Clash of Clans for Android is a fantasy quest style game with battles, upgrades and damsels in distress; ok, I don’t know about that last part, but every good quest centers around a damsel in distress at some point, so I thought I’d toss that in too.

Clash of Clans takes place in a mythic land; part medieval, part Viking warrior, part fairy tale. You are in charge of a village and your mission is to build armories, supply huts and recruit new solders then train them with new abilities. Naturally, the centerpiece of games like this are the battles. Attack your enemy's village or defend your own from a surprise onslaught. Apparently we humans love to do battle; weather real or imagined.

The controls function well enough; just tap and touch to complete actions like upgrading structures and deploying solders to fight or defend against enemies. The battles are the fun part. I love seeing all these itty bitty characters go at it so viciously; it’s like a clan of microscopic warriors with anger issues. As is always the case with games like this, the zoom controls are grossly inadequate. I think this might be a universal developer’s tact; the farther away from the action they keep us, the less detail they need to program into the animation. The game is enjoyable; just distant and tiny. This would be near pointless on a smaller screen.

There are oodles of upgrades that will truly cost you a good chunk of the allowance mommy gave you. But the game is immersive, and if you commit to it, this should retain your interest for a while. Personally, I just see it all as kind of redundant. Upgrade this, attack that, it was fun and cool when it was original; but this genre has been cloned to death and no real innovation is taking place anymore.

Clash of Clans is a perfectly good game that fans of this genre will find completely enthralling. But I had a pet rock as a kid, and most of these games are about as captivating to me as that stone with the googlie eyes stuck to it. The online multiplayer mode is interesting, but ultimately, this is just a money pit, not a real game.