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Worms World Party by Jamdat Mobile, Price: $24.95
Reviewed October 2003 by Tony Peak

I’ve been a die-hard fan of Worms since the beginning. Through its many sequels, ports, and spin-offs, I’ve followed the series with great interest. Worms World Party pretty much perfected the gameplay on the PC and it has finally been ported to our beloved Pocket PCs. Unfortunately, time is catching up with it quickly and much of the game was left on the cutting room floor.

The gameplay in this Hexacto’s version is more or less exactly as it was on the desktop. Your team of worms battles the enemy’s team of worms. Using everything from exploding sheep to Street Fighter style kung fu, you must not only survive but also destroy. This, as always, is where Worms really shines. The weapons and gameplay is fun and quirky, yet solid and balanced. This isn’t a gore fest, but instead cartoon fun that can have you laughing the whole time through.

Innovations like the Ninja Rope and Jet Pack really help the game reach new levels of strategy and fun, and thankfully have been brought over to the Pocket PC. The worms are quite maneuverable; this combined with the strategic weaponry means you’re rarely limited to a game of taking potshots at each other. Another big plus of the Worms' gameplay is off screen and water deaths. While it may seem simple, sending an entire group of worms to a watery demise is both vastly satisfying and highly amusing.

Sadly, the single player missions were completely cut from the game. What's left is the quick match mode, which gives a quick battle against the computer at the push of a button, and the Deathmatch mode. In Deathmatch mode, as you win battles your team gains in experience and the battles get tougher. In the start you’ll vastly outnumber your opponents and soon enough the tables will be turned. It provides a sense of progress and challenge, but without the missions the game does feel rather limited. Multiplayer mode is included, but is limited to a “hot-seat” style of play. In other words, swapping the device back and forth.

The intelligence of the worms is quite impressive. They take their turns rather quickly and make decent decisions. The Worms AI has been tweaked for so long now that it really shows. Gone are the days when they would make near impossible shots repeatedly or take forever to calculate their turns. The enemies move quickly, fight accurately, and most importantly make mistakes. Even though the CPU handles the large array of weapons well, half of the fun playing this game comes from making mistakes and watching the mayhem.

The controls may turn off some gamers, but they stay true to the desktop tradition of key based movement. All movement, aiming, and firing are done via the hardware d-pad and keys, while the stylus is used only to move the camera and select your weapon. I only wish they would have done a little more with the stylus. Keeping it in hand simply to drag the camera or select a weapon seems like a waste of effort. Dragging the camera long distances is quite unfriendly with the lack of a mini map, but thankfully you won’t need to do so all too often. The game does a pretty good job of camera control by itself.

Graphics are sadly mixed in this port. While the terrain and worms look incredible even in 320x240 resolution, the backgrounds are simply black voids. Worms has never been known for its detailed backdrops, but nonetheless it really makes you feel the age of the game compared to newer titles like Snails. The bubble like effect of explosions with the large comical “Biff!” that follows is still as good looking as ever, and the flames render quite nicely as well. The bad news is I repeatedly experienced a good deal of stuttering in the frame rate whenever the action got too heavy, and especially when flames were involved. Thankfully it’s only momentary, and doesn’t hurt the experience too much.

Sounds are every bit as mixed as the graphics. The sound effects are perfect; the explosions, gunfire, and everything are spot on from the desktop version. Most, if not all, of the default Worms voice bank has been ported as well, so you’ll be able to enjoy all the amusing remarks that has become a staple of the series. The problem is that there’s simply no in game music what so ever. This leaves things awful quiet, and would have really complimented the sound effects well. Players used to listening to Snails wonderful soundtrack will find this may leave them cold.