The bouncy, manic music, the squeaking and squealing of the little fungal warriors as they kamikaze their way into enemy villages, the satisfaction of exploiting an opening in your enemy's defences; it all combines in Mushroom Wars for one of the most deceptively engrossing real-time micro-strategy games around. The premise is simple. You control a clan of homogeneous mushroom people, and must battle up to three rival clans in a bid to make the entire map your colour. There is only one type of unit, battles take place on a single screen, and combat is carried out by sending your men into towers or villages held by your enemies. Mushroom Wars isn't a ponderous game of cerebral strategising. You'll regularly have to give groups of troops within seconds of each other, and will find yourself in deadlocks that can only be broken by fast-thinking military manoeuvres. The intensity of the game is scarcely concealed by its cute visuals, and reinforced by a bloopy soundtrack that you'll nod along to insanely as you blithely send thousands of shrooms to their doom like a reckless World War I general.