GODS OF BOOM ios Game Review | MacSources

Fun-Filled Action-Packed First Person Shooter.

As COVID-19 keeps us socially distanced from the world, many of us look to our portable devices for a much-needed reprieve. It feels that we are truly living in a Twilight Zone episode. The Oculus Quest device is sold out everywhere, toilet paper is worth its weight in gold, shelves are empty, and people are home. If you are looking for a cartoony, Counter-Strike-esque FPS (first-person shooter), look no further than Gods of Boom. When you open the App, you will be greeted by an exploding grenade animation and a loading screen with three battle-ready male figures.

Tutorial:

Select start along the bottom and you will walk through a useful tutorial. Using your right thumb, you can move the barrel of your gun, look up, look down and rotate your character. Using your left thumb, you can move forward/backward and strafe side-to-side. You will start out in an elevator lobby and will learn how to maneuver your character from waypoint to waypoint. Once you arrive at the rooftop, two targets will pop up, teaching you how to aim the shotgun. Once you knock down the two close targets, you can change weapons by selecting the change button icon along the bottom right of the screen. Hold your thumb over the button, select the assault rifle and destroy the distant targets. Lastly, touch the grenade icon and throw the grenade at the last three targets. In just a few minutes, the tutorial will prepare you to dominate other players.

Gameplay:

With the tutorial complete, the game will take you to a quest panel. Along the top of the panel, you can select “daily,” “main,” and “supplies.” Along the bottom of the panel, you can select a daily small crate and several other quest rewards. Along the middle of the panel, you will see several prizes that you can claim by completing quests. If you tap “Main” you will be directed to a new panel with a list of objectives and rewards. If you tap supplies, you can use GUNBUCK currency to acquire more GUNBUCKS, and a variety of consumables, cosmetic upgrades, fragments, load-outs, and weapons. When done, tap the back button, peruse “The Walking Dead” event information and you will be taken to the main game screen. Along the top left, you will see a thumbnail of your Avatar, the level, and the Avatar name. Along the left of the panel, you can access the following icons: Clan, Friends, Rankings, Mail, Schedule, Videos, and Spectator Mode. Along the bottom left, you can tap Arsenal to access a list of the available weapons (Assault Rifles, Shotguns, Rifles, Machine Guns, Pistols, and Knives), Armor (Torso, Head, and Legs), Load-outs (Assault, Sniper, Support, Recon), Consumables, skins (masks, costumes, insignias, and emotes), and available chests. Along the top right, you will find the available GUNBUCKS, Gold, and you can select settings.

I was surprised by the degree of customization. You can invert the y-axis, increase sensitivity, add camera acceleration, turn on/off aim assist, adjust the frames from 30FPS to 60 FPS (at the expense of battery), turn on/off autofire, recenter the camera, adjust the sound volume, and you can change the double-tap to either previous weapon or reload. Returning to the main screen, you can tap The Walking Dead icon (Level 3), or you can tap the sale offer along the bottom right. When ready to destroy other players, tap the “Battle” icon along the bottom right. For characters in lower tiers, the game will automatically pair you with players to complete a team deathmatch. As you level through the tiers, the game will add King of the Hill mode, Point control, and Payload modes. Select battle and enjoy the five minute round. Similar to Counterstrike, you run around the map and work with your team to eliminate the enemy.

At the beginning of the game, you will start out with a shotgun, assault rifle, pistol, and knife. I loved that there was no team damage, but splash damage may harm or kill your character if a grenade explodes too close to you. Unfortunately, self-sacrifice will cause your team to lose 15 points and the round will be won by the team with the highest points. At the end of the round, you will earn GUNBUCKS and experience. Each of the Team Deathmatch games is played to a score of 500 or to 5:00, whichever happened first. When finished, you will see an MVP screen and you will then get to a list of enemies killed, assists and scores. Select continue to see how many GUNBUCKS and experience you earned, as well as the breakdown of the achievements along the right. As you level up, you will gain more GOLDBUCKS and Gold to spend on new weapons, armor, and customization features. The more you play, the more currency you will earn. Similar to Goldeneye 007, many of us will likely memorize the maps. Since we know where people spawn, it makes it very difficult to use/avoid stealth. You may get bored with a certain map/mission type but these will change with time and add extra maps/game styles.

Whether you kill with your main weapon, backup weapon, pistol, or knife, you will get to enjoy the hunt. You can change weapons, but you cannot change to pistol until you run out of the ammo of your main weapons. Interestingly, the pistol had unlimited ammo. If you get close enough to another player, the knife icon will appear and you can slash at their avatar. If you look to the bottom of your screen, you will see your available life/armor bars. If you look above the player, you will see their name and their available health/ammo. You can use up to 5 consumables per life and a select number of offensive options as well.

Pay to Play:

The game does have a degree of Pay-To-Win, which is on par with many similar games. You can spend $2.99 to gain a seven-day prize booster, you can spend money to purchase the deal-of-the-day, or you can buy gold in increments of 100 ($1.99), 275 ($4.99), 575 ($9.99), 1200 ($19.99), 3200 ($49.99), and 7000 ($99.99). You can then use the Gold to purchase more GUNBUCKS, Cosmetic cases, Specialization cases (weapon fragments), and boosts (1/7/30 day). Some people will spend real-life currency, for in-game currency, to get a leg up. To prevent heavy spenders from overpowering the early game, you will gain access to weapon upgrades and new weapons as you level. As you progress later into the game, many weapons require Gold, fragments, or large amounts of GUNBUCKS. Theoretically, most of the equipment could be obtained with diligent grinding, but greenbacks will provide an easier shortcut.

Quests:

As you complete rounds, you will satisfy mission requirements. Claim your free crate, daily victory, and any available completed quests. These quests will provide grenades, GOLDBUCKS, and health consumables. Claim your prizes along the middle of the board, and then claim your “MAIN” quest rewards as well. The more you battle, the more quests you complete, the more GUNBUCKS, GOLD, Grenade, and health inventory you will acquire. As you progress later into the game, you will acquire throwing knives, freeze grenades, health perks.

Guns:

Early in the game, you will have the trickster shotgun, the legend Assault rifle, grenades, and a pistol sidearm. Each gun has a limited amount of ammunition, but you can also pick up guns of fallen enemies. I loved that the game did not auto acquire new weapons, however. Rather, you can choose whether or not you wanted to pick them up. So, if you find someone with an amazing weapon, defeat them and then you get the benefit of using their weapon. Once you hit level 3, the game opens up and allows you to choose between the assault and sniper load-outs: Assault (shotgun and assault rifle), Sniper (Rifle + Assault rifle). Unfortunately, Support (Machine Gun/Assault rifle), and Recon (Shotgun and Sniper rifle) were not available until you reached level 5. For your first few purchases, I would recommend upgrading the starting shotgun/rifle and purchasing the shell armor. You can either upgrade the Chance pistol or purchase the next level gun, the ANATHEMA. As you play a few more rounds, you will gain more GUNBUCKS. I would use the money to purchase the buffalo (second machine gun $1000 GUNBUCKS), the Guillotine (second level Assault Rifle $3000 GUNBUCKS), the Veteran (first level sniper rifle $300 GUNBUCKS), death dealer (second level shotgun $2500 GUNBUCKS), and then upgrade your Slayer Knife. As I continued to level up beyond level 13, I found that I loved the Remedy. I added the Iceberg Sniper rifle after level 16, and the Lifestealer Assault rifle after level 22.

Overall:

The game replayability was high, but there was some profanity in the character speech. People can befriend you, they can ask you to join clans, and they can use prebuilt emotes. Language may be a bit rough for smaller kids, but for the preteen/teen and adult, it is likely on par with many similar genres of game. With the sound off, my eleven and eight-year-old sons love to work at getting match MVP. They are saving up their GUNBUCKS for bigger/better weapons and each of us looks forward to playing the next map. Do not fret, my Android backed friends, for you can also purchase the game on Google Play store. If you are looking for a fun time-waster, Gods of Boom will satisfy that craving for you. You can complete walking dead maps and a few other game styles as you level up. I find it hard to move on to other games because Gods Of Boom continues to lure me back in for just one more match.

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Originally published at https://macsources.com on March 19, 2020.