War games have become more impressive and playable of late but unfortunately this first budget war game doesn't measure up to those improved standards. It doesn't recreate any particular battle and is reminiscent in format of the old Lothlorien games like Johnny Reb and Redcoats.

The battlefield is a single screen with a number of terrain features and, of course, the two opposing forces. The battle is to either capture a set number of enemy cities or to annihilate the opposition forces completely. The game can only be played by two players and not against the computer so you'll definitely need a friend to be your enemy.

During the game each player has to control five types of ground forces and two types of air unit. The air units are fast moving and can cover a lot of the map quickly doing two different tasks. Fighters can attack other air units and ground units while transport planes can move certain ground units rapidly between locations. These units can also be destroyed by ground fire.

The five types of ground units are engineers, scouts, infantry, artillery and tanks. These all have different fighting ranges and combat strengths that deter-mine the outcomes of battles. They are also limited in their movement potential by particular terrain features that may restrict or completely block their passage.

Movement of units takes place in a predetermined order and is controlled using the keyboard. Combat occurs automatically when units are within range of each other but some can also be given specific special orders. They can entrench to offer stiffer resistance, engineers can build and destroy bridges and infantry units can board transport planes and become paratroopers.

The game can be altered to suit your taste with the battlefield terrain, units and unit positions being changeable. This means you can set up different battles but is still fairly limiting because of the single screen and small number of terrain and unit choices.

For the money this is a reasonable value war game, even though there is nothing very original about it. It pales into insignificance in the face of the PSS and CCS games but if you can only afford £1.99 you could do worse.

Pretty old-fashioned as war games now go, but it does have the design-your-own battle facility and the price is attractive. Shame there's no option to play against the computer.

Not bad, but definitely not the war game to end all war games.

P. The price.
P. Game-set up can be altered as you wish.

N. Two player game only.
N. Uninspiring graphics and sound.
N. Single screen action that Is very limited.