Among the myriad of multiplayer games ever made, Worms has stood out as one of the most enjoyable. The game play isn’t absolutely unique (gorillas with exploding bananas were causing havoc even back as far as BASIC), but considering that the barebones core was already vastly enjoyable, the series’ marked improvements on the base essentially guaranteed an equally enriching experience. In other words, it was already freakin’ fun to start with, and the addition of armed militant invertebrates to the mix made it even better.Worms: Open Warfare for the PSP is more of the same, which is all right if you liked the games to begin with. The lack of a substantial single player experience and some wonky AI won’t attract new converts to the fold, however. Multiplayer is capable but cumbersome thanks to its lack of a game-swapping feature (it has hot-swap instead), but otherwise everything goes according to the typical Worms formula.
So should we get ourselves some Worms then? That would all depend on what kind of medical coverage you have (drum roll).
- GameSpy (3.5 / 5) – “Worms: Open Warfare marks the first time the franchise has hit Sony's popular handheld, and the results are actually somewhat impressive… [It] isn't quite perfect though. Although the single-player portion of the game is a lot of fun to play, the AI can prove to be a little frustrating.”
- Yahoo! Games (3.5 / 5) – “Despite the fact that Worms fanatics have been clamoring for a return to the 2D world for a while now, Open Warfare isn't the perfect comeback. If you want a killer single-player experience, this game is definitely not for you. But there's plenty of mobile multiplayer mayhem to be had, even if the execution is a little flawed.”
- IGN (7.0 / 10) – “Worms: Open Warfare is a decent game that doesn't offer much in terms of new content. It's great for fans who want a faithful iteration of the series on the PSP. It's also a good game to play in quick 10-minute bursts. But if you find yourself bored with strategic silliness, or if you never liked Worms to begin with, there's not much here to love.”
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-29-2006 @ 12:07PM
daniel-kun said...
Is it infrastructure or only ad-hoc?
How can the article miss such an important detail? :(
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3-30-2006 @ 3:15PM
Tucker said...
It's not mentioned because Team17 doesn't want word spreading too quickly - I researched extensively, and no it DOES NOT have infrastructure mode. Team17 stated in its forums that they did not have the tools needed in the beginning of development to add online functionality (which I think is complete BS, because I was certain that Sony provided all that stuff with dev kits, but I could be wrong).
For me, no online = no game. I've loved Worms from day one, and was waiting and waiting for this. But without online play it's useless, in my mind. Maybe the kiddies at recess have access to large pools of people with PSPs just waiting to get involved in a match, but the only other adult I know with a PSP is a college roommate who's since moved to Florida. "Wi-Fi ad-hoc mode" sounds awesome on paper, but in reality it's worthless.
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3-31-2006 @ 11:12AM
epthegeek said...
The reason why Worms on PSP doesn't have infrastructure, is the same reason just about no games on the PSP have it. The game companies have to develop, test and support the servers that provide the online experience all by themselves. There's no unified network like Live on the xbox they can just use - they have to each do it individually. And there's no sense what so ever in spending the time, money and effort it would take to do that for a single game on a platform that doesn't have an installed base in the jillions.
Yes, certain people won't buy it without infrastructure (me included) but that's a tiny minority, and the money they lose by letting those people go is far less than they would lose on development and testing of a server side for online play.
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