Worms for iPhone Review

Those armed little invertebrates are back, complete with killer sheep, banana bombs and (my favorite) the Holy Hand Grenade. Just like Worms 2: Armageddon, all the humor and gameplay is back, just very very tiny. With the iPhone growing as a game platform, more game developers are porting well known titles to it. Question is, does it hold up?

As with most iPhone ports, controls to the original game had to be ported to use the touch screen. While some controls are somewhat intuitive, the touch screen interface can be the biggest obstacle while playing. The scrolling across the screen tends to be somewhat unresponsive, as well as the targeting reticule occasionally not showing up. One definite drawback is that masters of the ninja rope will be severely crippled. In addition to the controls, there are some hardware specific issues. The game was tested Worms (v1.0) with an iPhone 3G with the 3.0 firmware, but suffers from frame-rate issues as the screen tends to get busy. Wether you’re charging up your projectile or suffering from a massive explosion, I’m sorry to report things will slow down. Most likely, the game was probably written for the faster iPhone 3GS. Hardware issues aside, multiplayer is not online, only locally on the single device. This means that you’ll have to pass the iPhone between turns.

Also, the marketing and the “Hints” in the game mentions custom music support yet no sign of it is in the limited menus. The only real saving grace is the fact it saves the game if you have to exit. As a fan of the prior Worms games, I looked forward to playing this, but with all the negatives you realize the game has a number of bugs that need to be fixed before it’s worth the $4.99 it’s retailing for.