Open Source Gaming Review: Wormux 0.8 (Page 1 of 1)
Written by
Steve Lake
Posted on: Oct 08, 2007 at 01:13pm
Section:
Gaming
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For anyone who ever loved and played the
famous Worms PC game series, then Wormux is the game for you. Even if you weren't much of
a fan (like myself) of the original Works series, you'll find Wormux none the less
captivating and enjoyable, and even addictive in some respects. The biggest
different between Worms and Wormux is that Wormux is free, and has, in my humble opinion,
better gameplay and a better interface. The control system for the game is also much
easier to use than Worms ever had.
When you first load Wormux, you're greeted by a simple 5 option menu that allows you to
choose between local and network play, options, credits and quitting. The network
play option currently works at this time (despite the game still technically being in
beta) but there's no automatic way of finding opponents. You need to jump into IRC
and track someone down, and then connect using the credentials they give you in order to
play someone at random. That should be fixed in future releases, but for now that's
how it's done. Of course, you could always just call up your friends and have at it
with each others. ;)
If you click on the "Play" button, the first thing you'll be greeted with is
list of maps. The number and variety of maps in this game is totally crazy.
And I mean that in a good way. The selections range from very easy maps that
are loads of fun to play to some that really present the players with some very
interesting challenges to surmount. And there's certainly no small selection of maps
either. At last count I found the game to come with no less than 38 different maps.
And that doesn't include any 3rd party maps you may install later.
Another thing to note on the map screen is the total number of playable characters.
There are fourteen playable of them that I found ranging from the Firefox
"Fox" mascot to Tux and even the Freebsd "Daemon" mascot. On the
map screen you can also set the duration of each turn, amount of initial energy, and how
you want scrolling to work. Scrolling does work fairly well, but it still has a few
issues that need to be addressed in upcoming versions. However, I suspect that the
developers are already well aware of this.
The weapons selection in the game is also good. The player is given the option to
choose between a wide variety of different tools and weapons that can really put a crimp
in their opponents game. The various weapons offered include a bazooka, dynamite,
grenades, mines, bouncing balls, a super tux, and more. There's plenty of unique and
interesting ways to nail your opponent for certain. Some take a bit to get mastery
of, but beyond that, they're loads of fun to use.
Gameplay in general is fun. Everything is turn based, just like in a regular
Worms game, so each action may inadvertently produce an unintended and rather problematic
response by your opponent. But that's what makes it fun! How to blow him up
without him blowing you up! ;)
The configuration screen allows you a quick and simple way to adjust any settings you
want to change in the game. The options available are pretty spartan, but they do
allow you to adjust a number of very important features, including the default language
(there are 25 different supported languages that I could see) and sound settings.
You can also adjust the Frames Per Second (FPS) of the game as well, setting it to
only show a maximum number of FPS if you so desire.
The FPS meter that is shown during the game is also interesting. It was rather
reassuring to see the game pull an average of 50fps even on its highest settings.
Gameplay was always smooth with no lag, no hickups and not glitches that I could
find. It ran incredibly well really. I'm so impressed with the game that I
recommend it to anyone who's ever wanted a good light game to kill some time with, at home
or at work.
If you're interested in trying out this game, just head over to the Wormux Homepage and download it.
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Average vistor rating: 4.0 out of 5 (6 total votes) | |
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