by Michael Collins

Created on: June 15, 2008   Last Updated: June 23, 2008

Game Rating: 4.5/5

"Battle of Tiles," by Bimboosoft, is a deceptively uninspired game. A strategy game whose motto would have been "keep it simple," Battle of Tiles puts you into a medieval war between stone tiles on an infinitely long chess-like board, where you must lead a band of archers, knights, fighters, and whatever other mercenaries you can buy against the lumbering hordes of skeletons, slimes, goblins, wizards, and priests.

Appearing to be, at first, unoriginal and simple, Battle Of Tiles uses fast-paced action and fitting sound effects to immerse you into an addictive fantasy battlefield. There's more planning and thinking involved than first meets the eye, as you must adapt to which of your allied tiles are better equipped to handle certain evil tiles (hint: Wizards are particularly inneffective against Slimes). As your pieces fight, they can advance up the levels like in any RPG, increasing their battle prowess.

In the spirit of "keep it simple," "Battle of Tiles," has kept its graphics to a minimum, making sure that the tiles are clearly differentiated from each other, making gameplay fast and easy. The tiles are only animated when in battle, with arrows flying between archers, or knights shifting momentarily to bash into enemies. The health of your allies are clearly represented by a line on the bottom of the tiles, but even so, the quick pace of the game will leave you often wondering where some of your pieces have gone.

The greatest point of originality is in the way that you can increase the size of your army. By fighting, the player collects money which can then be used to actually buy opponents right off the battlefield. While it might not be entirely realistic to bribe a slime into fighting his fellow skeletal warriors, it can help turn the tide of battle when you can corner an annoying, healing-happy Priest, and then make his close-by Goblin allies take him out.

The music is the least-pleasurable feature that the game has to offer. When you start the game, you're thrust into this epic battle of tile vs. tile; there are arrows flying all over the place, tiles are breaking apart, skeletons are converging on your position, and over the din of clashing swords and rolling bones comes - a happy little ditty that wouldn't be out of place on any of a number of Disney World attractions. It's a hard, driving beat, but it's a little too upbeat for the type of game that "Battle of Tiles" is.

"Battle of Tiles" is a spot-on fun game: easy to get into, easy to understand, and addictive. After playing the demo for "Battle," you'll want to go ahead and spend the money and buy this one.

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