The Clash

     Lest we not forget, mobile games have come really far into the serious gamer industry. What started off as simple blocky numbers games such as Tetris or Snake from old flip phones to high quality, high definition games such as Plants VS Zombies or Clash of Clans. Now, Clash of Clans is a perfect example of a game that can cause quite a controversy. Within my own social circle, I've lost friends over this game. Clash of Clans is a strategy based game where you are the chief and you command a village of barbarians, giants or archers to attack other villages in favor of loot such as gold or elixir. You can defend yourself by teaming up and joining a clan with a bunch of your friends, co-workers or just a random group of people from all over the world. You go head to head with a somewhat equally ranked group in what is known as a clan war and each player gets 2 chances to attack another player's village from the rival clan. Which ever team scores the most damage or stars to the enemy team, wins. This game is totally based on strategy and team work...and this is the part where I lost friends. In a game such as this, it's easy to lose yourself in the game of too many chiefs and not enough Indians. Sure enough, I had a couple of buddies who were totally invested in this game and thought they both had equally superior ideas on where the clan was supposed to be headed to advance our attacks in war. So much so that arguments got heated and they started splitting the clan in 2. From one clan we became 2 and both long time friends refused to speak to each other. Everyone has since patched things up and I had to be the one reminding everybody "It's just a game!" It can happen. We still play Clash of Clans, but now we have only one leader and no one tells anyone how to play and so far we've had no problems. I know mobile games get a bad reputation for micro transactions and pay to win and in all honesty, Clash of Clans is no different. You can purchase gems, gold or elixir and it can definitely aid you in advancing your village more but understand that the more you advance your village, the more advanced enemies you will face as well. Taking all of this into account, Clash of Clans is still a force to be reckoned with and totally fun. It was ranked as one of the top 5 downloads of 2013 and has made it's founding company millions of dollars. I rank this mobile app a 7 out of 10. Some army camps may be a little bit too overpowered and it does feel that although a player may be at my rank, their defenses were more than likely bought making any attack on them impossible. So aside from a few balancing issues, Clash of Clans is a game that always keeps updating and there is no sign of it stopping from progressing into a legendary game. This game is available for Android and iOS devices.