War Thunder's bombastic battles feel right at home on mobile
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This is an exciting mobile port of an established multiplayer combat game that manages to capture the excitement of the original surprisingly well. Hopping into a Sherman or T-34 for the first time on the small screen, I got straight into the action with a Bluetooth-connected gamepad. War Thunder Mobile offers three control patterns: dynamic stick, static stick, and directional "tank" controls. I experimented with all three, but settled in on dynamic as being slightly more intuitive, especially around tight corners.
Driving a real tank is a lot of work for several people (and that number only gets larger with warships), so I don't think I'd ever want to say that War Thunder (or similar multiplayer games) was realistic. But all the same, I enjoy what is represented here: turrets take time to traverse, so it can take a while to line your sights up on an enemy—and by the time you see them, it may already be too late. Tank armor deflects rounds at certain angles, and it's exciting to try to hit the weak points in each different model.
On top of the tanks and warships, there are attack aircraft and artillery to call in. With planes, it's a chance to swoop in from on high and line up strafing runs on enemy formations. Aircraft controls are a bit sluggish and floaty, but it's a fun extra dimension to the suite of options available on the battlefield.
My only complaints with the beta so far are fairly minor: I don't like that using the targeting sights requires me to both click the right thumbstick and then press a direction—I should be able to just pull up the gunner's sights with the click. There are some audio issues as well: I have a hard time telling how close the sounds of gunfire are supposed to be, and the music will occasionally cut out entirely.
Those nitpicks aside, I think this is shaping up to be a terrific mobile port, and War Thunder's bite-sized battles are a perfect fit for mobile.
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