Worms: iPhone App Review

Posted by Robb on July 21st, 2009 at 11:32am Comments

iPhone App Review: Worms
Reviewed by: Robb Lewis
- AppStore Link
Price: $4.99

Team17 recently released Worms for the iPhone. Worms! If you’re not exicted about this, I can only imagine you haven’t played Worms before. I used to spend hours and hours playing on my PC. Is the iPhone version as good as the desktop version? In my opinion, yes, yes it is.

For those of you who don’t know, Worms is a 2D, turn-based strategy game. You control a team of earthworms using all manner of weapons to destroy the other team.

Worms for iPhone looks plays almost exactly the same as the PC version. Holding the left or right third of the screen moves your worm left and right, pressing the centre is jump, and double tapping makes the little buggers do a backflip. Zooming in and out is done the same way as any other app on the iPhone - pinching and stretching. And this bring me onto the only problem I can see with this game. The zooming just doesn’t work as well as other apps, it seems to be ’smooth’ (for want of a better word) and appears to have a slight lag to the zooming. I know from playing the desktop version that this is how zooming has always been done in the game, but on the iPhone it really should work exactly the same as the rest of the phone.

All the classic weapons are there including sheep, holy holy hand grenade and my personal favourite (although not actually a weapon), the ninja rope. After selecting a weapon, pressing the target button in the bottom right of the screen fires the weapon. As always, holding down the button increases the power behind the shot (on certain weapons). Using the on-screen controls for the jetpack and ninja rope takes some getting used to, but once you do, they’re awesome weapons use.

There are three game modes in Worms. Quick mode involves picking a difficulty level (easy, medium or hard) and in you go. Multiplayer allows you to pick the teams (computer or user controlled), pick the weapon set as well as the difficulty of the computer teams. I suspect however, that challenges is the mode most people will be playing. Challenges has fifty games for you to win, against a varying amount of teams and difficulty. Doing these unlocks different voices and gravestones for you to use when you create you own team. The challenges start off reasonably easy, with teams having only one or two players with fifty per cent health while you have a full team with full health from the start. Once you get past these first few challenges, they get harder very quickly. I don’t know what the prize is for completing all fifty challenges (I haven’t quite got there yet) so if someone finds out, let us know in the comments! Another great thing about this game, is that if you’re interrupted with a phone call or you press the home button, the game is automatically saved so you can return to it any time by pressing ‘resume game’ from the main menu.

The graphics look as good on my iPhone as they did on the PC. As soon as I started a game, it reminded me how great Worms really is, and I promptly went to find the CD for my PC version. If you were watching a video of Worms for the iPhone and the PC version, you would struggle to tell the difference between the two. Team17 have done a fantastic job on Worms for iPhone and it is definitely my favourite game in the app store.

Score:
9.6 out of 10

 

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