XenoWars

iPhone gamers have defended quite a few towers lately, and so, as the formula approaches saturation, the inevitable genre merging begins. Enter XenoWars: the offspring of a union between a match-three puzzler and a tower defence title that’s battle-ready, but with flaws only a mother could love.

The game has you accumulating Mana by matching three or more coloured blocks, which you then use to purchase troops to tackle invading hordes. During battle you also receive gold, which is spent on new troop types and upgrades for existing ones, as well as general upgrades such as increasing the rate at which you earn gold or Mana.

There's another curious mechanic at work, though, which appears to be largely unnecessary. If you feel you've amassed enough Mana through the match-'em-up puzzle, you can conveniently whisk the puzzle board off the screen to afford a full view of the battlefield.

From this view you can select individual units and issue specific commands, such as stay, advance, or use special attacks.

The problem is, the frenetic battles make using this feature confusing. Worse still, ignoring it altogether doesn’t seem to have an impact on your ability to successfully defeat your opponents' towers, even as you take on the game’s later levels.

Indeed, the key to success is balancing just the right quantity of time spent amassing Mana with the match-'em-up puzzle, before spending it on enough troops to successfully defend and subsequently launch attacks.

Despite this and myriad other flaws, such as slap dash audio design and a cluttered interface, XenoWars succeeds in commanding attention.

Though the pairing of the match-three and tower defence genres appears initially like a cynical and unimaginative idea, it does at least provide two of gaming’s most undeniably addictive mechanics, making for a title that will suck up more thumb time than it probably deserves.