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Worms: Open Warfare is based on a game that's existed on the PC for years and has always been one of my personal favorites. It's hard to describe the concept of the game by labeling it with a genre and if you aren't familiar with it, it deserves an explanation. You could say it was turn-based, but you have a time limit. You could call it strategic, but there are action and physics elements as well. You basically get a team of worms with adorably high-pitched voices and an arsenal to rival the Unites States Armed Forces. You take turns inching across a two-dimensional environment with peaks and valleys surrounded by water. You lob grenades, fire rocket launchers, blast shotguns, unload uzis, throw huge worm-sized fireballs and deliver crushing uppercuts. There’s even a bouncing sheep that you can remote detonate for massive damage. Most of these attacks are affected by wind direction and velocity so getting that perfect arc with your grenades requires a non-trivial degree of skill. The physics don’t stop there though. The harder and faster projectiles move, the more force and energy they convey. When you hit something, the energy is transferred and they get knocked back and rebound all over the place. You can even damage worms on the other side of walls if you can get a projectile moving fast enough.
For mobility, you can use grenades and rockets to burrow through terrain or you can use rope for climbing. Some abilities can be used only a few times, but you can use jetpacks to float around the level or a teleport ability to warp to a hard to reach location. Each worm has a certain amount of health that gets ticked off as damage is dealt. Once below zero, they commit seppuku with dynamite to take out any unlucky worms nearby so be careful about bouncing mortally wounded worms back in your direction. Be careful of the edges of the map too because if the blast from a grenade going off knocks you off the edge you die instantly. This game for obvious reason is a perfect fit for the PSP. It’s puzzle based so you don’t have to worry about control issues. The screen is super wide so you can see more of the map than normal and the game has no real continuity involved so you can pick it up and play a game without having to remember where you were at.  | Awesome gameplay | | Great sound effects | | Hilarious worm vs. worm combat | | Widescreen format is perfect for the game type | | Full arsenal of weapons to explore and perfect |
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