Worms: Amazing, On the iPhone 3GS

Have you ever wanted to wage full-out warfare with a bunch of charismatic invertebrates? Have you ever had the urge to unleash a suicidal explosive sheep onto your foes? Now you can, and its all in your pocket! Worms from Team17 brings you classic Worms action straight to your iPhone and brings it with style… sort of.

Firstly, let me say, there have been many reports of extreme laggy gameplay on all of the itouch and iphone devices save for the 3GS. I have a 3GS and am reviewing based on my experience on the 3GS. Thank you. Worms is a recreation of the classic Amiga game of the same name. Worms tasks you with controlling a team of worms whose goal is to destroy the other team of worms. Once you do, you win the match. Simple, and therein lies the beauty.

Worms visuals and audio both have been greatly improved. The worms move and animate smoothly and with comic style. All of the weapons have a distinct look and effect. The landscapes are rendered nicely. The landscapes are randomly generated making each one stand out as unique. The sounds are entertaining and comical. The worms are always saying things that sound cute in their wormy voices (”Lock and Load!”.) There are many voice sets that you can apply and more even to unlock. My favorite is the Angry Scots speech set.

You might say Worms is a blast!

The gameplay is simple and well-balanced. You can move your worm left or right by tapping that side of the screen. You can make him jump or back flip, just don’t land in the water, that’s instant death. You can aim his shot (for most weapons) and you can hold the shoot button to adjust the power (for most weapons.) You must keep in mind the wind direction and speed with regards to how it will affect your shot. The weapons range from your standard bazooka, to drop-able dynamite sticks, and from your trusty ninja rope, to an actually teleporter. All sorts of weapons that do all sorts of things and all are fun to use. Some will prove themselves more effective in certain situations but that is a mark of balanced weaponry.

The game has two main single player modes. Quick match is the first and this will pit you against one CPU team on a random board with random rules (such as how many exploding barrels should spawn.) The other mode is challenge mode. In this mode you can complete a series of challenges for the worm teams and by doing so unlock new speech sets and tombstones for your worms. Both modes are extremely entertaining. Worms also has a multi-player mode which allows you to play against a friend via pass-and-play. You can also choose the kind of match you want, such as Gun Show or Sudden Death. This is a lot of fun provided you have a friend handy.

There are a couple of gripes, excluding the laggy gameplay on the other idevices. The scrolling around the board using gestures could be smoother. That’s not to say its bad, only that during timed turns I don’t want to have to waste time dealing with the camera, it should be more fluid or natural. Also, perhaps Team17 would consider adding a control scheme using dedicated buttons for movement left/right. Touching the left “area” of the screen to move left is imprecise and has led me to actually jump into water to my doom. Lastly, the tap to aim on certain weapons is a little inaccurate. The reticule would move half the distance it was supposed to. Sometimes all these little issues add up to you wasting a turn due to time limits. This happens infrequently once you get used the controls. Lastly, for real this time, please throw in a save on exit feature, it should be considered standard by developers.

In the final tally, Worms is a truly awesome game in your pocket. You open the app and you will be smiling shortly. Again, let me reiterate, It was this much fun on a 3GS. Once Team17 gets an update through to optimize for the other idevices it will rocket up in popularity. If you have an iPhone 3GS, Worms will not disappoint and is worth every penny at the current price of $4.99 (USD) in the appstore.