Cartoon Wars

Cartoon castle-capturing carnage

If you fancy yourself as a bit of a medieval warmonger then Cartoon Wars is for you.

The game is very much like Sid Meier's Civilization IV, where you need to lead an assault on your opponent's castle by sending an army of men racing across the plain in between your stronghold and theirs. You can select from different kinds of soldiers in Cartoon Wars, with more powerful warriors becoming available to you the more points you score. You can only send out soldiers at given intervals, depending on how much 'mana' you have, which is accumulated over time.

As the name suggests, the characters in Cartoon Wars are all hand-drawn, ranging from stickmen with axes to sword-wielding skeletons. The range of goodies and baddies is very diverse, making for some fun, hilarious battles with plenty of bloodshed.

The gameplayin Cartoon Wars involves a lot of strategy as you need to decide when to release your soldiers and which ones to put out in order to combat a specific threat. The characters fight each other automatically, and at times you feel frustratingly helpless as you just watch your guys get mercilessly pummeled by the opposition.

This means that if you're an action game fan you might be disappointed by this lack of control. However, if you see yourself as more of a commander who prefers taking a back seat, you'll have a lot of fun with Cartoon Wars.