Wednesday, 16 October 2013

Worms Revolution Extreme Review (PS Vita)


When Worms first appeared on the Amiga and other home systems it managed to quickly become one of the most competitive multiplayer games ever. To this day the enduring image of a small worm chucking an exploding sheep at its adversaries can’t help but raise a smile and the series has now managed to move to just about every format going.

Worms Revolution Extreme marks the first time the little guys have made it to the Vita and it is effectively a port of the PS3 game with some minor tweaking and all the downloadable content. If you’ve never played any of the games before you have different teams of four worms who are placed on a landscape and your goal is to destroy the opposition using a massive amount of different weapons and gadgets. Actions are turn based with a worm from each team moving and acting before the next member of the same team. This means that you have to be wary of enemies who are close as they might get the jump on you before some of your team has had the chance to move. 

The main change to the Worms formula is the introduction of physics objects. Littered around the battle field are water bottles, lighters and other seemingly everyday items. However,  if attacked they explode and cover the field in water, fire or poison. Water itself is another addition and allows for players to submerge enemy worms. Doing this damages anyone underwater to the tune of five hits points per turn. You can also use it to wash enemies away to their doom.

Character classes also play a big part in your tactics as aside from your standard soldier you can pick from scouts (weak but fast), Brutes (strong, hard to move) and Scientists (Weak, but add health to the team each term). Many may stick with the original characters but it does add some depth for those looking to change things up.

Worms has always been about multiplayers battles and you are well served with options here. There are the usual online modes as well as Ad Hoc and ability to play a game using one Vita passed between players. What you can’t do though is a paused or ‘postal’ style match that games such as Everybody’s Golf have implemented. You need all the players playing at the same time for a match to happen.

Revolution Extreme also has a host of single player options to help you refine your skills. There’s a single player campaign which comes with a genuinely funny voice over by Matt Berry and some clever puzzles to solve. There are also scenarios set on Mars and back in time which further add value for people looking to fight against the computer.

The only real downside to the game comes with what has been sacrificed in terms of graphics in the transition to Vita. It’s not a major issue but there are a few frame rate problems and the visuals aren’t running at a native Vita resolution. As a result it can be hard to see exactly what your worm is standing near. This can be solved via a handy zoom feature but it would have been nice to get a better definition on the screen.

Overall, this is a great package for anyone who needs a portable version of Worms. There is a ton of content here and very few issues to stop you enjoying it in whatever way you want. Everyone should own at least one copy of a Worms game and this one has more packed into it than any of the others so far.

Overall 8/10

No comments:

Post a Comment