My Army Review

In reality, there's no easy way to storm an enemy beachhead, but in the world of iOS gaming, avoiding enemy soldiers, barbed wire, and land mines can be made into a challenging game in which players storm the beach over and over again in an attempt to get farther and farther. Essentially, that's what My Army is. Simple tilt and tap controls make My Army accessible and easy to enjoy. While controls that are completely touch might give players a bit more fine control, it would make it much more difficult to tap on the other elements of the game when necessary. As it is, My Army does a great job at integrating both touch and tilt controls without having either element get in the way of the other.

In this game, players controls a line of four soldiers as they advance through enemy territory. By tilting their device, the player directs their line of soldiers to move left or right to avoid traps and enemies. While they are advancing, the soldiers are also attacked from the air by bombers and artillery shells. By swiping and tapping on the screen the players can protect their soldiers from these attacks while continuing to steer them around obstacles. The player's soldiers automatically fire upon enemy soldiers as long as they have ammunition which is replenished by collecting ammo boxes. If the line of soldiers hits an obstacle, the first soldier in the line is killed and the game continues until the last soldier in the line is killed. Soldiers can be added to a line later by rescuing prisoners of war.

Each time a game is played, the player gains army points which can be used to upgrade their soldiers and the vehicles they can obtain during their march. There is also a fun social component to the game that lets players name soldiers in the unit after themselves and their Facebook friends.

This is a simple game where players tilt to guide soldiers through obstacles. However, there are some more sophisticated mechanics at play which keep the game interesting after repeated play. Tapping and swiping aerial attacks makes the game so much more than just tilting and dodging, while the persistent accrual of army points and upgrades gives that extra little bit of encouragement to play just one more game.