Life doesn’t often give us the chance for do-overs, to fix mistakes made on the first go. First impressions, first attempts, and even first dates are immutable once over. Luckily for Team 17, fans of the Worms franchise, and to some extent myself, this software needs but a small update, and poof! instant do-over. (Almost.)
I had played, loved, hated, and wittily reviewed Worms 1.0 for the iPhone, and then the fine folks at Team 17 ruined it by releasing an update that addressed a slew of my issues. After a few tweaks to the controls and some additional graphic options, I was forced to rewrite. It’s as if Team 17 peered into the depths of my brain and read a draft of my review, which is impressive. But more impressive is the difference a few changes can do for playability on an iPhone title.
Let’s get into it, shall we?
The controls are pretty straight forward: take your iPhone screen, rotate it so it’s horizontal, and then divide it into three equal columns. Tapping the right column moves your worm right, tapping left works accordingly, and tap the middle for the menu. To aim, tap the crosshairs and then drag. Zooming uses the standard pinch gesture (tip: double-tap the wind direction in the top left to zoom in or out), and you move around the screen using two fingers.
Worms 1.01 performs as advertised but I still have issue with panning and aiming. Tapping on the crosshairs in order to drag and aim can at times be frustrating. When the clock is down to it’s last 10 seconds, and you’re trying to find that sweet spot to anchor your ninja rope so you can pull yourself over some good-for-nothing yankee worm, even the daintiest thumb will obscure your vision.
Equally annoying is the two finger panning. My original complaint with this control was with the choppiness I encountered when panning on my 1G iPhone. The update took care of this, allowing you to choose paired-down visuals in exchange for frame rate. Sadly, the control for panning is still somewhat irking. After searching high and low I came to the conclusion that there are only two ways to do a two finger pan, and both suck. The first is using both thumbs on opposite sides of the screen: tap and swipe in the direction you want to move the camera. The other is to use my middle and index finger to do a two finger swipe. Both suck because putting two fingers on a screen filled with these tiny details is impractical. The default view is wide enough that you won’t need to bother with much camera panning, but the trade-off is that worms are the size of rice grains, effectively killing its graphical charm. Naturally, you double-tap to zoom to your worm, but the view doesn’t show what’s going on outside your immediate vicinity, and so you’re forced to pan around to find your target. It’s not a deal breaker, but the more you play the more this stands out as the one, real clumsy control element.
This is the Worms I’ve known and loved since I first played the series some 14 years ago. It’s impressive that so much of that experience is portable and on my iPhone. The visual and audio design is spot on. Watching my worm blow shit up and cursing like a drunken Scot is equally satisfying.
The game has three basic single player modes: Quick Game, Practice Match, and Challenges. The first two are self-explanatory, but Challenges is a series of matches where you’re pitted against more opponents at progressing difficulty levels. Challenges is also the only playing mode in which you can play your custom team. All three modes satisfy the basic tenet of the game: blow shit up. I found them all equally engaging as they offered nearly limitless re-play. I say nearly because at some point you tire of the available weapons, then yearn for new ways to tear up the landscape and gut enemy Worms.
There’s a multiplayer mode which was a bit of a let down. I enthusiastically loaded Worms onto my girlfriend’s iPhone, salivating at the thought of some network worm vs worm only to discover that its simply hot-seat, aka multiplayer on the same device. It’s nice to have in a pinch but I think when people read multiplayer the expectation is online or at the very least, network play.
If Team 17 reads my mind again they’ll implement an extra weapons pack for DLC and a 1.1 update with true multiplayer. Until then, for $4.99, Worms is a strong buy. It’s the perfect sort of game for a quick round of mayhem while you wait for the bank teller to finish counting those octogenarian pennies.
