Worms Open Warfare DS Review

Team 17 is a team that has a bad reputation, and it's probably an undeserved one. It's a reputation that they make nothing else but Worms and thus far we've seen no evidence to believe this fact is not true. In fact if someone announces a game platform chances are it's going to have a Worms game on it. The Nintendo DS may have taken some time to get a Worms game but it finally has one. The problem is that the concept has become so old over the past decade that it's hard to get excited, and Team 17 really haven't used the DS to its full potential.



The game is made up of three modes; challenges, single match and multiplayer. In the single match you put two teams of worms together and try and defeat each other by making the worms fall off or destroying them. The player with the worms left at the end wins. The challenge mode is basically an extension of this. It represents the single player area of the game and again comes up a little short. Multiplayer is available over WiFi but it still doesn't help what turns out to be a very boring and lackluster game.



The weapons you have on offer haven't really changed ranging from the typical shotguns etc through to the crazy exploding sheep etc, in fact the DS version really is the PC game which started it all for a handheld. This is probably why the game feels so underwhelming. Since then we've recently had them go 3D and had the excellent World Party game but this just doesn't seem to hold your attention for very long.



The entire game as expected is played on a 2D playing field. One thing which helps with the replay value is the fact that the maps are generated individually for each game. There is literally thousands of combinations that can appear making no game the same, but even with this the game stills feel ancient, like it belongs in the nineties.



Visually the game isn't all that great either with graphics you expected from PCs in the early ninties on display. Now we realise the DS is not the most powerful machine in the world but this really does feel like a rushed port which many fans of the system were hoping not to see. The usage of the DS technology is not exactly top notch either. Using the stylus to control the maps, target and what weapon you wish to use is all well and good, but there could have been done more with the DS technology.



Worms DS is a port of a decade old PC game which really does not impress. There are many titles on the DS better than this, and also a lot more original. Team 17 really have to work on their game if they are to continue to be successful, because while Worms was once an excellent game, it is becoming very old very fast, especially with ten year old ports such as this.