Worms iPhone/iPod Touch App Review

21 Jul

Title Shame on you Team 17. Shame on you for teasing us iPhone gamers with a port of the classic turn-based strategy game Worms and then releasing it with added performance issues and wonky controls. When I had first opened worms I saw some very noticible lag times (this was post rebooting my device mind you) and even worse were the controls.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the worms franchise here is a basic synopsis and brief layout of how the game is played:

Worms is a turn-based strategy game in which you control a platoon of cartoon-y worms whose goal is to use an arsenal of wild and zany guns, bombs, artillery and special weapons to destroy the opposing squad(s) of Worms. You and the enemy’s worms are displaced throughout a randomly created 2-D background and you take turns trying to destroy each other. During each turn, you control one worm and you have a limited amount of time to inflict the maximum amount of carnage to the opposing worms. Firing a weapon or getting hurt (by falling too far) also end your turn. In the iPhone version, you touch the sides of the screen to move (left or right) and tap the bulls-eye button to shoot/use a weapon. You tap on the worm to jump, double-tap to backflip, slide the crosshair to aim, and click on the ammo button on the bottom-left to change your weapon. Worms is well-known for its special weapons, such as explosive sheep, ninja ropes to scale walls, jetpacks to fly, holy hand grenades as a tip-of-the-hat to Monty Python and the Holy Grail and air strikes to kill your enemies from afar. You control the power of your shot (or throw, if it’s a bomb or grenade) by holding on the fire button. By taking into account the wind, trajectory and power, you can carefully fire your bazookas or bombs so that they blow the enemy.

However, due to some poor control design decisions, Worms on the iPhone is likely to infuriate the loyal. And in the case of Worms on the iPhone, the inability to execute precision flights with the jet pack or accurately throw a rope and pull off those awesome worm acrobatics will have you gnashing your teeth. Don’t get me started on the jump controls either. I cannot count the number of times I double-tapped a worm to do a back-flip, only to helpless watch it jump either into the water, straight into range of a mine, or right off a ledge subsequently ending my turn.

The trademark of the PC version of Worms is the online multiplayer functionality. And that is exactly what the iPhone version lacks. There is no online, WiFi or bluetooth multiplayer (though online is what we really care about). The only multiplayer is local, and it isn’t really that good anyways. Unlike the traditional PC multiplayer, the iPhone version doesn’t afford the users a lot of choice: you don’t have the option to keep certain weapons and eliminate others; you can choose sets of weapons such as “guns only,” but there is no item-by-item customization. You also can’t place your worms (they are placed for you randomly).

However, back to my biggest gripe, the lag that affected everything I tried to do while playing: I couldn’t backflip unless I tapped the screen four times (instead of two), it took forever to load, and the music/graphics were extremely sluggish. Most importantly, I found it difficult to move the crosshair to the exact position I wanted: this is where real-time matters most, because if the crosshair doesn’t move as my finger does, then I don’t know whether I’ve gone too far or too short. Whether it was just a simple bazooka shot or a long-distance air strike, I lost countless easy kills because I couldn’t aim my crosshair before the time ran out.

That said, I could see a newcomer to the series not getting too worked up about the variety of issues because they simply wouldn’t know any better. The wonky flight path of the jet pack would be far less important to the laugh of launching a sheep attack for the first time or hearing the “hallelujah” of the holy hand grenade. It’s not like you cannot use all of the other weapons and gear to great effect, such as air strikes and the shotgun. And with these tools, you can still have a modest match of turn-based madness.

For $5.00 I would definately reccomend staying away from this one at least until they get an update out that corrects several of the issues keeping this great game back.