don't need to enter any information. For the multiplayer games, all you need do is select a username, and nothing else.

The site runs realtively fast as I have already mentioned. You do have to wait for the games to load, but this rarely takes very long. The site is very bright and colourful, but not in a hideously untasteful way, just keeping it fresh and fun. The site is easy to navigate, and there are no broken l
inks that I have experieced.

This site is great fun, for both single and multiplayer games. You could spend hours on here, so make sure your not paying the phone bill for the entire time your connected!

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* UPDATE - 26th September 2001 *
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OK, just a quick update to set down a challenge. I have just cracked 21 under par on the mini golf game. My coleagues at work and myself think 22 under is easilt do-able, and maybe even 23 under. If anyone has similar scores keep me posted.

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