Tank is the first tank combat game, created by Atari and released in 1974 by Atari's subsidiary (and fake "rival" to get around exclusive agreements with distributors) Kee Games. It's a Player Versus Player, timed, Top-Down View battle between two tanks in a maze of walls.
It was a big success, so much so that distributors abandoned their demands for exclusive agreements, allowing Atari to reveal that it owned Kee. Had several sequels: Tank 2 (with land mines), Tank III, Tank 8 (for up to eight players), and Ultra Tank. It's the ancestor of the tank games in Combat for the Atari 2600.
Tank provides examples of:
- Color-Coded Multiplayer: In black and white; one tank was white and one was black. Tank 8 had color.
- Epic Tank-on-Tank Action: The Ur-Example of tank video games.
- No Plot? No Problem!: No mention of who's fighting who, where, when, or why the tanks are apparently the same design.
- Player Versus Player: Two players in the original, up to eight players in Tank 8.
- Scoring Points
- Tank Controls / Some Dexterity Required: Ur-Example; The original arcade cabinets featured a set of twin joysticks for each player to use for steering, while shooting is done using the red button on the right-hand joystick.
- Timed Mission
- Top-Down View