IPHONE NEWS
Exclusive: Team17 opens can of Worms on iPhone
Invertebrate artillery war revealed for the iPhone |
We all know that
iShoot has made
Ethan Nicholas richer
than God (and about a millionth as rich as Steve Jobs), and we all know that his game was heavily inspired by Team 17's classic invertebrate artillery game,
Worms.
So it's only natural that Team17 is bringing its own original and definitive version to the iPhone.
Attentive readers will know that it first announced the game last year. Many months passed with nary a squeak from the venerable studio, but Team17 has just dropped us a line to reveal these exclusive pictures of
Worms playing on an iPhone.
The good news is it looks as though we can expect a classic style of 2D
Worms gameplay that makes full use of the touchscreen for controls - including a pinch 'n' pull zoom function.
Check out the pictures of iPhone
Worms below, then keep your ear to the ground for more news as it comes in. Judging by these screenshots, it won't be long before it digs its way through the App Store earth.
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Larry | 24 April 2009
Who's are those sexy hands? :D
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Those are actually a group of ten super worms Team 17 had specially trained to test the new game.
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nice to see more main stream franchises making their way onto the iphone.
Dave M. | 24 April 2009
Maybe your writers are a bit too young, but iShoot might have been inspired by Worms, but was more likely inspired by a game called Scorched Earth. Wikipedia ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_Earth_(computer_game)
DOS Games Archive: http://www.dosgamesarchive.com/download/game/144
Scorched Earth came out almost 20 years ago and pre-dates worms by quite a few years.
Its kind of sad how older games are being lost to obscurity due to the younger generation not having seen them.
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Dave,
That's just how things work. I'm 25 and I am already experiencing that sort of stuff with my little brother and sister in law. It sort of makes sense... why would gamers go back 20 years to play an inferior game?
For instance: FF7 was one of the best RPG experiences in the past 10 years. The game was mind blowingly awesome (at the time). But if you play it now all of the "flash" just seems like old out-dated dribble. True the story was great and character development was cool too... plus there were a lot of really cool and well executed dynamics within the game... buuuut... All of those mechanics have been built upon since then... The only reason to play FF7 at this point in time is for nostalgia and/or the story - not for game mechanics.
This rule applies even more so to such a shallow genre as the one worms or scorched Earth belongs to.
In addition: you have to put information on the table that the majority can easily relate to. If Spanner had used scorched earth as his primary reference most of the readers would have been forced to research the game in order to make the connection.
Pop culture/information is largely limited to the exposure level of the majority of the consumers.
On a final note: Video Game history is much less relevant than actual history. :)
tim
Eric J | 24 April 2009
"an inferior game," "a shallow genre," say what?
"you have to put information on the table that the majority can easily relate to" It also has to be factual information.
"Video Game history is much less relevant than actual history" Do you even know what "history" is? History is things that happened. Is literary history not "actual history"?
Your response is just plastered with ignorance. Dave gently corrected a blogger, he doesn't need a lecture from some twerp whose knowledge of gaming goes all the way back to FF7.
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Wow... take it easy Eric - this isn't a fight. There are no winners or losers. And there certainly aren't any heroes... not online anyways. So to put your mind at ease, I would like to apologize to Dave for any misconception that I may have portrayed.
Personally I thought that my post was relevant to the conversation and built upon what Dave had said.
Also... you may want to use proper grammar while insulting someone's intelligence.
love,
tim
Dave M. | 27 April 2009
@klouud: Fair points. Maybe putting both references would have been good then. Other articles about Worms have made references to Scorched Earth and not mentioned Worms then there wouldn't have been a reason for me to comment.
I do see your point though and appreciate it.
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Yeah, the difficulty is not turning a news item into a history lesson, I think. Worms is one of those games that gets all the references as it's the most popular games of its genre - despite it not being the first (by a long shot (pun-tastic)).
I wish I was young enough to to not remember Scorched Earth, though. Unfortunately, I was already an avid gamer by then :-)
But that's what these comments sections are for. It's great that we can run a news item about something like Worms, then the Pocket Gamer collective can get together and discuss other aspects of its importance and history. So we definitely want folk to expand on the subjects we begin.
Speaking of video game history, I know Ralph Baer personally ;-)
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I think it's semi-pointless referring to Scorched Earth when talking about the inspiration for iShoot on a mass-appeal website such as this. Worms is the point of reference for the vast majority of gamers when it comes to this style of game and therefore that's the one that should be quoted.
We all know mp3 players existed before the iPod, PDA's existed before the Psion, but we look at these genre-defining success stories as the benchmarks for the industry.
We might as well trace Final Fantasy VII back to text-based adventure games, then further back to the lost art of storytelling!
Incidentally I feel I should comment on iPhone Worms... looks pretty good, I hope it's a pinch and stretch mechanism for zooming in and out, could work pretty well like that.
