If this generation has moved us forward in any way, the progress is most noticeable with downloadable games. Downloadable games often consist of either the artsy niche titles that a publisher would never throw to retail in the age of eight-digit budgets or the simple, yet addictive designs evolved from yesteryear that continue to entertain endlessly. Swarm falls comfortably into the latter camp.
Game: Swarm
Publisher: Ignition Entertainment
Developer: Hothead Games
Genre: Action Strategy
Price: 1200 MS Points
Verdict: Fantastic cross between platforming and real time strategy with a high difficulty curve.
Cons: Lots of replaying levels thanks to the somewhat inflated high score requirements.
Acquired via Publisher
Game designs like Swarm are the kind the wonderful little gems that would have gone extinct without the help of downloadable software. Imagine one part Lemmings, one part Earthworm Jim, and one part Mario vs. DK: March of the Minis and you get the general recipe for Swarm – a brilliant little puzzle platformer where the goal is to take a miniature army of these cute little blue guys called Swarmites (essentially Lemmings dipped in blue goo) and get all of them to the end of the level through a flog of obstacles, each in increasing difficulty and hilarity. Swarm certainly has a cheeky/cute/morbid sense of humor as the cute little Swarmites can die in all sorts of brutal, yet gut-bustingly comical ways throughout a stage.
Unlike other real time strategy games of a similar type (think Age of Empires, Lemmings, or Pikmin), you have direct control of your group of Swarmites. Yes, all 50 of them at once. They control like any other platformer character, except that while you’re navigating the pitfalls of any particular stage, you also have to keep all 50 of the little buggers (or however many you’ve managed to keep alive up to that point) in check. Holding the right trigger causes the Swarmites to tighten up into a more manageable group, while holding the left trigger causes them to spread out (good for collecting large swaths of items). That’s just the basic control. Early on you’ll be group stacking your horde or Swarmites to grab items placed in tedious spots, plugging exhaust ports, throwing bombs, and jumping over large chasms. Getting fifty creatures over a small pit isn’t as easy at it sounds, let alone several pits in rapid succession, yet the controls are refined to the point that you never feel as though a mistake was caused by something outside of your abilities. The controls get more complex the further you go, but a detailed hint screen is available at all times to help you out.
The key to unlocking stages is meeting the required minimum score for the current one. This poses an issue. The score requirements are incredibly high so you’ve got to master the game quite early. Just the second level alone has a requirement of 350,000 points. The next one clocks in at 475,000, then it shoots straight to over a million. This causes a lot of hardship and a LOT of replaying stages you might otherwise think you’ve got down until you realize that the key to reaching the target score is to maintain a high multiplier. Keeping your multiplier high can be done by collecting large swaths of orbs dropped after destroying enemies or obstacles.
Keeping that multiplier high will often require you to kill off large numbers of Swarmites in increasingly comical ways. If it sounds morbid, it kinda’ is, but you’re going to be laughing too hard at the cartoony deaths and impaled carcasses scattered throughout the stage. There’s always a Swarmite generator nearby to regenerate your miniature army, but you’re rewarded higher at the end of the stage for using fewer amounts of Swarmites to clear obstacles. That’s the give and take of it. You need to sacrifice Swarmites to make progress, but regenerating too many can lower your score later on. There’s a lot of skill in navigating the terrain, solving the puzzles, and balancing your score intake. You’ve got to master all three to get anywhere. Furthering the challenge is the collectibles. There’s five DNA strands scattered through each stage. You’ve got to collect the required number of DNA strands before you can unlock Swarm‘s two bosses for battle.
Swarm isn’t the longest game ever, but there’s still a good amount of content for the price. With a player-pleasing difficulty curve, tight stage design, challenging puzzles, tentacle jokes, morbid yet comical death humor, and a really polished experience overall, Swarm is one of the best downloadable titles that most are bound to overlook.
GrE Grade: A-
Popularity: unranked [?]
