Slime vs. Mushroom 2

Quite why blob-like creatures should harbour any kind of resentment towards fungi is something that is sadly never adequately explained during the course of Slime vs. Mushroom 2, but this delightfully silly rivalry does at least give you the opportunity to indulge in some finger-friendly action.

You lay down your slime defenders on one side of the screen and do your best to repel the mushroom invaders which march in from the other - a similar arrangement to a game in which an equally silly contest is staged: PopCap's Plants vs Zombies.

To create new slimes, you need to place mother slimes, which, naturally enough, give birth to baby slimes.

In a rather grisly form of infant sacrifice, these cute nippers represent your resource in Slime vs. Mushroom 2, so are used to create other troops.

There are fireball-breathing slimes, ice-blowing slimes, bomb slimes, and even guard slimes - all of which perform a similar role to the different reanimated corpses in the aforementioned Plants vs Zombies.

In case it wasn't obvious by this point, this freemium release is a fairly blatant clone of PopCap's seminal tower defence game, although it lacks the tight pacing and devious humour of that particular title.

In Plants vs Zombies, new units are carefully drip-fed and, therefore, your interest is maintained. Here, it seems to take ages before new slimes are introduced, meaning that the first ten or so levels feel depressingly samey.

By using crystals, you can unlock new units and upgrade existing ones, but it's here that the game really shows its freemium colours.

Crystals are dropped during the game, but it takes quite a while to gather them in this fashion. As an alternative, it's possible to purchase them using real money, and by doing so you speed up the progression of the game considerably.

Despite its slow pacing and irksome bias towards in-app purchasing, Slime vs. Mushroom 2 possesses a lot of positive elements. The visuals are bold and cute, and the music is actually quite appealing - which is fortunate, for you'll be hearing the same tunes over and over as you work your way through the 140 levels.

While it doesn't topple Plants vs Zombies, the fact that it's available for gratis will most likely make Slime vs. Mushroom 2 a more tempting download for casual players.

The good news is that it offers a polished and long-lasting experience which will keep you glued to your screen for a while. The bad news is that once it's over, you're still no closer to fathoming why these two totally disconnected factions should be at loggerheads.