Jan 22, 2015

Flockers is a puzzle game from the creators of the Worms series – although it doesn’t have much to do with Worms. What it does have a lot in common with, is Lemmings – an old game from the nineties, still as immersive today, as it was 25 years ago.

Flockers features a flock of sheep that wander through maddeningly dangerous levels, without a care in the world. They served as weapons of destruction in the Worms series, but now seem to try and find a fate different from exploding. The player’s task is to navigate them through the hellish landscapes and lead them to the exit pipe. The sheep don’t have a concept of self-preservation, and will happily get dismembered by the saws and splash to the bottom of any pit that they come across. The player can’t directly control them in any way, so he’s left with a number of “professions” that he can assign. These professions grant the sheep abilities that help them survive, or give some other abilities that help the rest of the flock – like an ability to jump really far, or to explode, destroying a nearby obstacle. The player needs to assign these professions correctly, and at the right time, guiding the flock around the levels. The levels get pretty tight, but thankfully, the time stops when the player is assigning the professions, so the player doesn’t have to tap frantically all over the screen.

There’s quite a lot of levels in Flockers, divided into worlds, each world ending with a “boss” of some kind. There are three stars that can be collected upon level completion. One for passing it, one for saving a certain number of sheep, and one for completing the level in a certain time limit. The better the player performs, the more wool he gets as a reward. Wool can be spent to purchase different skins for the flock, but doesn’t really have any different use.

Generally, Flockers is a great adaptation of a great game. Cool graphics, violent dismemberment (it’s disabled by default, so hop into the options to enable gore), and lots of varied levels mean the game has everything you would expect to see. I should note that it’s only for the fans of this kind of action puzzle genre. It can be too tedious for some, or too fast for others, but it’s damn good if you’re into this sort of thing.

May 13, 2013

The Worms series was a definite favorite of mine growing up. I dabbled with the first game in the series but it was Worms 2 that I really took to and from there I never looked back.

Aside from an ill-advised foray into 3D the mechanics of the series haven’t really changed over the years and it’s still just as enjoyable now as it ever was. At its core Worms 2: Armageddon is a turn based strategy game, but it stands out from other games in the genre in two key ways. Firstly, it’s 2D and secondly it’s got a playful sense of humor that will regularly leave you grinning.

There are various game modes such as ‘Forts’ which gives each team a base and ‘Sudden Death’ which causes water to rise every turn, drowning any worms that get caught in it, but essentially each mode boils down to eliminating all of the opposing players with the wealth of weapons and utilities at your disposal. These cover everything from self explanatory things like shotguns and bazookas to more unusual gear like ninja ropes for clambering around the destructible scenery and the Holy Hand Grenade, which is a tremendously powerful grenade- the detonation of which is accompanied by a chorus of hallelujahs.

The mechanics are certainly solid but Team 17 has packed in a lot of content to flesh it out. There’s a single player campaign mode with dozens of increasingly challenging levels, both online and offline multi-player and one-off matches against the computer. You can even create your own teams (complete with a choice of hats, voices, names and more) and change the rules and weapon availability to create custom game modes.

Basically this is just as fun and feature packed as Worms has ever been. Unfortunately it’s not all good news though, as the transition to touch screens has hampered the controls a little. Generally it controls okay but when using a ninja rope, jet pack or anything else that required dexterity and precision I found myself wishing for a keyboard and mouse. Especially as a single mistake caused by the imprecise controls can sometimes cost you an entire match, which is more than a little frustrating.

Worms 2: Armageddon is still a lot of fun and it’s great having Worms on the move, but the inferior controls mean that the PC and console versions are a better bet.