The graphics you'll encounter in Swords and Soldiers HD are delightful and bursting with personality and charm. Whether you are playing the Viking, the Aztec or the Chinese Campaign, you'll definitely get an eyeful. Everything is bright and cheerful and has a nice, cartoony flair. Campy little touches abound like voodoo looking poles with cartoon skulls on the top to indicate Aztec areas and voluptuous Viking wenches who bouncily mine the gold. Even the Chinese Emperor has an adorable pet lizard (who later morphs into a dragon) called Pooh Ki.

Each race has its own unique style and personality. Whether you are talking about a raging group of ice hammer-throwing Vikings, the Jaguar Warriors of the Aztecs or the Rocket-launching Chinese guys, everyone has a tagline or two that they say and they are all pretty funny, if a bit non-PC. The Vikings say quips like, "Mmmm, hammer time!" whereas the Jaguar Warriors like to announce in a breathy voice, "I'm Cat Man." The lower level warriors of both the Aztec and Chinese races often mumble something unintelligible, and the Emperor of the Chinese race sounds like a young spoiled brat. The intro to each level reminds me a lot of the beginning to the old school Batman TV show, which ties nicely into the Jaguar Warrior's Cat Man comment. As far as sound effects, all of the weapons sound appropriately cartoony, but they all have a nice impact. Overall, the visual and sound aesthetic for Swords and Soldiers HD is top notch.

Let me first say that Swords and Soldiers HD is chock full of gaming goodness. There's a ton of gameplay here and you won't get bored anytime soon. Initially, you'll have the option to play the Campaign on Single Player with the Viking Campaign, being open to you. There is also the Aztec Campaign and the Chinese Campaign, which you can play if you want to, but in order to benefit from the storyline and learning how the various weapons work, it is best to play them through in order of appearance.

Each campaign has its own ridiculous and twisted storyline. The Vikings are trying to host the biggest and baddest BBQ ever. In order to do that, they really want the giant spicy red pepper that the Aztecs hold and they will stop at nothing to obtain it. In the Aztecs' campaign, they are trying to protect their pepper from the Vikings, but there are also warring factions of the Aztecs who want it, and rival leaders Lovsbatl and Fullthrotl fight it out, aided by the potion-crafting guy, Poisonbotl. Lastly, the young and bratty Chinese Emperor seeks the most toys of everyone and of course, he wants the pepper too.

Each race has their own types of fighters, from the lowly foot soldier on up to the powerful warriors. In order to "make" a warrior, you must first mine gold and the gold pays for the warriors. In most levels, the first order of business is to make enough gold so that you can buy more gold miners, of which you can have 10 at one time. Once you have enough money, you can go into the options menu and select warrior types from a tree, starting with the lowliest and moving on up to purchasing the most powerful ones like the Sun Giant. There are also power-ups like a dose of health or Thor's Hammer for the Vikings, the ability to use Pooh Ki as a flame-tongued dragon to decimate enemies of the Chinese, or even a giant rolling boulder of death to smush the Aztec's enemies. There are also spells that can be purchased like a snow storm, a volley of flaming arrows or even the ability to use mind control!

Once you complete the initial campaign, you'll unlock Challenges like Survival, Berserker Run and Boulder. Survival is exactly what it sounds like, you pick a race and then try and survive for as many minutes as you can. Berserker Run has you as Arnie the Viking Berserker, blasting through enemies and surviving for as many yards as he possibly can. He'll be able to pick one spell to assist him in his run and that's it! Lastly is Boulder where you control the boulder and you must tap the screen to bounce it in order to avoid smashing your troops, but yet crush everything and everyone else.

Multiplayer options include a skirmish where two people share one iPad and each selects a race to play as, and a color, if they both choose the same race. Then you choose between three different maps of varying difficulties and sizes, then battle it out, plain and simple.

Initially, you can go into Swords and Soldiers HD's Options menu and select Slow, Normal, or Fast game speed. Once you have completed the main campaign, Turbo speed opens up and this is an absolute blast. Sure, the game is tougher on Turbo, but it is so much fun to watch the little gold miners working so rapidly. It speeds up how quickly you make gold and mana, and also the speed of enemies and friendlies. It will also speed up the time that it takes to generate the ability to spawn new warriors and spells, which is great. On Multiplayer, you can tweak options like how much gold, mana and workers you start with, plus your difficulty or that of your opponent, whether it be human or A.I. Difficulty ranges from -1 all the way to 10+.

While the overall difficulty of the game is just perfect, I will say that there were a few levels that really drove me bats and took me a while to complete. However, I am ashamed to say that, most times, the reason I couldn't get past the level boiled down to me not reading what the level wanted from me by hurrying through the initial cut scenes or simply not diversifying in what warriors or spells I was using. That being said, I do wish there was a way to bypass the cut scenes. When you keep repeating a level over and over, it gets old watching the same cut scene.

The controls for Swords and Soldiers HD are just perfect, using the touch screen of the iPad for everything. You will tap to create new gold miners, go into the options screen and double tap to select a warrior type or spell to purchase, then once that warrior type or spell materializes and you can select it, you'll then tap to create the warrior or use the spell. You'll tap to build towers or laser-firing statues, tap to initiate a fire-breathing Pooh Ki or a boulder of death and tap to have Pooh Ki light up the land below or to bounce the boulder and spare your troops. There's a cheat map along the bottom of the screen that shows the location of towers, friendlies, advancing enemies and your ultimate goal per level. You can slide your finger along this area to quickly jump to that spot on the map, so an accidental finger swipe can land you far from the action, so be careful.

Overall, Swords and Soldiers HD is an absolute blast and I highly recommend it. I honestly got a review code for this game with the intention of Geck0 reviewing it, because he is a fan of strategy games, but then I started playing it and I couldn't put it down. Even if you don't necessarily think it's your thing, once you start playing, you'll be hooked. If you enjoy a good tower defense-styled game, and are looking for one with loads of personality, you've come to the right place.