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Worms World Party Reviewed


Worms World Party Reviewed

Postby Matt Keys » Oct 8, 2003 @ 3:56pm

"When Hexacto announced that a port of the popular PC game Worms World Party was underway, there were many excited Worms fans heralding the end of Snails' era. When Worms World Party was finally released, it was missing a few features of its bigger brother, but can it dethrone Snails?"
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<review>
<author>Sponge</author>
<promoimage>img1</promoimage>
<keyword>wwp</keyword>
<type>1</type>
<title>World Worms Party</title>
<developer>Jamdat</developer>
<website> http://www.jamdat.com/JamdatWeb/Catalog ... le/Welcome</website>
<purchaselink> http://www.handango.com/brainstore/Plat ... catalog=30</purchaselink>
<date>October 3, 2003</date>
<rating>6</rating>
<description> When Hexacto announced that a port of the popular PC game Worms World Party was underway, there were many excited Worms fans heralding the end of Snails' era. When Worms World Party was finally released, it was missing a few features of its bigger brother, but can it dethrone Snails?</description>
<section name=“Background”>
<content><img5 left><image4 right>Upon launching the game the first time, you are asked to define your controls. Defaults are set for you, but there's no real way of telling what they are, so you're better off setting them up yourself anyway. After that, you're brought to a UI in the same style as the PC version of WWP. For any newcomers to the game, the Wormopaedia is available, with several sections written especially for the PocketPC along with explanations to all the weapons. The options menu is full of tweaks, letting you change the ammo, and power for just about everything, even adjusting the crate probabilities. Unlike the PC version, there seems to be no way to customize your teams, which seems to have been taken out for no real reason.
</content>
<content>
Worms World Party's game modes consist of quick game, in which it automatically puts you into a game with one AI opponent, deathmatch, in which you fight your way through increasingly difficult odds, and the custom game, which allows up to 6 teams of either human or computer players and customizable rules. No more than 18 worms can be on the battlefield at a time. You'll notice that there's a lack of single player missions. These seem to have been taken out of the game, likely due to space constrictions. Needless to say, this was a little disappointing, as unlike Snails, the missions entailed more than simply blowing away the other team. No matter what game mode you pick, loading times are more than tolerable on an iPaq 3955. Now, onto the game.</content>
</section>
<section name=“Sound”>
<content> All of the main sounds from the original are present. As expected, the different voice sets are gone, so that the game fits in 6.5MB. The atmospheric music was also cut, which leaves the game sounding a bit boring at times. This probably could have easily been implemented through a tracked music format without adding much to the filesize. Thankfully, the wacky weapon sounds are still there, such as the sheep, and the choir singing "Hallelujah" when the Holy Hand Grenade goes off. Needless to say, these sounds are downsampled due to constraints of the PocketPC hardware. A good amount of the insults and comments are there, although as expected, these repeat pretty often, and soon become a bit irritating. Other than that, there isn't much to say, I've experienced no bugs with what sound is present.</content>
</section>
<section name=“Graphics”>
<content><img3 center>While the game looks almost identical to the PC version, its performance is downright appalling at times. The artwork itself is very well done, the worms, and their weapon animations scale down to the PPC's resolution with little complaint. The game also features 12 different themes for the random map generator, which are bright and lively. However one big problem rears its ugly head whenever you fire: the framerate. The projectile's motion already lowers the framerate into the low single digits, and once it collides, the game chops ahead, and in some cases, your left wondering what the hell happened to your worms! I suspect that iPaq 2210 and Asus A620 users should fare better in this department, however not enough to not be completely irritating. There is a control in the options to change between high and low detail, even though it seemed to have little effect on the framerate overall. This combined with a couple of gameplay issues covered in the next section almost dashed my hopes completely.</content>
</section>
<section name=“Gameplay”>
<content> <img2 center>The Worms gameplay is there, along with nearly all of the weapons (I was unable to notice the absence of any) and everything is mostly the same. For those who are unfamiliar with games of this genre, there are two teams, and each turn you must maneuver around the landscape, and launch weapons with mostly realistic wind and projectile simulations. Worms World Party takes this to a higher level with tons of weapons, and one item in particular dubbed the Ninja Rope. This essentially is a grappling hook, letting you climb onto surfaces and swing to and fro. Mastering it on the PC require very precise controls, something that sadly isn't there with the lacking directional pad. However it's still loads of fun - when the game isn't lagging - to fling around the landscape, drop a grenade, and rope your way out of there before it's too late. While my next complaint is pretty insignificant to new players, I've noticed that a lot of the jumping physics seem just a bit off compared to the PC version. On the PC version, pressing either jump button twice in succession will result in a different jump, giving you 4 different jumps total. The PocketPC version has no such mechanism, leaving you with the 2 bound jump buttons. This can sometimes dramatically change your strategy.
</content>
<content>
The AI seems to perform well, it seems a tad worse than it's PC counterpart. This is negligible, especially considering the thinking time of the AI, which can be notoriously long on the PocketPC. Since neither WWP for PC, PPC, and Snails have a human-like AI, expect it to make nearly impossible shots, with pixel-perfect accuracy accounting for the wind. This isn't a problem I had with WWP as much as it is a notice to those who have never played either game before.
</content>
</section>
<section name=“Conclusion”>
<content><img1>If your able to get over the god-awful framerate when something is in flight, Worms World Party is a fun game. It's more of a Worms Lite, considering the single player missions, editable teams, and other minor features have gone missing, but it's sure to provide pretty high replay value. As for the Snails vs. Worms debate that will surely arise, there's really no way to recommend one over the other, as both play differently. Personally, I've found Snails to be more of a polished effort, while Worms World Party squeaks by in replay value with the plethora of options you can adjust to your will. Most people should enjoy Worms World Party, but be sure to try out the demo first, as it can be very much hit or miss. As for the requirements, Worms World Party requires an ARM/XScale device, despite Hexacto's compatibility list claiming compatibility with the E-125. It needs 6.5MB to install, 8MB to run, and installs to storage cards. It also gracefully recovers from being turned off while it's running, and can be bought from Hexacto for $25 bucks.
</content>
</section>
<pro> Classic Worms gameplay.</pro>
<pro> Tons of tweakable options.</pro>
<pro> Most options present in PPC.</pro>
<pro> Almost all weapons present.</pro>
<con> Horrible framerate problems</con>
<con> No single player missions</con>
<con> Minor control issues</con>
</review>
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Last edited by Matt Keys on Nov 23, 2004 @ 1:24am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Dan East » Oct 8, 2003 @ 4:32pm

Good job Sponge! Was the relatively high price a factor in your overall rating? $25 is a bit steep to me.

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Postby jadam1 » Oct 8, 2003 @ 4:46pm

THEY PORTED WWP!!!??!!!???!!! AHHHH!!!!!!
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Postby James S » Oct 8, 2003 @ 5:12pm

I'm glad I have Snails.
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Postby MrDownBoy » Oct 8, 2003 @ 5:41pm

So am I, snails is so well made, I'm gonna have to give pocketWorms a test to see if it's even worth changing!
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Postby egarayblas » Oct 8, 2003 @ 5:41pm

It lacks 2 major things that Snails has -- in-game background music and background image. The only thing I found great was the ninja rope. :) Snails is still better IMO. Great review sponge!
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Postby fzammetti » Oct 8, 2003 @ 6:12pm

My wife and I used to play Worms against each other for hours a couple of years ago... Loads of fun (no, we have no life, and now with kids it's worse)... Aaaanyway...

I was excited to see Worms come to PPC, but what a disappointment. Everything stated in the review is true, but the performance really is quite bad. Running on an Axim 300 overclocked to 400, there are slowdowns all over the place, not just when firing. It's playable, but just barely.

For my money, Snails is the better choice. Worms has one advantage: the weapons. Man, the people that dreamt up some of those are my heros :) Other than that, I think Snails wins in just about every regard. If Worms was $10 or so I'd say get both, but not for the price it is.

Also, the memory requirements seem rather steep for what the game is. I guess that's a result of porting a code base from a desktop to a mobile device, but it still hurts. Snails needs what, about half as much storage space and a few megs less program RAM to run? Not very good.

Worms isn't a terrible game at all, but it could have and should have been so much better. I suggest Snails if you can only afford one, both if you have money (and memory) to spare.
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Postby James S » Oct 8, 2003 @ 6:16pm

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Postby MrDownBoy » Oct 8, 2003 @ 6:20pm

Sorry guys, Snails is far more polished for the PocketPC Platform, Worms good; but too little, too late....
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Postby chuck » Oct 8, 2003 @ 6:27pm

i really don't like the interface for worms either, it's bothersome.
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Postby Guest » Oct 8, 2003 @ 6:56pm

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Postby fzammetti » Oct 8, 2003 @ 7:30pm

...and so I said to Mr. Gates: "$640 billion should be enough for anyone!"
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Postby Presto » Oct 8, 2003 @ 7:32pm

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Postby fzammetti » Oct 8, 2003 @ 8:15pm

...and so I said to Mr. Gates: "$640 billion should be enough for anyone!"
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