Death Worm

To be or not to be a Death Worm. That is the question. For whether it is... Shakespeare? Death Worm? Nothing in common. Death Worm is pure, adrenaline pumpine, arcade action. You're always moving... always sliding back and forth through the earth. Always, that is, until you surface with enough speed to shoot into the sky like a rocket ship. However, such trips are short lived and its back into the ground seconds after launch.

Death Worm is a simple game. You control the Death Worm with an on screen DPad and you slither back and forth trying to gobble up the surface dwellers and avoid enemy fire. It's frantic... it's fast paced... and it seems to last forever. And lasting forever is what kills the game for me. In fact, I played a game this morning with my whole goal being to die as quickly as possible and it took about 3 minutes to finish. That just doesn't work for me in an arcade game where I'm craving challenge and fighting tooth and nail to stay alive.

But let's look at what's done well here. The graphics are quite good. Police cars, helicopters, and even the little, tiny humans are rendered nicely as they scamper across the surface. The Death Worm is animated smoothly and the game play is smooth, too. In a sense, this game reminds me of Hungry Shark, as I'm always heading to the surface for my next meal. As things progress, the Death Worm gains power and upgrades. Upgrades provide for a choice from one of two options for things like speed and skin strength. The graphics and sound are all both grade 'A' quality and the controls work pretty well albeit a true gamepad would be ideal.

Death Worm includes both a survival mode (play until you're dead), a campaign mode, and mini games. In the campaign mode you are simply given a goal such as 'eat ten people'. There are also different backgrounds such as a desert with camels and such to consume that add some variety. The mini games are cute. One of them requires you to hit flying enemies (helicopters, UFOs, ...etc) with some boxes on the surface so you have to accelerate quickly to the surface, make head on contact with a box, and knock it into the air at the precise moment something is flying over. But because you can't see what's overhead it becomes as much about luck as skill as you can plan where a box is, but just have to hope you hit something upon contact with the box.

Death Worm isn't a bad game. In fact, if you're willing to accept that the game lasts a long time with little immiment threat of death it can be kind of fun. It's not as if you won't be hit when you surface. It's just that I think you're given, versus having to earn, way too much life. It would be like playing Space Invaders or Pac Man and starting off with 30 lives instead of the usual 3. For me, however, that made it a little too boring just a little too fast due to the lack of perceived challenge. 3.5/5 stars.