AGEOD's American Civil War

As If You needed it, here comes solid proof that war isn't always "neeeeeawwww, rat-tat-tat, BOOMalaka!" and rag doll snipers tumbling gracefully from belfry windows. Now, my knowledge of the American Civil War is admittedly somewhat lacking; but who needs Wikipedia when 'American Civil War' comes pre-packaged with enough dull, pidgin-English text to demoralise an entire infantry of pompously-dressed Republican buglers? From what I can gather from this somewhat-faithful digital recreation, the original war itself must have been a garbled mess of endless boxes, icons, statistics and clicking.

This is a Civilization-esque strategy game in which you shift infantry and their resplendent facial hair around various states in an attempt to either bump off the other side or bore them into submission.

Visually, it's pretty and endearing in a clumsy farmer's daughter sort of way, it's extremely well put together, and there's shedloads of stuff to get through. The trouble is it's so bewilderingly unfriendly and overcomplicated throughout, that multiple layers of stats and options siphon off any sense of fun, and you wind up feeling the need to be constantly chewing on a couple of ibuprofen simply to counter the perpetual pounding in your brain.

This game is clever, deep, multifaceted and a strategy nerd's wet dream. It's just a shame that it all comes at the expense of being very, very boring as well.