BOOM BLOX Review

Anannya Sen’s Review

Blowing things up is always good fun.

It's quite difficult to come up with new and novel ideas for mobile games, but I think EA might have something here. We've been racking our brains to see if we can come up with a similar game on mobile, and the only one so far is the Mr Goodliving classic Turbo Camels Circus Extreme. Boom Blox is kind of similar to this, but different.

The aim of the game is to accumulate points based on knocking cubes with coloured stars on them, off the screen using a cannonball. The gold star cubes get you two points and the blue star ones get you one point. To progress to the next level you have to get a certain number of points to achieve bronze or higher.

In order to make matters more tricky, there are also cubes with skulls on them and if you knock these off the screen you lose points. The secret to the game is that there are cubes with bombs on them that will explode if hit or knocked, and these will start a chain reaction that causes a series of explosions which move the blocks about.

You have a limited number of shots and a target to move around which aims the cannonball for you. Then there is a power bar which will determine how hard the cannonball hits, on some shots you may just want to nudge the block, others will require you to hit it full blast. What you can also do, which I never really realised until later, was to hit adjacent blocks on their corners or not central to make them fly off in slightly different directions. This is a nice touch.

You should get the idea now and the real beauty of the game is the intricacy derived from a single shot. Hit the right spot and you can start a chain reaction that will clear the screen of all the required blocks and get you maximum points and a gold award. This may sound like a rare occurrence but there are many levels where you only have one cannonball to fire so you have to figure out just the right spot to hit.

It's here where the game is so addictive. You can replay your shot to see the different chain reactions occurring and thereby try to deduce where the correct spot is. Or you can just go for pot luck like I did. As the game continues more special blocks are unlocked such as the timer block (obviously blows up after a certain time), arrow blocks (which move in a direction until they hit something), portal blocks, chemical blocks and magnets. There are others too and you only really see these on the later levels.

The added element of the special blocks combined with the goal of trying to get the points required for gold is what makes the game quite addictive. There are 40 levels to play, each one adding more elements so plenty of longevity. The graphics are bright and fun and the explosions are well animated. Sound is reasonable with a tune when playing and tones on qualifying or losing.

Your progress is saved and you can always go back to earlier levels to try and improve your score and get the elusive gold. Well, that's what I've been doing these past few weeks and I would recommend this to anyone interested in casual puzzle games. Highly addictive.

If you are lucky enough to be with Vodafone then you can enjoy some additional connected features. Boom Blox has a strong community aspect where you can use the level editor to create your own puzzles and post them online for others to play. You also get the chance to look at other people's puzzles and vote for your favourite. It's nice to see that the community aspect is finally taking shape and you don't need an N-Gage to enjoy it.

Oh, BTW, the action isn't quite as fast as in our animated pics (might need an N-Gage version for that speed).