Boom on the Beach‏

I’m very late to the party on this one, but today I wanted to review yet another mobile game. Boom Beach, from developer Supercell, shares many similarities with Clash of Clans (another Supercell game) but has some key differences which will most likely keep you addicted.

The game presents itself as a war-strategy game, where you land troops on a beach to attack an enemy base. Kinda reminds me of D-Day. Don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing, but I feel odd about it. Your troops, of course, proceed to attack the various buildings, but you have no continuous control over where they go.

To remedy this problem, in comes the Gunboat. It stays at bay and provides support for your troops. Your gunboat can temporarily direct your troops, which is much better than Clash of Clans, where no such strategy exists. It can also heal troops or freeze enemy attacks, amongst other things. You are limited to the amount of times you can use the gunboat, so being smart with what the gunboat does is imperative.

Like Clash of Clans, attacks can be done with different types of troops. You got your Rifleman (basic soldier), Heavy (do I need to explain this one?), Zooka (ranged attacker), amongst others. You send your troops out on Landing Crafts, which can only hold 1 type of troop. Unlike Clash of Clans, when you send out a Landing Craft to attack, every troop on the boat will proceed to attack. This is not as controllable as Clash of Clans, because a) you cannot send troops one-by-one and b) you can only attack from the beach (as opposed to any side of the base). Maybe they’ll add paratroopers in the future?

Your base is pretty much the same as Clash of Clans, minus the fact that there are no walls built to defend your base. I’ll spare you on the details, but there are things that gather resources (Gold, Wood, Stone, and Iron) and defense options to, well, defend your base.

In Boom Beach, you can, of course, upgrade your buildings and troops, which take time. You are also limited to 1 building upgrade at a time, which is fine because the game allows you to stay busy with attacks on other bases. What I like is that it doesn’t take much time to train troops again if they end up dying in battle, so the game feels more fluid in comparison to Clash of Clans.

The in-game currency is Diamonds, which you find scattered across the map or gained if you complete challenges. I use them if I’m out of a resource I need, but there’s barely a time when I’m short on Diamonds. Yes, the game wants you to buy the in-game currency with real money, but it’s not as forceful as in Clash of Clans. I can commend Supercell for being less “gimme your monies” because they’re probably swimming in it nowadays.

On that note, Gold in Boom Beach becomes quickly useless. Before long you'll end up just like Supercell, swimming in money with no use for it. As far as I can tell, you can only use Gold to upgrade your troops, but you end up maxing out your troops’ stats fairly quickly in the game.

Overall, the game is an improvement on the Clash of Clans formula. There’s much more room to strategize your attacks, by selecting and supporting your troops. It’s much less intense in terms of grabbing your money and keeps you more involved. I’d recommend you download this one as a good time-waster.

P.S. Supercell, your next game should have pirates.