Worms and all of its sequels captured the hearts of people all over the world. A strategy game in the purest sense of the word, it charmed everyone with its addictive premise of tiny invertebrates chucking dangerous projectiles at each other in a way that requires precise aiming and positioning. This formula, requiring precise judgement and accuracy along with a little luck, works so well that it has made Worms into one of the biggest selling series of recent times. Now imagine that exact formula, convert it to full 3D, add a pinch of realism and a storyline, and the final result is... Ballerburg.

Its clear from the outset that this game doesn't take itself too seriously. Whether watching the intro sequence, working through the tutorials, playing the game, or even reading the manual, German developers Ascaron have made it very obvious that they don't fit the stereotypical (no sense of humour) image given to their fellow countrymen. You play the game as a General to any one of four beautiful but evil sisters, who all want control of their daddy's empire and will stop at nothing to achieve this goal. Hence, enormous gunfights ensue as all four try and blow up each other's castles in the battle for supremacy. Your job as General is to ensure that your chosen Princess wins the battles and that involves a lot more than just shooting big guns.

The core of the game is of course the shooting element. This involves building a large number of cannons, catapults and other heavy missile-firing machines. Then comes the fun bit, carefully judging the correct aim to hit your chosen target, whilst taking into account: distance, power, wind speed, wind direction and weapon accuracy. This, although in theory perhaps complicated and dull sounding, is actually an extremely fun and addictive process and is always easy to get to grips with. It never fails to give supreme satisfaction when you finally manage to fine tune your aiming and demolish an enemy farm or house in one catastrophic shot.

Ballerburg also has a considerable management system, in which you maintain and improve your Princess' castle at the same time as trying to destroy the enemy castles. There are a multitude of buildings available for the budding builder, each one having properties that can help you in certain areas and that ultimately might win the battle. You can build a super-brain, for example, that will research new buildings, weapons and weapon upgrades. Or maybe create a farm that will attract more farmers and add more gold to your coffers. All of these are finely balanced to create a management system that is always fun to operate and never becomes burdensome.

Then to add the icing to the cake, Ballerburg neatly integrates both the military and management system together, so that one can directly affect the other. For example, if an enemy has a lot of gold and is winning because of it, you can use your guns to destroy his treasury, leaving him virtually penniless. Or if he is researching some devastating weapon you can destroy his super-brain, which will disable all of his upgrades.

To aid you through the missions are your two trusty sidekicks, Riff and Raff. They pop up frequently in the game to give you hints, help and advice, or sometimes just to laugh at you when you overshoot an enemy castle by a few hundred metres. They liven up the game considerably with their awful jokes and witticisms, especially in single-player mode where you might otherwise feel a tad lonesome.

Although not a pixel-spraying and vertex-shading aesthetic masterpiece, Ballerburg isn't too far off the mark. Every weapon is modelled in great detail; the gleaming barrel of a cannon or the complex wooden structure of the Hot Helga. On firing your weapon you can see its point of impact and watch as plumes of smoke and dirt spiral into the sky and fires rage amongst the buildings. The various structures you erect are reasonably satisfactory and are made even more so by their progressive states of disrepair as they get damaged by enemy weaponry. One particularly striking detail is the smooth day to night transition as the sun goes down and the moon rises and all the little lights in your castle and the surrounding buildings flicker into life. Then dawn slowly approaches as the sun takes over again, daylight flooding the battlefield and the cycle starts all over again.

Ballerburg is a smooth and polished creation. It takes all the fun elements of gaming and adds its own unique twist to produce a result of rare quality and playability that rivals Worms for sheer fun and addictiveness. It's not an all-time classic but it gives you some fantastic gaming moments and will make a more than worthy addition to your collection of games.

Reviewed by AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).