When I first came across the announcement for this next game, Catana, my initial expectations were completely different from what the game delivered. I was expecting to find a game of the Match 3 genre that had a cat as its central character. The role of the cat, and whether, the usual Match 3 elements formed part of the game, were discoveries yet to be made but, as it turned out, my initial impressions could not have been more wrong. Yes the game was made up of multiple levels, in fact 110 of them, for the game's playing field and its central character which did resemble a cat from certain angles. But this was not a cuddly or mischievous house feline. It was a creature that had all the scratching and hunting tendencies of a feral breed that had desires to become the ninja to beat all other ninjas. The game reminded me of the Pop Cap title of "Plants vs. Zombies" and its follow up offering. Available from sites such as Gamehouse.com and Big Fish Games, Catana is from the Alawar catalogue with the development work carried out by Adept Studios GD. By creating profiles for individual players, different people can play the game and have their progress and achievements recorded. Adjustments can be made to the volume levels for sound effects and background music, while separate settings allow you to select full screen viewing with the use of a special cursor and tactical control. A choice of Easy, Normal or Hard difficulty provide a range of resources, such as the number of lives, from 9 down to 3, and the amount of enemies you will need to face during various tasks. Incidentally these enemies are made up of vegetables that have mutated into killer versions of eggplants, sprouts, peppers and the like. This outbreak of vegetables that wish to eat those responsible for their growth rather than be eaten themselves were first detected in the courtyard of a quiet monastery. The monastery's Master then sets about training you, in the guise of Catana, to improve your ninja skills and beat back the onslaught that has quickly picked up speed. Your training will involve learning how to move around grids of columns and rows forming cells which the mutated vegetables threaten to take over. This movement can be achieved by creating a path to the vegetables you intend to attack. You can either create the path in tactical mode by clicking on each cell in turn or by dragging the mouse over the cells you intend to travel over in order to make your attack. While your path can travel over baby vegetables, and as a result destroy them before they become fully grown adults, your passage is blocked by adult vegetables who have been known to wear armour. Encountered adult vegetables will need to be destroyed. A challenge stating the number and type of vegetables will need to be completed for each level. From time to time advice and other assistance will be provided by the Master as you encounter dangerous situations. Positioned across the bottom of the playing field grid are four tools, developed by the Master, staring with a calming potion. I will leave you to investigate the other tools as they are provided to help eliminate enemies that include bosses known as Face Tentacles, Lava Crunchers and Robots. Can you guide Catana through the 110 levels of vegetable destruction and earn 10 Killer achievements? I downloaded my copy of this game, with eye-catching graphics and plenty of animation, from Gamehouse.com where it is priced at $9.99. The game requires a 2.0 GHz processor with 2048MB of RAM and 394MB of hard disk space running Windows 7 and later. Catana | GameHouse