A couple of months ago, I reviewed a mobile puzzle game called pliq.  And barely a month later, the creators have already made a ‘new’ game based on the first one!  Only in the mobile gaming world, I guess.  Anyway, read on to find out what’s new in Epic Clash.  It’s available to download for free on mobile devices, but reviewed on iPad here.

Really the main new thing is now the blocks have faces.  Supposedly the blocks you create look like warriors, while the blocks from above are supposed to be zombies, but I didn’t really notice much.  Otherwise it plays just like the first game.  Arranged rows of blocks fall from above, and you use the touch screen to create blocks from below.  Tap the blocks again to make them disappear.  Try to make your blocks match up to what’s falling so everything disappears and you get points.

Similar to Tetris, when a whole row of blocks are at the bottom, they’ll disappear and you’ll get points.  So you must watch the falling blocks carefully and make the blocks below match so everything is cleared.  As you get the hang of it, you can employ some neat tricks like pressing the arrow button at the top to make the blocks fall faster for more points.  And you can make your own rows of blocks at the bottom that will get cleared for even more points, but that gets harder to do when the blocks start falling faster.

If you fail to make a row of blocks disappear, that row will be blocked and you must make a row above it to unlock it for use.  You’ll want to be careful not to let this happen often, because once it does, the game can get pretty hard really fast!  Sometimes special blocks appear to make things more complicated, like numbered blocks that take a certain number of rows to disappear completely.  Sometimes power-up blocks appear and can clear out whole columns and such.

Really the only other thing I noticed about this new rendition is they bombard you with more ads.  You have to view an ad after beating a level, and there is always an ad banner at the top of the screen.  There is a new power-up that will clear a line if you view an ad, too.  Personally I prefer the original game as it had less ads and I liked the simple colors over the generic face blocks.

Kid Factor:

Now that the blocks have faces, when they get cleared and splat into goo, I guess that could be considered a little more violent.  Reading skill is helpful for some of the text, but not necessary just to play.  Parental supervision is recommended for the in-game ads and purchases.

Tags: Game Reviews