A Night at the Arcade: Worms HD

This is one fun game, made even better with multiplayer support locally and over Live. It's also got a deceptively steep learning curve thanks in no small part to the control scheme. Maybe I've been playing too many shooters on my Xbox, but moving the fire weapon command from the right trigger to the A button took some getting used to. Having the X button bound to the jump command was also tricky. Paired with the somewhat delicate jumping mechanism in Worms and I experienced many a frustrating game during the last week.

How many times have I blown my worm into oblivion because I fired a bazooka rocket instead of jumping or over-zealously tapped the X button and back flipped off the edge of a cliff? Truthfully, not that often, but enough to get me started with the cussing at the TV.

Once I got my X's and A's straight, it's been more of that learning curve as I struggle with aiming those grenade tosses and bazooka attacks. Right now I'd be lucky to hit the broadside of a barn if I'm beyond medium range and lack a straight line of sight. So much for the cute graphics and voice SFX; this game is hard to master, or even attain a modicum of competency in. I'm just trying to hone my chops in Quick Match and the Challenge campaign so I can enjoy a game over Live one of these days.

Well, I can't say the variety in this game has kept me glued to it for very long. I can understand the gripes people have been having about how Team 17 could have taken advantage of the new 150mb Live Arcade size limit. There aren't many game modes, maps, backgrounds and sound effects to keep things lively and interesting. Worms HD is a fantastic party game. Getting a sheep bomb from a friend stings less than getting pwned by the "Beginner" worm opponents.

But I protest too much. It's a fun enough diversion and I've been dividing my time between it and Soul Calibur 2. There's nothing quite like a one-on-one fighting game to reawaken the button mashing reflexes finger dexterity.

Plus Ivy is one sexy bitch.