Worms

I got the chance to play on a 2D version of worms my friend has bought off the Xbox Live Arcade. When I heard it was 2D it was over the moon. When I played on 3D worms my reaction was, "well I can play this, and enjoy myself, but it just isn't worms." Worms is possibly one of the greatest ideas for games to date. The simple controls and the in-depth strategy and skill make a brilliant combo. The game is very good a loyal to the original, but a little short of customisation and weapons.

The graphics aren't as good as they could have been. The back grounds on each levels are very well done. However, the actual environments don't look very different to what they did on the PS1. I know they had to keep it 2D, but they could have had 3D explosions and the like. I admit that it was released on the Xbox Live ARCADE, but that doesn't mean in can't have nice explosions, especially when it is 800pts. Having said this, the graphics are both smooth and clean.

The AI is very good, when you are alive they play easy on you, but when you are dead they do their best to finish the game quickly. With the difficulty set to easy, the play as a believable human with some experience. I never saw them do anything daft, they might have been a tad to hard for the easiest difficulty but it wasn't annoyingly hard. When you are dead, some of the shots they pull off are actually incredible. They will fire it up, and because of the wind it will be guided in a small cave where someone will be hiding.

The customisation lets this game down a little. The game maps once again are generated and there are pre-sets to choose from, however this is where the choices stop. You cannot stipulate how many mines there are, what weapons you start with etc. This kind of choice was part of what made worms so good that they didn't need to include a real single player. Also missing is a wide variety of weapons. It has the same amount as the original Worms. This is fine except: why? They could very easily have copied all the weapons in. There are no super sheep, pneumatic drill has been lost, and the holy hand grenade is gone. Once again, this isn't disastrous for the game, but there really is no need for it.

I only played off-line multiplayer. This worked fine although you cannot use multiple controllers. This is not really a major problem. The game keeps scores of how many games you have played, worms lost, worms killed etc. It also gives you awards at the end of each round based on how well you performed. This are both amusing and interesting if you wish to analyse you performance. Another annoyance is the fact you must watch the AI battle it out at the end.

In conclusion, this game is very good, but I fear simply because it is 2D and worms. I think there are a number of small problems with this game that could and should have been resolved before releasing. Also, this game does show the XBLA in a very positive light as it means that we might get classics back. They are far too simple to pay £40+ for but that doesn't stop them being good games. Hurrah