Bloons 5

Nostalgia comes in many flavours. One such flavour that may be a distant memory to many of you is the good old days of flash games. While flash games are still very much about their popularity has somewhat diminished since the high school days of flunking IT classes and surfing Mini-clip instead. Back then tower defences were rife and Bloons was one of the greats that most people (at least within my generation) will likely remember and cherish. As such, being able to see more recent iterations in the series is thoroughly satisfying, and while Bloons 5 isn’t the latest game in the series, it is the newest one that remains free. I’m a huge tower defence lover and I could likely attribute that to Bloons for it’s vibrant and whimsical charm. The gameplay has always been light hearted and jolly in every sense and even in the most manic bloon-rushes you’re guaranteed to have fun… Just don’t pop under the pressure of a ZOMG when you see it… Download this one on your mobile today and you’ll be committi

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Platform and Languages – 7/10

Bloons 5 is available on a variety of platforms. The mobile version is completely free aside from in-app purchases however oddly enough the console versions are not free even though they provide a similar level of playability (arguably worse than mobile if you consider ease of tower placements). Failing that, you can also play it online for free too at NinjaKiwi, Kongregate and more. All versions offer a good handful of language options which can easily be changes from the initial main menu.

Glossary

Usability – 7/10

Bloons is a cathartic game. You can lose entire afternoons doing round after round, this does however work both in its favour and against it as a game to study with. From the get go the notifications, UI and menus feature a healthy amount of language with clear written text (if not a little small at times) meaning you can easily play through and pull out vocabulary at your leisure. The rounds and play style of the game are however sometimes not the most conducive to focused and meticulous study. Even while preparing the content for this review I found myself getting pulled in to the nagging draw of “maybe just one more round…”. Bloons falls into what I’d like to call “Minecraft syndrome” where you can easily be lulled into doing a few more levels for previous monkey dollars and more upgrades at the tower lab.

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One aspect you will be seeing a lot is the notifications. These occur whenever you try a new mode or level up yourself and your towers. As such, these will be more frequent when you first pick up the game. Each notification is relatively brief and will remain on screen until you tap elsewhere or close it meaning you can stop and invest some time into reading at your own pace. As stated, these notifications will become more and more infrequent however you will see daily updates to the challenges available to you and special events which rotate frequently. The rest of the menus throughout the game feature a small question mark button in most cases too which is a breakdown of what each hut in the main menu can do. Again these are quite descriptive but have the added advantage over the notifications as they can be revisited at will.

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My personal favourite tool for reading and learning is the towers upgrade menu. This can be found from the main menu and shows all unlocked upgrade paths for your towers. Not only does this act as a great resource but the manner in which you retrieve more readable content acts as an incentive to level up and use a wider variety of towers too. The vocabulary for these descriptions is a decent, intermediate level and while they are interesting they don’t contain much differing language. Due to the physics and combat based nature of the game you’ll find a lot in the way of velocities, accuracies and physical ailments that your towers can emit onto the bloons. While this isn’t very conversational it is beneficial and reusable between all towers and in many other games therefore supplementing your overall gaming language across the board. You can also review these upgrades while you are in a round by pressing the info button on the towers menu. While it is a little smaller than the Monkey village menu it allows for a more integrated play-study combo and even a few little language challenges, if you so fancy.

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Last but not least, while you’re out and about and popping bloons you’ll get little inter-round messages. Unlike what we’ve seen so far, these are more conversational and colloquial, throwing in little quips and pre-warnings for the rounds to come. This can be quite rewarding as you can use your language to pre-empt the coming bloons and plan accordingly. The double-edged sword here is that the messages are not permanent and will disappear after after about 10-15 seconds. In a way they can act as a test to your reading speed but if your reading speed is slower you may missed parts of the context.

Overall, bloons is as strategic in its language as it is in its gameplay. You can methodically work through a slew of available text and strengthen an rather small pool of vocabulary. Many of the terms are repeated and all in all I would estimate less than 500 total words throughout the whole game. The only downside is that the nature of the game doesn’t reward patience. I would wager that any game that features a fast forward button would fall into the same trap. 50 rounds can go through in a blink of an eye and your muscle memory can do the majority of the work. I would recommend Bloons 5 for anyone who likes to play mobile games to kill time but if you are inclined to grab a notebook or a dictionary at the same time it can be a significantly effective and free tool in your repertoire.

Challenges and Methods – 5/10

Unlocked and loaded