The Worms series has been around for quite a few years now, and with the steps it gains, every once in a while it has to take a few steps back. The 2D version of the game had evolved quite well over time, but as it continued to grow they pushed it to a 3D version that was not as satisfying as the previous styled game. With this in mind, I figured that this portable version of Worms: Open Warfare would be great, because it was back to the simple 2D style, but not only that, it allows you to have up to four players spawning from a single cartridge, for an all out open war.

When I first started playing this game, I noticed that something. I paused, and examined it closely, looking not at the environment, but at the characters, the Worms. They did not look like worms at all, rather just little pink blobs that walked around on the screen. That was fairly upsetting, considering the DS can do a lot better. I put this little ‘feature’ aside, hoping for more but there were more disappointments ahead for me. Luckily the environment was bang on, even fully destructible. There was an issue though that had to do with the wind. It seems that when it was blowing heavily the DS was crapping out, choking up on the little tuffs of snow, or what not, being fluttered across the screen.

Continuing along, the first match that I played was just a quick match against the computer, one of the features the game provides. It sets you up on a random map with random features, where each side has equal characters. I figured that was okay, even though the Worms looked like crap, because sometimes it is not about graphics, it is about game-play. A quick turn passed, which allowed me to unlock most of the weapons for the second round of combat. I chose one of the stapled moves, the homing missile. After choosing a target I let it loose, but it failed to really hone in on the target, or go far enough to evade the other obstacles in the game, as seen in the PC version. It seemed even lifeless which was pretty bad to see. It mainly directed itself into the side of a snowman, hitting below the target.

What this meant was that the weapon was pretty useless to be used. There was no real saving grace feature for it, and I had hoped that it was limited to that weapon, but I was mistaken. This was not the end of the road for poor weapons, in fact many of them were emasculated, or even unusable, like in the case of the ninja rope that now serves little purpose. They have also stripped down quite a few of the weapons limiting you to just bare essentials, which would normally be fine if they worked like they normally did on the PC. Would this be an end to my issues though? No, it would be just another step.

I made a move, sending a worm into the drink with a fire punch. It seemed to be pretty neat of a move, so I shrugged my shoulders and waited for my opponent, the computer, to fight back. Then I waited, and waited, until the 45 seconds has passed, and they had not even crawled an inch. In fact they just stood there, doing nothing for the entire time, not switching weapons, or planning an attack. This meant that there really was no one controlling the opponents. This was not even an isolated incident, the computer on different difficulties continued to do the same thing. Most of the time they moved, and tried to attack, but randomly they would just wait out the timer, which meant that I was wasting my time against the computer.

I forgave the computer though, even though it continued to just act like a worm, crawling around on the spot. I figured I might as well move on to the multi-player aspect, since the game featured a fantastic four players for only one cartridge, something I believe should be added to most games, even if it limited. I sat down with one of my friends, and went though the options. I could choose the language of the worms, which was a neat feature because they spout off with their different attacks verbally. I could choose between 6 themed levels, which was a little low, but they were randomly generated each time you visited the level, meaning strategy was what the game was truly about. I had hoped for more, considering where they lacked in the graphic style of the worms, but it was satisfying enough.

The controls were pretty easy to use as well, with the jump and fire buttons assigned to your B and A buttons. You can adjust the trajectory of you attack with the up and down buttons, while moving left or right with the others. The bottom screen uses the stylus to select the weapons, where you have two pages to go through. You also control the map on the bottom screen by using the stylus, which is okay for lining up your shots. The interface is easy to use, but it lacked the addition punch from the lack of weapons.

The game ended up being pretty good, despite coming up feeling a little bit lacking. So not only did I invite one more friend to play, but also my friend did as well, leaving us up playing with four different people. This is where it was amazingly fun. Just the combat between as well, from one little card, made this game enjoyable, well, as enjoyable as it could be. It was interesting going through each of the turns, and even though they teamed up on the host, of course me, it ended up being quite fun.

So then I played a game or two against my friends, and while they agreed the game was not at polished, or as good as the PC game, it was pretty neat to play the game. We played around for a little bit before I examined the guts of the game. Returning from other games you could choose the delay of certain items, and the starting quantity. You could set these up on different profiles to make quick changes. You could change the teams and even their names, which was pretty nice. Also for those whom had not played the game before, there was also a tutorial on how to play the game, explaining all the rules, and showing how to move about.

The game continued to lack though, as if you were playing by yourself, there was really no point in playing. What would have made this better was WiFi game-pay so that you could have a challenge any time of the day, with anyone else on the server around the world. It is feels pretty much pointless to play by yourself. Hopefully in the future releases this is corrected, allowing friends to go against each other when they are not in the same room.