28 Mar, 2011
I’ve spent a fair bit of time playing around with Swarm since its release last week. Let me start off by saying it is not what I was expecting – in a good way! I was expecting something menu heavy (think Lemmings or Worms) when actually it is surprisingly simplistic and original.
The first couple of levels are insanely fun and encourage you to pick up the basics as you go along. Before release I had a difficult time imagining how players would be able to fully control 50 Swarmites simultaneously – the idea of mass character control seemed complicated and I wasn’t entirely sure it could be done well. In reality the Swarmites are incredibly easy to navigate, thanks in large part to the fact the developers got the sensitivity settings spot on.
When navigating around an obstacle, your Swam will pick different directions and if you’re not careful one or more may slip off the platform – you really do need to think fast and get your Swarm through and over obstacles quickly in order to stay alive on many occasions. If you’re not quite fast enough, that’s okay too – there’s something perversely hilarious about watching Swarmites die.
At Level 3 the aim of the game seems to shift and in order to reach the next level you have to gain a ridiculously high score. This took me quite a few tries – and from there on in the difficulty level continues to climb steeply. A little too high, in my opinion, but the difficultly level is the only thing I dislike about this game so far.
Complete review coming later this week!
Developer: Hothead Games
Publisher: Ignition Entertainment
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