Worms: Open Warfare - DS

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When you think of some of the great multiplayer titles to ever be released and you mention worms to a PC gamer. You will normally get an evil grin in return. Worms is one of those games that has endured the test of time, no matter how technology develops with super duper powerful computers worms was simply fun and is still played online today. So how does the DS version of this classic formula stand up to its great grandaddy? Well Im about to tell you.

For those who do not know, worms is a turn based strategy war game. Quite similar to that of advance wars, but instead of tanks and planes, we have a team of 4 genocidal worms. At each turn the player gets a time limit to move a worm from their team around the level and perform an action. Actions vary from digging into the level for cover, teleporting around the level for strategic advantage or simply trying to blow up a member of an opponents team with one of the many weapons. Each worm has a health value represented by hitpoints are removed upon a hit. Turns alternate until one team has been totally destroyed and the other team is declared victor.

With the DS version the top screen is used to display the action and the bottom screen displays the game information and item selection. This works really well since with previous versions of worms often everything was crammed into the one screen and was confusing. The stylus is used to look around the map and select items from your arsenal. The joypad moves your worm around and adjusts elevation for weapon firing. While the A and B buttons are used to jump and fire weapons respectively.

Each level in worms is randomly generated and the chances of playing the exact level twice is remote unless the level code is remembered. The terrain is totally destructible and any worm that falls off the level is immediately destroyed.

The graphics in worms are not spectacular by any means, but they don't have to be. The graphics produced suit the game perfectly and have done since the original PC game. The worms are cartoony and and have plenty of expressions and are animated really well and its easy to tell what is going on even though the worms are small on a small DS screen. Each weapon and explosion retains the comic feel of the worms themselves and each level looks like it has been ripped from a comic book.

The game is very simple to pick up and play the controls are simple and intuitive. Simply move the worm, select your weapon, point in the right direction and let rip, you will be shelling opponents in no time. But there is plenty of tactical depth to the game should you be interested in trying to keep your worms alive. In each turn the player has to adjust their shot for wind which can vary from a mild breeze to an outright gale. This opens up plenty of tactical opportunities allowing a player to shoot projectiles in previously inaccessible places, but it is quite hard to adjust for wind to begin with and it is quite easy to simply fire a weapon back into your own worm that fired it.

Soundwise the game is great, nice little medleys play for each level depending upon what theme they are on. Explosions and gun fire are nice too with a clear and crisp ring to them. But the best part is reserved for the worms themselves, the player can select what voice the worm can have, my favourite being the angry Scottish which sounds like Billy Connolly on helium, very funny.

The game has a sort of single player game in the mode of challenges which increase in difficulty the further you progress. Some of them are insanely hard, especially with the perfect shot artificial intelligence. But worms was never designed to be a single player game, its true heart lies in getting a couple of mates over and blowing each other up to kingdom come. The random level generator ensures that each battle is always different and theres plenty to come back on. The only thing I don't like is that it should have incorporated the nintendo WIFI service for online gameplay. This would have seriously made the game a must have.

In conclusion we have a great little DS title that stays very faithful to the PC original. There is nothing really new in the game but there doesn't need to be really since a large percentage of DS owners will never have played worms before. Graphically sound and its pick up and play factor with plenty of tactical depth should ensure that it will always be one of the better DS games on the market.