Clash of Clans for Android

Clash of Clans combines a straightforward, casual single-player mode with a competitive multiplayer experience. You'll love the building aspect of the game, but the AI and the greedy in-app purchase system may frustrate you.

Pros

Enjoyable gameplay: Clash of Clans mixes world-building with combat and strategy, leaving to you the slow expansion of a little village into a veritable fortress while warding off infrequent goblin attacks and taking the fight into their own territories. Using gold, elixir, and gems, you can enlarge your town hall and build all manner of upgradeable buildings, from gold mines to barracks for training new troops.

Strong gaming community: Although the casual single-player campaign is quite fun, the game's true appeal lies in its online mode, in which you challenge other players, besieging their forts and withstanding their assaults. There are millions of players worldwide, from casual gamers to hardcore fans, and they are grouped into clans, which you can join or oppose.

Smooth gameplay: Even when fighting big battles or raising several buildings at once in a village teeming with troops, the game ran smoothly on our Nexus 7, with no lag and crashes. The cartoonish graphics fit the game theme perfectly while making it relatively undemanding in terms of hardware.

Cons

No control over your troops: Once you deploy your forces, they are beyond your control. If the AI were great, this wouldn't be a problem, but sometimes your troops just cluster around a building and start attacking it instead of destroying first the cannon that is slowly killing them.

Costly gems: While you can play the game without spending a dime, to be able to construct buildings and recruit troops faster, as well as to make certain upgrades, you must use gems, which you can't collect over time other than by unlocking achievements (and even then you get but few gems per achievement). Buying a good supply of gems costs tens of dollars.

Bottom Line

Clash of Clans deserves its popularity. It's an addictive MMO with a solid, single-player campaign, and though gems are hard to come by, the depth and richness of the gameplay turn this visually naive title into one of the most fun strategy games the mobile world has ever seen. It's not perfect, but it's irresistible.

• New Troop: Ice Golem! This chill guy slows down enemy defenses and freezes them solid when he gets destroyed!
• New Spell: Bat Spell! Overwhelm enemy defenses with a cloud of angry bats!
• New Siege Machine: Stone Slammer! A flying fortress that drops big rocks on enemy defenses to clear a way for your army!
• A whole lot of fixes, tweaks and quality of life improvements!