Zynga's Empires & Allies Review

This morning I woke up to tend to my citizens need in Cityville when I came across the in-game ad Empires & Allies. The word 'Empire' always turns me on and a quick check showed a favourable rating on its Facebook page. So what the heck I clicked the "Allow Permission" button.

After producing a few games ending with '-Ville', Empires & Allies (E&A) is the latest addition to a fleet of Zynga's simple, repetitive but addictive games. Despite the lack of the traditional suffix, the game feels like an Empireville where traditional concepts remain, such as building stuff, harvesting them after a set amount of time and share your achievement on your Facebook wall and newsfeed for your buddies to see.

The island where you start your destiny as a glorious leader.

Zoom in a bit. And hey those coins look so familiar. Must... click... coins...

Your intimidation is so... [Clean Edit]

The game puts you in the storyline of how your little island town just got bombed by the appropriately named Dark Empire, and you as the leader are now on a warpath of vengeance to defeat all the Dark Empire's armies, island by island. A good plot and puts you in the mood to play but in-game storyline isn't new to Facebook apps. However you do experience something new: Battle.

Looks like a cute Pokemon battle on a Nintendo.

Traditionally most Facebook games use texts to display the battle progress on and make your mind does all the work imagining how your wicked sick 500 armed mafioso just whooped another mafia called Master Street Thug "LoveFrodo69" Level 235. But in E&A, you'll be served with an interactive new screen showing your army charging towards the enemy army. Endlessly. And you'll be able to click on whatever target you want them to shoot until one side loses everything.

Say what?

And here comes the con. If you don't like tending farms or had added applications with "-Ville" at the back and left it after a few days, this is not your cup of tea. Some similar concepts may turn off some players who will say "Oh no not another building, harvesting and wall spamming game". Unless you are willing to tend to your farm in Farmville then jump to Cityville then E&A the go back to Farmville when your energy had recharged. Speaking of energy, the battles in E&A use energy so sometimes your trigger happy finger may stop when the menu pops up telling you to ask your friends to give you Energy, or just buy them. It's a good game nonetheless, and uh... add me up!

Pros:

• Clean and beautiful graphic.
• Battles are entertaining.
• Wall posts only display to friends playing E&A.

Cons:

• Same gameplay concept from many Facebook farm/city building games.
• Energy usage in battle sucks out the fun.
• The "Immunity" feature stops you from attacking your friends for hours.

There's room for improvement Zynga! Play now by clicking here.

Awesome! But why does she reminds me of someone...

Oh.