Boom Brigade 2

Military types often say that a good soldier is one who follows orders to the letter without questioning or deviating. If that's the case, then the soldiers you command in Boom Brigade 2 are a dream come true.

You see, your small gang of four heavily armed combatants (up from the original's three) will follow the exact path you sketch for them. From here they'll target and open fire on any enemy that falls within their attack radius.

And plenty of enemies do just that.

While the control scheme is your typical line-drawing fare, the rest of the action in Boom Brigade 2 is pure tower defence. Successive waves of alien bugs will attack your little fort from all directions.

It's familiar backs-to-the-wall stuff, but the added need to micromanage your limited defences lends Boom Brigade 2 a fresh feel. If one of your soldiers so much as touches an enemy his health will rapidly deplete, so you must constantly keep your troops on the move.

This leads to a surprisingly varied set of tactical options. For slow-moving yet powerful enemies you might opt to have your forces literally run rings around them, while swarms of speedy runts might require a fire-and-retreat approach.

In between levels you have the option to kit out your forces for the next level.

Each trooper - from the mini-gunner to the sniper and a few in between - has five gradually unlocking upgrades to his default weapons, each with unique strengths and drawbacks when it comes to power, range, and rate of fire. The latest upgrade isn't necessarily the best, and a mixed load-out is always best.

Progression is far more varied than the endless wave approach that the original Boom Brigade launched with. In this game there are actual levels, with unique terrain, enemy types, and defence load-outs.

This added level variety plays into the aforementioned tactical options nicely, addressing many of the issues we had with the first game into the bargain.

Despite these improvements, Boom Brigade 2 still feels like a bit of a middleweight in the crowded iOS action-strategy field. It doesn't quite have that final layer of depth or polish to really keep you engrossed for hours at a time.

It certainly isn't what you'd call a pretty game, either. There's a lack of originality to the art style as well as a general dearth of fine detail, and the big yellow font used throughout is just plain hard on the eyes.

Still, as a progressive step from the decent original, we have to hand it to 10tons for making a markedly superior game. Boom Brigade 2 is the model soldier: aggressive, responsive, and adaptable, if a little ugly and unsophisticated.