Gods VS Humans – Protect Your Kingdom (out now, $1.99) is a casual strategic game by Microids. You play as one of 20 gods, watching the puny humans on earth construct a tower. Ironically, although they’re building the tower to worship you, you hate it from the depths of your godly self.
Your aim is to destroy the tower as fast as possible. You’ve got various powers at your disposal, such as fireballs, lightning bolts, and snowstorms. Each level in the tower has four pillars. By destroying all these pillars on a level, it will collapse. A collapsing level also has the ability to damage levels above and below it. Through this chain effect, you can demolish an entire tower with very few moves.
It’s not always so easy to destroy a tower though. Turns out you’re not an omnipotent god after all. The extent of your powers depends on the happiness of your human worshippers. When everyone on Earth is smiling, you have the ability to wreak full havoc. On the other hand, if too many people are sad or angry, your powers will diminish. What makes this especially tricky is that if you hurt the harmless human builders in your attempt to bring down the tower, their happiness level (reflected by a meter) will drop. Altogether, this is an incredibly paradoxical game. You’re more powerful when the people are happy, yet once the tower rises to the top, your godly reign will end.
That is in essence the basic gameplay. Other elements complicate things. For instance, there are human protectors who can resist certain elements (fire, wind, water, and lightning). Luckily, they are the rare humans you can attack. You’ve got to use a power they can’t resist though, and they often work in pairs.
Some levels in a tower may also be stronger than others, such as a warehouse level, and you will want to try and keep the warehouse supervisor happy because he has the power to influence the other humans. In addition, there are evil priests to thwart you, although a few good priests may sometimes help you.
Gods VS Humans has a total of 96 levels spread over five mythologies. The levels look essentially the same, although you will encounter more challenges and be granted new powers along the way. Scrolling up and down a tower doesn’t work well; you will find it more effective to select a level by tapping the level indicator on the right. New tutorials are unlocked as you progress up the levels. One thing I dislike is being shuttled back and forth between the Adventure mode and main menu to play the tutorials.
iFanzine Verdict: Gods VS Humans feels a lot like a casual game although some strategy is involved. Since the basic gameplay doesn’t change and the levels all look pretty much alike, the game may feel repetitive after a while. Even the various gods aren’t different enough in their godly abilities. Overall, the game is decent but not incredibly addictive.