Live Worms: The Duel

I was pretty bagged last night but I still "forced" myself to play a round of Live Arcade games, including the very recent Worms HD. I was feeling pretty good about my worming skills and decided to hop onto Live for my first match against some strangers.

I stumbled into a 1-on-1 match. My opponent: Snoopaloop1981. My mission: Kick some worm booty. We said our hellos and my host fired up the randomly generated map. It was a simple layout... relatively flat, rolling terrain and with very few nooks and crannies in which to hide.

I was selected to start things off and surprised myself with an impressively accurate grenade lob. Unfortunately, that would be my last pretty shot for a long time. It became readily apparent that my opponent was a lot more versed in the ways of the worm soldier. Right off the bat, he showed me just how cool and effective the Ninja Rope is, swinging his worm into combat range and dropping off an explosive payload that eliminated the first of my worms from the match. Ninja Rope = Awesome. Duly noted...

As it happens, I was obviously outmatched but the game was not up. That's the charming (and maddening) thing about Worms HD: the tide of battle can change when you least expect it and no matter how dominant you think you are in a match, it can all go to hell at a moment's notice. I held my own against Snoopaloop1981 for several rounds, dreadfully waiting for my inevitable defeat. Then it happened. I suspect my foe got his X and A buttons crossed (see my previous post) and detonated one of his worms into oblivion. Lucky break, I thought, lucky break.

I kept fighting, scoring a couple more decent shots, but still unable to do enough damage to any one worm to take it out of the battle. My luck had definitely run out, or so I thought. Again, the worm gods smiled upon me as my opponent botched a Cluster Bomb attack, dropping the package at his own worm's doorstep and doing himself grave damage.

I made some pretty embarrassing boo-boo's myself. Near the end, too nervous to use the Ninja Rope to Tarzan-swing my way cross the map, I ran out my Jetpack fuel and went crashing to the ground, forfeiting my attack and doing myself unnecessary damage. Another time, I missed a plum point-blank range Bazooka shot.

The match was almost over and Snoopaloop1981 had me dead to rights. Outnumbered 2 worms to 1, I braced myself for the coup de gras. Snoopaloop1981 pulled out his Ninja Rope once again and attempted a very ambitious move. With his supply of dynamite and mines exhausted, he tried blasting me with his Bazooka while still swinging by his rope. That's what it looked like to me, as it happened all too quickly. One moment he was up in the air above my worm, the next moment his worm was dropping to ground, past me and towards his other remaining worm. An explosion erupted between them and both his worms toppled into the newly formed crater. I watched in amazement as his worms did their sayonara self-destruct animations. Victory was mine!

I have to give big credit to Snoopaloop1981 for being a good sport. He must have shot himself in the foot about 4 times during the match and he still kept his cool. He also introduced me to the wonders of the Ninja Rope, which you can be sure I will be using in lieu of the Jetpack and Teleporter for many more situations.

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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.

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Hooked Worms HD, Midnight Release

It's storytime here at PMB...

As is apt to happen, Crackdown kept me up last night much later than I had intended. That's what happens when you've turned "Crime On" and get swept up in orb-hunting, foot races and Rampage sub-achievements.

Later on, some commotion outside drew me to my living room window. I was greeted with a view of an entire fire department brigade parked below my window and billowing black smoke from down the street. The firefighters must have been there for at least half an hour and it took me that long to clue in, such was the extent of my gaming hypnosis.

I watched the scene unfold for a several minutes, then went back to my Crack. Another twenty minutes passed and I checked my window again. Large flames were clearly visible now, licking away at the rooftops of two local businesses. Surprisingly, the firefighters still had not activated the water hose and I wondered what the heck they were waiting for. I later found out they were busy evacuating the tenants from some of the suites in the neighboring apartment complex.

Bored with watching the growing inferno, I wrapped up my Crack session and was about to power off the Box when I remembered to check for the Worms HD download. Bingo, there it was waiting for me in the Marketplace. A quick download and boom, I was ready to play. I sat there at the opening menu and thought, what the hell, I think I'll like this game anyway, so I topped up on my MS points and unlocked the full game before even starting up the Tutorial. This sort of impulse buying is soooo not in my character. What can I say, I was in a strange mood last night.

I'll be back with a fully developed review of Worms once I've spent more time with it. I already breezed through the tutorial, whoring up an easy Achievement. The game looks fantastic with its colourful, crisp graphics and whimsical style. The controls feel very smooth and intuitive as well, so I'm fiending to get more playtime with it...maybe tonight if I'm not too tired after my late movie screening but more likely tomorrow or Friday.

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Xbox Live Arcade is on a Roll

With last week's release of Alien Hominid, today's announcement of the TMNT coin-op classic, and tomorrow's release of the much-delayed Worms, it looks like XBLA is back on course and satisfying the masses once again.

I will be checking the Marketplace later tonight to see if I can get an early jump on my Worms download. I tried out the Alien Hominid demo over the weekend and came away unimpressed. While the artwork and sense of humour is fantastic, I couldn't help but feel like it was a shoddy, home-brew imitation of Metal Slug. Which is strange, because I thought I was yearning for retro side-scrolling shooter gameplay. The challenge is high and the action intense, but the addictive draw is just not there. I can see where the draw is for other people. It's just not for me. Guess that's 800 points well saved...

The TMNT announcement wasn't a surprise but was welcome nonetheless. The fact that it is to be 400 MS points makes the news all the sweeter.

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