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Guide your soldiers into battle and fight your way through the many levels to capture the enemy's capital city.

Let's face it, when life is just a gigantic pain in the posterior, when your woman has left you and taken the kids and the dog with her (you loved that dog so much!) when you're an oozing mass of acne and there's just nothing much to live for, you can't beat a good war to cheer you up. It's a little known fact that Genghis Khan proceeded to demolish the known civilised world after his doctor recommended two table spoons of cod liver oil daily, plenty of exercise and a good war to cure a bad dose gout.

Their muscles aching from so many sports games, Electronic Arts have now opted for this cartoon war game to relieve their tensions. General Chaos, the Moronican commander and General Havoc, the head of the Vicerian forces battle for glory, lands and their fair share of plundering and pillaging. Their soldiers are each masters of their particular weapons and in five-man squads or two-man commando teams, must fight the good fight and win!

When two soldiers from opposing squads get too close to each other to use weapons, a cloud of dust flies up and hand-to-hand combat ensues. All other action on the field stops while the guys got down on it. However, if the one who's losing gets fed up (which if frequently) he just pulls out a revolver and shoots the near-victor.

There are five types of soldier, each with a different weapon. There are: Gunners who have machine guns with a range of 40 metres; Chuckers who cuck grenades up to a range of 50 metres and arc them over obstacles; Scorchers with their deadly flamethrowers up to a range of five metres and Launchers who have a bazooka with a range of 150 metres.

There are four types of squad, three of them five-man teams - Demolition, Brute Force and Assault - who randomly change the type of soldier contained therein and the two-man Commando team who are faster and easier to move.

When I first saw General Chaos I was delighted - lovely cartoony graphics, heaps of options and loads of enemies to blast into kingdom come. But then I started to play and found it was a real waste of what should have been a topper game.

The controls are awful - why oh why couldn't you move all your men simply by highlighting the one you want and moving them? Instead, you have the ridiculous process of highlighting your man then moving the cursor to where you want him to go, clicking again and waiting for him to shuffle over there.

The close combat was a good idea as well but the humorous touch of having the loser shooting the near-winner happens far too often (at least half the time) so it ends up being pointless and utterly infuriating! When you finally get the hang of the controls it's not bad in two-player (although it does get a bit samey) but in one-player the game's very dull.

In four-player it finally comes into its own - everyone's a commando, so it's easy to handle and really good fun. But on the whole, it's a poorly executed waste of a good idea.

The person who thought up General Chaos had an excellent idea. There's nothing else resembling an action war game on the Megadrive, and if it had been implemented well, it could have been a classic.

But it wasn't, and it isn't. The cacky control system single-handedly ruins General Chaos. For a long time you don't know what the hell is going on - your men are in disarray and the cursor is wobbling about with far too much inertia on it. Even when you've grasped the basics, your troops never react fast enough and you constantly feel your grip on the game is slight indeed.

Also, some 'humorous' touches conspire to make the game pointless. The worst example is hand-to-hand combat, where your skills are made pointless by the enemy pulling out a gun. That 'feature' really disgusted me, as any plank can see it only spoils the game. Despite nice graphics and the multi-player options, General Chaos annoys me too much to go near it.

Presentation 91%
P. Fab cartoony presentation screens and practice session. A great range of options including a four-player game.

Graphics 90%
P. Large, detailed sprites and lots of nice animation sequences.
N. The backdrops are all rather dull and samey.

Sound 79%
P. Nice intro tunes and some good banging noises.
N. Very little sound during the actual game which is a short, sharp trip to dullsville.

Playability 65%
P. Good blasting action when you finally get used to the controls...
N. ...but the control method is ludicrous and the head-to-head irritating beyond belief.

Lastability 68%
P. Lots of levels and a great fun in four-player mode.
N. Dire as a one-player game and the levels are all a bit too similar for lasting enjoyment.

Overall 71%
The appalling control method and a grievous lack of thought makes for a tragic waste of what should have been a scorcher of a game.