What's up guys, Josh is back with another swaggy review for you! I'll be talking about the game Block Fortress, which has been out on the iOS app store for a long time, but just got to android devices through google play a few months ago! It is one of the best strategy games that has ever been made, and you'll find out why in the next few paragraphs!
This game is reviewed on a Motorola G (2013)
Alright, lets talk about the gameplay. So basically, you have a barracks at the start of the game, which you can place anywhere on the map. There are mineral deposits scattered around the battlefield, which are the lifeblood of your defensive effort. It should go without saying that you should ALWAYS go for the areas that have the most mineral deposits, because you'll be able to build more defenses, blocks, and weapons (duh), and survive longer as a result.
There are two different resources: Gold and Minerals (which I just spent a paragraph explaining). Gold is used to buy weapons that fire bullets and most of the building blocks in the game, and Minerals are used to build energy weapons and concrete and tech metal blocks. Pieces of gold can also occasionally come out of an enemies' corpse, which are worth $5 each.
You have to defend your fortress from increasingly powerful waves of "Goblocks", whose ultimate goal in life is to stand atop the ashes of your ruined barracks. To defend yourself, you can either build turrets in the environment, buy weapons and equipment for your dude, or tell your bot to attack enemies (it can also collect gold pieces, follow you, or be told to go to a certain place on the map). About every 5 rounds, it becomes dark out and you must use spotlights, lamps, or targeting lights to illuminate the area in order for your turrets to target the enemies. To get more advanced equipment, you can upgrade your barracks for a substantial fee, but it will be necessary for your long-term survival.
Everything in the game is initially locked, but you can unlock it by killing enemies and leveling up (how else?). Some things in the game require a ridiculously high level to use, like the Heavy Plasma cannon, which needs your character to be an impossible level 45. I played for 10's of hours on my iPod Touch before, and I still couldn't unlock any of the stuff that required that high a level.
After a hard day's effort of defending your fortress, you can go to the crafting menu, where you can modify your weapons, equipment, turrets, and even a few blocks using those rare minerals I was talking about earlier.You start out with a certain number of slots, but you can build more for a high price. The modifications vary from an increase in rate of fire, damage, range, or accuracy, to a flashlight that illuminates the area where you aim which lets turrets fire at those enemies at night. You can craft up to ten slots for each item in the game. I personally think that the modding was a brilliant way to add lots more variety and reason to go back to the game.
Another important thing that is worth mentioning is that mineshafts in the game have a 10% chance to mine an extra rare mineral each round, which can go towards more mods for the stuff that you use the most. There are different maps in the game, which are very different from each other in terms of terrain. Also, multiple of the available maps have a certain type of rare mineral to give you after each round. Some give you white, some blue, and some green. Up to round 5, the game will give you 1 rare mineral for each completed round, but afterwards it gives you 2. Buying rare minerals with real money is also an option for those of you with no motivation and fat wallets!
One thing that I think really stands out in the game besides the gameplay is the functional cloud saving. It is really awesome to have your data backed up to the google play games cloud, in case you upgrade your phone, play on multiple devices, or uninstall it because you are bored of it (for now)!
Overall, Block Fortress is an extremely polished strategy game with tons of depth and co-op, and I can't wait to see what Foursaken Media do with the game next! The minecraft-style graphics fit perfectly, but don't think for a second that this is a minecraft ripoff, it is definitely its own game.
Well, I hope that you guys enjoyed this review, and please make sure to hit that follow and/or +1 button, because it really helps motivate me to continue putting hard work into this blog.
See you later!
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