Red Weed

Fans of the non-Spielberg version of War of the Worlds (you know, the one without Tom Cruise hurling grenades up a giant alien's bottom) rejoice - there's an official video game of both the book and Jeff Wayne's stirring musical.

Well, actually, curb that enthusiasm a tad because somehow H.G. Wells's scintillating tale of humanity-versus-giant tripods from Mars has ended up becoming a rather tedious game of old boardgaming chestnut Reversi.

In stark contrast to the apocalyptic threat the Martians posed to humanity in the novel, Red Weed is also absurdly easy to conquer - and you don't even a need the common cold to help you out.

Green zone

After a brief extract from Wayne's bombastic musical - complete with low-res video accompaniment - telling us about how the poisonous, "Red Weed began to creep, like a slimy red animal across the land", we're launched into 12 stages of drab near-inaction.

Playing across virtually identical ten-by-ten grids dotted with abandoned fragments of humankind, it's your job to use patches of normal grass to combat the apparent red menace.

As well as waving gently in a perpetual breeze your turf, and the enemy's, expands by one square at a time. The end comes when one colour predominates.

You simply tap on a filled square and pick a direction to grow the next patch in, with any enemy foliage then being absorbed into your expanding grassland. Alternatively, you can hop two squares for a surprise attack, landing between two patches of the titular weed to wipe them both out.

It's strategy gameplay as old as the hills, but it retains a certain old skool strategic charm until you realise the weak AI poses as much challenge as a tired slug would to Godzilla.

It might have been a treat for this reviewer to have rattled through all three modes (Easy, Medium, and Hard) in an hour, but only having 12 stages to beat makes Red Weed a paltry package.

Fortunately, there are more levels "coming soon", so in the meantime you'll have to make do with persuading a reluctant friend to try some half-hearted hot seating multiplayer.

Alternatively, you could just blast out your neighbours with some vintage Jeff Wayne, take down Othello from the loft, and just keep hoping that Mars rover turns up something more exciting than photogenic rocks.