Liberty Boom is an exciting and addicting arcade style game for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The objective of the game is to put on the best fireworks display possible in order to please the crowd, while at the same time trying to avoid planes, helicopters and blimps. UFOs get in the way also, but hitting those is a good thing!
The game does take a bit of getting used to before you can really get into it and actually have fun. There are four “tap zones†at the bottom of the screen that are used to detonate a launched firework. Fireworks will automatically launch in one of these zones and you must tap the correct one to detonate the firework. The higher you detonate, the more points you’ll receive. But, there is a minimum and maximum height for each launch and negative points will be issued if a firework is detonated beyond those heights. As you progress through a level, the minimum height will gradually be raised, making it more difficult to set off fireworks at the right time.
There are several obstacles traveling across the screen that you must avoid. If your fireworks hit a plane, helicopter or blimp, you will be penalized and the crowd will not be happy. In order to achieve the best score possible, you have to keep the crowd entertained by setting off your fireworks as close to the maximum height as possible. To make it easier to avoid obstacles, you can tilt your device left of right to slow down or speed up the planes. This becomes tricky, because while tilting in one direction may slow down a plane, you may be speeding up another plane flying in the other direction. Tilting works well, but will not be used that often in the game. You’ll be focusing more on tapping the correct detonation zones rather than trying to move planes out of the way.
As you progress through each city, you will be faced with having to detonate multiple fireworks at one time. Fireworks will launch faster, more frequently and with more obstacles in the way. The later levels really become challenging and chaotic, as there are so many objects on the screen at one time. If you don’t earn enough points to clear the level, you’ll still be able to restart and try that same level again.
The controls in the game work very well, but one aspect could be improved upon. At times, the fireworks were launched so close to the tap zone boundaries that it was difficult to tell which zone I needed to tap in to detonate the fireworks. This became more apparent when dealing with multiple fireworks at one time. Maybe clearer zone definitions would be helpful, such as color-coordinated zones that match up with the same color firework.
Liberty Boom is truly a fun and addicting game you can just pick up, play and immediately enjoy. The music is great and really adds to your adrenaline rush. Each level has a different city background picture to set the mood for your fireworks display and everything just looks great. With the options to submit your score to the global leader board and challenge a friend through email or Facebook, Liberty Boom is definitely a winner. I strongly recommend checking it out.
